What could clean questioning do for you?
Have you come across the concept of clean questioning? It was new to me when I read about it in a LinkedIn post by Maddy Morton, Founder and CEO of Lucid People, the insight, brand and innovation consultants.
Catching the undercurrents of a conversation
I’ve always been fascinated by the importance of good listening skills and wondered how they might link to clean questioning techniques.
Having started out as a journalist writing features for national newspapers and magazines, I learned early on how vital it is to give all your attention to what people are saying. It’s the only way to catch the hidden undercurrents of a conversation and explore the details that flicker past, like fish that appear at the surface of a pond and immediately dart out of sight.
Most of us think we’re good listeners. Sadly, though, it’s rare to find people who are truly good at listening. All too often, they’re either thinking what they want to say next, interrupting or drifting off into their own thoughts.
5 stars for listening skills
I met up with Maddy in the bar of the National Theatre (one of her clients) to hear more about the clean questioning technique.
The first thing I discovered is that Maddy is a brilliant listener, so there’s clearly a link between good listening and questioning skills.
We’d only met once before, at the launch party for Logo Rhythm, a book celebrating band logos written by our mutual friend, Jim Davies. But within minutes, we’d sunk into a proper ‘deep and meaningful’ conversation about life, love, work and death.
What is clean questioning?
Maddy explained what the technique involves. “Clean questioning is part of clean language – a method that was developed in the therapy and coaching world.”
Clean language is nothing to do with avoiding four-letter words. Maddy said: “It aims to minimise the impact of the interviewer on the interviewee, help the interviewee really get into the experience and encourage them to access metaphors that describe how they feel.”
In this method, the interviewer will often avoid too much direct eye contact with the interviewee, and will choose instead to look away or keep their gaze soft, and sit at a slight angle. It’s less challenging than facing and looking at someone directly, and helps the person answering the questions to look away and think about their responses.
It’s like when you’re having a discussion with someone in a car. You’re not looking straight at the other person, so you can end up saying things that might feel more confrontational if you were sitting across a table from each other.
Allowing space, slowing the pace
“You’re trying to be as unchallenging as possible,” said Maddy, “so they can almost forget you’re there. When they tell you something, you reflect it right back to them, without changing their words.
“If they say, ‘It was a really difficult conversation,’ you repeat what they’ve said exactly as they’ve said it with the addition of ‘and’. So, for example, you’d say: ‘And it was a really difficult conversation. Tell me about that really difficult conversation.’
“You also slow everything right down, as if each word lives in its own space. It can feel weird when you first try it, even rude. But it works.”
Drawing out metaphors
Maddy explained how the clean questioning technique can prompt people to use powerful metaphors for the way they feel.
“Once, a colleague was using clean questions to ask me about how my brain works when I’m solving a problem. I described a Heath Robinson kind of machine with golden cogs and long legs. It moved around, it was sparkling and magical. I hadn’t realised I saw my brain in that way and it changed how I see myself. It was wonderful.”
A wellspring for creative ideas
At Lucid People, Maddy uses clean questioning techniques with clients including Mondelez, Reckitt and Danone, who produce brands such as Cadbury, belVita, Nurofen, Gaviscon, Activia and Evian.
“We might ask people in a focus group to describe pain, or how they want to feel instead. Or we might ask them how they feel when they think about eating chocolate, and how they feel afterwards.
“Time and again, we find that clean questioning encourages people to share metaphors that are visually powerful and capture people’s experiences in a new way. It’s surprising how often the creative ideas for advertising campaigns spring directly from these metaphors.”
How could clean questioning work for you?
I’m keen to try out clean questioning in my work interviewing people for case studies and articles. But how might it be useful for you?
I can imagine it might be particularly helpful in brainstorming sessions or when you’re trying to solve complex challenges where the best answers aren’t obvious or conventional. If you create space for people to develop their thinking and expore their ideas, they might make unexpected connections and arrive at novel solutions.
If you try this technique, do let me know how it works for you!
More:
- Find out more about Maddy’s work with Lucid People.
- Read some of the case studies I’ve written for charities and consultancies.
- Buy Logo Rhythm – the perfect Christmas present for the record lover in your life.