Check out the inspiration for this blog post here!

Do you know how to ask the right questions?

The best way to make sure you’re fulfilling your legal obligations as a board member is to make good decisions. And to make good decisions, you need to ask great questions. But how do you know if you’re asking the right questions?

Whenever I have a new client (or an existing client with a new problem) my first strategy is to start asking questions.  Usually they start out with simple fact-finding questions.  What happened?  When?  What was the result?  But pretty quickly the questions morph into much deeper probing.  Why did that matter?  What will the long-term implications be?

You see, data can be interpreted in an overwhelming number of ways.

A sunny day is a sunny day, right?  Wrong…for someone heading for the beach it might be exactly what they’re looking for.  While, for a photographer hoping to do portraits in natural light it can wreak havoc on the perfect shot.  So, we need to ask questions that give us insight into the context of the problem and the strategic implications of any proposed solutions.

But asking questions isn’t something that comes naturally to many of us.

Often, we’ve been told that if you ask too many questions people will think less of you.  They will wonder if you actually know what you’re talking about.  Or they will see you as challenging their authority.  So, asking the right kind of questions is pretty important.

But why would you ask questions…and then more questions?

To find the answers of course!  To find the nuggets of information that will let you understand the trends, the potential consequences, the impact on the people involved, and often…the way to minimize the risk and avoid significant negative fall-out from whatever solutions you eventually develop.

This article is a good primer to get you started asking questions that matter.  Asking probing strategic questions that help you develop a clear understanding of what the problem is, what possible solutions might be, and how to choose the best course of action.   After all, that’s your legal responsibility as a Board Member!

Try some of the questions in the categories the author suggests.

I’d love to hear your results!

Click here to read the article that inspired this blog post