Communication

How to Spot Bad Questions (and Improve Them)

If you want to cultivate a growth mindset, you need to change the questions you ask.

What do the following questions have in common?

• Is this person experienced enough for the role?
• Do we have the right strategy?
• Am I a good leader?

Well, a few things. They are all common questions at a company and maybe you’ve asked yourself something similar recently. But more importantly, they are also generally perceived as binary questions.

Let’s look at what binary questions are, and why you’re better off reframing them whenever you spot one.

What is a binary question?

A binary question is a closed question with only two answers — for example, ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Hidden in the question is an implicit assumption that there are only two categories into which the subject can fall: good or bad, right or wrong, and so on.

For example, ‘Am I a good leader?’ implies there are two types of leader, good and bad — and I must be one or the other. This is why binary questions can be dangerously misleading, because reality is always more nuanced.