"High Impact" Mentor Questions

by Barry Sweeny, 2002

INDEX:

• The Purpose of Asking "High Impact Questions" of Proteges
• Creating the TIME to THINK
• The THREE AGENDAS in Effective Mentor's Questions

The Purpose of Asking "High Impact Questions" of Proteges

High Impact questions are ones which bring big insights to the person answering the questions and which accelerate learning. They always involve a response which demonstrates higher level, critical thinking, such as revealed by the verbs, compare, contrast, analyze, differentiate, or even evaluate or synthesize.

Mentors KNOW they have asked a "high impact question" when there is a pause and then the protege answers, "I'm going to have to THINK about that a bit before I can answer it."

Creating the TIME to THINK

In fact, purposely creating a newer slower, pause-filled form of dialogue is a specific mentoring strategy which is designed to create the opportunity to think. I call this strategy, "Slow down the conversation". It's a necessary strategy because of our rushed, sometimes thoughtless conversations in which we seem uncomfortable with silence. We allow the words to flow straight from our subconscious mind right out our mouths.

• Sometimes that is a helpful process because it reveals our deeper thoughts and motivations - a learning opportunity.
• Sometimes it's helpful to talk that way because the act of talking helps us become clearer about what we mean.
• But sometimes it's NOT helpful because we say things we are sorry for before we really can consciously consider if they are wise or truthful or what we intend to say.

Slowing down the conversation allows time for the consious mind to weigh "what we might say options" and decide the best way to ask a question, answer a question, or address a tricky issue. When what we say is important (when is it not?) and might be misunderstood, or might be counter-productive to what we want to accomplish, it's time to take a pause and think before we speak.

Slowing down the conversation might LOOK a little strange, however. We don't want our protege to think we have gone to sleep with our eyes open, or that we are ignoring a question just asked. To create the context for such pauses, mentors just need to explain something like the following:

• "If ever you ask me something or state something that makes me think before responding, you'll notice I actually stop to take the time to think before I respond. So don't feel uncomfotable if there are pauses in what I say. And, by the way, you should feel free to take the time to carefully think about your responses to any questions that I maight ask of you as well."

The THREE AGENDAS in Effective Mentor's Questions

When a protege seeks assistance from a mentor or describes a concermn or problem to the mentor, there is a process or sequence of questions which effective mentors typically use in responding. Knowing and then using this pattern of questioning can help YOU to become an even more effective mentor. Basically the three agendas are:

• Questions which the mentor asks the protege, but which are for the mentorís own information
  • Eg. "What have you done so far to address this problem?"
  • Once the mentor has enough information to decide for him/herself what has happened, what the true problem may be, and what might be done about it, it's time to see if the mentor can help the protege analyze for these and other things and discover what to do themselves. That requires a different set of questions...
• Questions which are asked by the mentor of the protege to get the protege to analyze the situation
  • Eg. "Do you think that you might be causing a part of the problem?" or...
  • Eg. "What do you think are your alternatives?"
  • It may take a number of such open-ended questions, but the goal is to get the protege to a point where some planning can occur that will lead to action to resolve the problem. That will require a different set of mentor questions...
• Questions the mentor asks of the protege to guide the protege's decision making and planning
  • Eg. "What result do you want to seek?", and then...
  • Eg. "Which of your alternatives is most likely to lead to that result?"
  • When this series of questions is done, all that may remain is for the mentor to offer to support the protege in some way as the plan is implemented.

Next I recommend, if have not already done so, that you read the page titled Personal Pronoun Power to see how to use these same kinds of questions to create an even bigger impact.

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