Don't Sound Dumb: How to Ask Smart Questions at Work

Congratulations! You've been hired, and that means that someone in the interviewing world thought that you had the right skills and training to do a good job.

The fastest way you can make someone doubt their hiring choice is to ask dumb questions.

What are dumb questions?

You've heard that there are no such things as 'dumb questions.' While I don't think that asking questions is dumb, the way we ask questions can sometimes undermine your competence. Any question that is vague or doesn't demonstrate that you've thought about the question on your own is a dumb question that can make your supervisor wonder whether you really were the right person for the job.

What are examples of dumb questions?

Dumb questions declare your lack of knowledge and demonstrate you haven't tried to figure out the answer for yourself. When you ask questions like these, your supervisor could start to see you as needy or lazy.

• I read the memo, but I don't understand it.
• I saw this term, and I don't know what it means.
• I don't see what this email has to do with me.
• I know I've asked you this before, but can you remind me?

How do you make a dumb question into a smart question?

Here are four steps you can take to help you ask smarter questions at work:

1. Try to figure out the answer for yourself first. 

Did you know there's an invisible network of information that you can access from a computer? It's called the INTERNET. You should never ask basic factual questions that you could Google to easily find an answer. If you have a question about a specific company process or information, start by looking through company files that are available to you: the public website, internal documents on a shared server, and the company intranet. If you've put in the effort to look and still can't find the answer, move on to the next step.

2. Find the right person to ask. 

So you've done some research, but you still need help. Your supervisor isn't always the best person to ask. For example, payroll questions should go to your assigned HR person, and you can probably figure out who that person is by calling the HR desk or searching your organization's directory. Let's say you have a question about a new task, and you know that task used to be handled by another employee. You might want to run that question by the other employee, and only ask your supervisor if something about that person's answer feels fishy or incorrect.

3. Identify the specific thing you want to know.

Odds are when you're confronted with a question at work, the question arose in a particular situation with particular context. Boil down the situation and pick the one, specific thing that you need to ask.

4. Use these strategies to ask your question in a smart way.

Ask Directly — Don't start a question with the narrative of how you woke up this morning, what you made for breakfast, and what your dog did that reminded you of something at work that you had a question about.  Your supervisor doesn't have time for the whole story. She doesn't even have time for the Cliff's Notes version. Cut the clutter, and ask the question you need to ask.

Use Comparisons — Ability to compare and contrast information is actually a higher form of thinking than simply asking a direct question. So if your question has to do with how two things are related can ask:

• Where does this fit in with that?

• These two things seem similar. How are they different?

• How does process A relate to process B?

• Is it correct to say that this isn't related to that?

Show You've Been Listening — OK, I said earlier that you should ask your question directly, and I stand by the idea that you shouldn't tell long stories about your journey to coming up with your question. But you could easily sneak in a phrase to let your supervisor know you've been listening and thinking about what she says. To do this, pick up on keywords and phrasing your supervisor uses, and incorporate those into your questions--when it's relevant to do so, of course. For example:

• When you said XYZ yesterday, am I correct in understanding that you were referring to blank?

• Earlier we discussed blank, I took that to mean this. Is that correct?

• What do you think influences that?