A better way to discover preferences
“Don’t you think our new product idea is good?”
“What do you think about the CEO?”
“Joaquin is the right person to lead this project, right?”
These open-ended and/or leading questions are just that, open and/or leading. They influence the listener to answer with what you want to hear, rather than what they actually think.
You can better hone in on their actual opinion with a neutral question.
A neutral question is expressed in a way that doesn't suggest its own answer.
For example, instead of asking, “Do you think our new product is a good idea?” you can instead ask the other person to rank the proposed product’s features.
Examples:
How does the environmental impact of beef production influence your eating decisions?
What three things might I do in this job interview to increase my chances of success?
What potential benefits and challenges do you see in us working together?
What makes this restaurant so good?
Neutral questions get at people’s opinions by not influencing their responses.
It's why survey developers spend so much time crafting unbiased questions: because the data you receive depends on the question you ask.
