Humble Inquiry on Types of Inquiry

In addition to Humble Inquiry, there are 3 other types of inquiry where the asker is also attemping to influence the conversation:

Diagnostic inquiry steers the client’s thought process and conversation toward areas that the helper considers to be relevant to providing help.

Confrontive inquiry not only influences the direction of the conversation but adds the helper’s own ideas, concepts, or advice as part of the question. Each type of inquiry influences the client to a different degree and in different ways.

Process-oriented inquiry invites the client to examine the actual helping process itself so that both helper and client can assess whether help is being delivered or not.⊕ (Schein and Schein [2013] 2021, chap. 3)

There are three types of diagnostic questions: ones looking to make sense of the situation, ones that elicit emotional reactions, and ones trying to find out what actions have been–or need to be–taken.⊕ (Schein and Schein [2013] 2021, chap. 3)

“Why do you suppose that happened?”

“How did (do) you feel about that?”

“What have you done about this?” and “What are you going to do next?”⊕ (Schein and Schein [2013] 2021, chap. 3)

The following questions may be useful in prompting clients to look at their situations from other points of view.

• “What do you think they were thinking about this?” (Sense making)
• “How do you think the group felt about this?” (Emotional responses)
• “What did she (he, they) do then?” (Actions taken)⊕ (Schein and Schein [2013] 2021, chap. 3)