Better Questions than “Any Questions?”

The cursed prompt

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a still from the cinematic masterpiece, Summer School

Sometimes I get this droppy feeling in my stomach when the performance of an invitation is made but the offering of it is so half-baked or poorly designed that it might as well not have happened at all and “Any Questions?” is responsible for that feeling nine times out of ten. Four times out of ten I am the one asking it.

Any Questions haunts the two-minute window after presentations, announcements, talks, explaining agendas or games or proposals. It is the drooling puppetmaster making us do the silly little Any Questions dance even though we don’t actually have time for it. Any Questions doesn’t care if someone has talked for 45 minutes straight and you couldn’t even hear them that well or got hung up on a point they made in the first few seconds and haven’t been able to really pay attention since. 

Any Questions means well; it nearly always follows a single person talking and attempts to give us all a chance to be curious, poke holes, nudge deeper. But it relies on a certain kind of person in the audience; one who quickly metabolizes information, puts a pin in their questions as soon as they come up, is not frozen by the premise of being the first to speak up or fear of sounding stupid or taking up space.

And when it’s crickets, it always feels kinda bad. Bad for the facilitator who can’t get a pulse on the room. Bad for the guest speaker who doesn’t get the gift of reactions and curiosity from an audience. Bad for any host at all who wants to stimulate dialogue and energy beyond themselves, and anyone in the room craving that too.

Below, I’ve put together a big honkin’ list of alternatives to “Any Questions?” – some tried-and-loved and some aspirational. Once again, this is a self-hating post as I am often the one asking this cursed question. 

But I have also tricked you, because it is about so much more than the questions themselves. When we move into an Any Questions moment – usually after some concept has been explained by one speaker – we transcend the threshold into a fresh environment of participation. We move from passive to active, one to many, quiet to loud, listening to inquiry. It is the vibes equivalent of the lights coming up in a dark room, revealing the audience after a spotlight burned on a single person for the whole show. 

Of course the room is quiet. We’ve entered a new moment without intention.

Sometimes I feel like there’s a whole nonverbal vibes layer hovering above us all in these moments – a facilitator rushes and participants can sense the question wasn’t asked in earnest, everyone in the room knows there’s only two minutes left, or Any Questions itself is such well-tread shorthand that it doesn’t even register as a genuine prompt.

Honestly, 99% of this is just about disrupting the scripts we have all become desensitized to.

But maybe you already knew all of this and I haven’t tricked you. 

So beyond the questions themselves, we might also consider:

• In this moment, what is actually desired from the group? It may not be questions after all! This is ok! Maybe it’s generating new ideas, or offering pushback and provocations, or building buy-in and deep understanding. There are better prompts for each of these. What matters is that we actually want what we are asking for from others. If we are asking for questions, we must be curious. If we want to stimulate dialogue, we must bring that stoke. We can all feel a half-hearted invitation when we hear one and it feels extra weird if it doesn’t serve what the group needs in that moment anyway. Spicy take: it’s okay if there are zero prompts for the group if you can’t think of a good purpose. There are many times I’d prefer this to a fake-o invitation.

• Are we creating the right containers for participation? If the worst case scenario is ‘40 people have two minutes to somehow ask a question on their mind and receive a meaningful response’, what other levers might we yoink to avoid this? Some could include: building in more time, giving breaks, responding asynchronously, encouraging solo reflection or smaller group discussions. If you are asking a group to brainstorm, set them up for a brainstorm. If you are asking them to get vulnerable, set up the conditions for more safety.

• Are there multiple modalities of response? Beyond the lone hero brave enough to raise their hand, we might invite other forms of response – written, gestural or movement-based, cowboy emojis, kooky sounds, small pair talks. Sometimes I just invite a group to silently smile and send love and gratitude to whoever just spoke. It is really nice! Maybe there’s even a delay – coming back after a break, or sharing a thoughtful response hours or days later.

Alternatives to “Any Questions?” to Stoke Participation

These alternatives below might be helpful whether you change the container for participation or still have to work within the dreaded five minute window:

• What’s one word on your mind right now?

• What’s an idea that jumped out at you from what you just heard?

• What did this remind you of?

• Share one way you might make this better. 

• On a scale of 1 to 5, how confident/excited/clear are you on what you just heard?

• Raise your hand if you felt ____ about this. Raise your hand if you felt _____ about this. (Bonus points: can pick on a person to go deeper after that.)

• Turn to someone next to you and share what’s on your mind. 

• Who did this make you think of in your life, either because it reminded you of them or you’d like to share it with them?

• What would you need to start using/trying/applying this tomorrow?

• What was your honest first impression when you heard about what we’d be talking about today? How did that change or not?

• What questions do you have for [Name of person speaking]?

• What’s a wish you have for this work going forward?

• Let’s enter a No Dumb Questions zone: what’s a question on your mind that might feel silly or random or obvious? 

• Offer thanks or gratitude for what you just heard.

• Who in your life would be skeptical about this? Why?

• What fear is coming up for you right now?

• Turn to the person next to you and explain your understanding of what you just heard. Then switch.

• I would love to get at least three questions from the group before we break.

• What was the most confusing/wild/inspiring/exciting part of what you just heard?

• What was missing from what you just heard?

Unsurprisingly, there are so many great resources on this from the education space if you’d like to dig even deeper.

These questions are meant to be starters to remix and try out. They aren’t prescriptive or perfect. They all draw on some of these principles: 

• Narrow down the scope to something specific (or at least more specific than “anything”)

• Don’t assume expertise or rightness of the speaker and invite building on, pushback, or complicating

• Focus on other modes of reaction, like emotions or feelings in the body

• Disrupts the “Any Questions?” shorthand by literally using other words

What’s your favorite way to invite engagement after someone’s been talking for a while? I’d love to hear them.