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“Chair, I have a few more questions.”
Before you know it, a list of seven follows. The alderman picks up a pen, tries to keep track and then starts by answering question three. Question five gets half an answer, and by question seven nobody can quite remember what question one was.
Sound familiar?
Asking questions is an important skill for a council member. A good question helps you uncover information, test a position, find out where other political groups stand or secure a commitment from the executive. But asking questions is not an end in itself. Questions should not become a sophisticated form of keeping busy for the sake of it.
The art lies in asking the right question, at the right time, to the right person. A good technical question is very different from a good question during the information-gathering, deliberation or decision-making stage.
Here are a few tips to help you master the art of asking questions.
Technical questions concern facts, figures, background information and clarification of what exactly a proposal means.
For example:
“How was the €850,000 cost estimate calculated?”
“Have any commitments been made by central government or external parties?”
Perfectly valid questions. But before asking them, there is an even more important question:
Do I need this information to form a clear picture of the issue?
If the answer is no, then choosing not to ask a technical question is also an excellent option.
Technical questions are often directed at the civil service. However, that is not always where the answer can be found. Sometimes the question itself is perfectly valid, but the subject requires a different conversation partner or some research of your own. Gathering information is, after all, about more than simply asking technical questions.
And remember: a meeting does not have to be the place where every interesting question that comes to mind is actually asked.
Quality matters more than quantity.
During the information-gathering stage, your aim is to understand the proposal and its potential consequences. You can ask questions of the executive, but also of experts, speakers or local residents.
For example, you might ask the executive:
“What impact do you expect this proposal to have on local businesses?”
Or ask a resident:
“What would this proposal mean for you in practice?”
Different people can provide different kinds of information. A resident may highlight something from everyday experience that cannot be found in the council proposal. The executive can explain the anticipated consequences of a particular choice.
The art is to remain curious, even though you are a politician and may already have an initial opinion.
“Would you agree with me that this is a bad proposal?”
It may look like a question, but there is very little genuine information gathering going on. Your position is already firmly embedded in the question.
A better test is:
Will the answer help me form my judgement?
If you have already made up your mind and are no longer genuinely interested in the answer, don’t ask the question.
This is where things become politically interesting.
You have gathered information and are beginning to form a preliminary judgement. Now you don’t just want to explain what you think; you also want to discover how others see the issue.
This is exactly where questions become a powerful tool for testing arguments and exploring support.
“We are considering submitting a motion. What is your group’s view on this?”
“What objections do you have to this amendment?”
“What would you need in order to support this?”
“What opportunities do you see for us to work together on this?”
These are not questions designed to retrieve information that can be found somewhere in a document. You are testing your preliminary position, exploring other people’s arguments and trying to discover where there may be room to manoeuvre.
You may discover that another political group will never support your proposal. That, too, is useful information.
But perhaps you’ll hear:
“If you change that, we could support it.”
And that is exactly where political room for manoeuvre emerges.
Good deliberation, therefore, is not a succession of political groups taking turns to state their positions. It is a dialogue in which you ask follow-up questions, explore arguments and look for common ground.
During the decision-making stage, the purpose of questions changes again. Exploration gives way to making choices, persuading others and explaining political decisions.
You might, for example, ask the executive for a specific commitment:
“Are you prepared to implement this before the end of the year?”
Or challenge another political group to take a position:
“You say this is essential to you. Are you therefore prepared to support our amendment?”
“Why are you not supporting this proposal?”
At this stage, a question can be more directive. You are trying to persuade each other and make political differences visible.
And what if you don’t persuade the other person?
The question can still have value. After all, a debate is not only for the people in the council chamber. By clearly setting opposing arguments against each other, residents can understand why political parties make different choices.
That, too, is part of political accountability.
A challenging question such as:
“How can you justify this to your voters?”
can therefore be entirely appropriate if you genuinely believe the other party is making the wrong choice.
The quality of a meeting is not determined by the number of questions asked. In fact, too many questions can make the discussion less focused. One question gets an extensive answer, another disappears altogether, and before you know it the discussion is heading in every direction.
So before raising your hand, ask yourself one other question first:
What do I want to achieve with my question?
Do you need a fact? Then you probably need a technical question.
Do you want to understand what a proposal means and what its effects might be? Then you are gathering information.
Do you want to test arguments, examine your preliminary position or discover opportunities for cooperation? Then your question belongs in the deliberation stage.
Do you want a commitment, to persuade someone or to challenge another party to take a clear position? Then your question belongs in the decision-making stage.
It sounds simple.
In practice, it requires quite a bit of discipline.
Because sometimes the very best question…
is no question at all.
A good council member is not defined by the number of questions they ask, but by their ability to ask the question that moves the discussion forward at exactly the right moment.
So the next time you find yourself thinking:
“Chair, I have seven more questions…”
Take another look at your list.
Which question do you really need? Which question belongs at this particular stage? Who should you ask it to? And what do you want to achieve with it?
Perhaps you’ll be left with only two.
Good.
That also makes it much more likely that you’ll get an answer to both.