The Use of Questions in Organizational Consulting

Abstract

How do organizational consultants use questions as they go about their consulting work? Based on interviews with experienced consultants in France, this article reports their use of schemas or organized sets of questions that they pose to themselves as a guide to action in the moment of consulting, a usage interpreted on the principle of “questioning-in-action.” A comprehensive classification scheme is then introduced to accommodate the various questions that consultants ask about the various things involved in consulting. This scheme of categories and questions is used to analyze the actual questions that consultants are observed to ask, and then it is compared with other conceptual schemes and applied to one detailed consulting case in the literature. The findings are suggested as one means to enhance the understanding and practice of consulting.