The Power of Questions

At my first team meeting at the University of Denver, I put the team into groups of three and asked them to list the essential features of a healthy relationship between two players. These nine players came back with fifty-two unique ideas.

 

52!

 

I was good for 10 or 15, but not 52.

 

What struck me was how much they already knew, the wisdom that the question uncovered. Their collective knowledge had been there all along, in a room full of college students I had assumed I needed to teach. But no one had ever asked them this question.

 

A coach often doesn't need to provide more knowledge. A coach needs to create the conditions for the knowledge already in the room to emerge.

 

The power of asking questions isn't limited to building team culture. It shows up just as clearly on a daily basis at practice, in matches, and in casual team and individual settings. What is it about a question that can change the tone and energy of a room?

 

We think of questions as a search for information, but questions offer us much more than just an answer. My experience is that questions create an opening for participation, one that is not often available in a culture that values and just wants answers.

 

As a coach, questions are sometimes viewed as an annoyance. A player asking "why" can feel like a child asking "why" three times in a row, a phase to be outgrown, something to get past rather than welcome. The expectation is that the player does the drill, not that the player understands all aspects of it.

 

But the player's "why" has real value. So does the coach's ability to answer it. And so does being honest enough to say, "I'm not sure," when you don't have the answer.

 

Over the years, I have come to see questions doing four kinds of work in a coaching environment.

 

Questions develop the player

 

Problem-solving is the mental side of tennis, and every problem on court is really a question seeking an answer.

 

What do I need to do in this situation? How should I respond to their favorite pattern? What play should I run?

 

A player has to answer these alone, in real time, often with no coach able to assist. Well-designed drills can offer the same kind of question to explore. In a deuce cross-court groundstroke drill, for example, do I focus on pace or on hitting a heavier, point-building ball?

 

The coach can give the answer. But the better learning opportunity may be helping the player discover it.

 

Every question asked in practice is a small rehearsal for the exact thing a player has to do alone on court. That's where ownership begins. Whether the subject is technique, tactics, or decision-making, questions ask a player to work out an answer rather than wait for one. A player often remembers what they work out for themselves far better than what they are simply told.

 

Wrestling with the "why" is how critical thinking develops. More importantly, it begins to shift the player from someone who follows instructions to someone who takes responsibility for their own development.

 

Questions also create active learners. A player who is expected to ask and answer questions becomes more engaged in the process rather than simply receiving it. They begin to notice, explore, and reflect.

 

Ask "What did you notice?" often enough, and a player starts looking across the net on their own. They begin evaluating an opponent's tendencies, patterns, positioning, and tells without waiting for the coach to point them out.

 

Learning to see starts with a question.

 

Questions reveal the player to the coach

 

The conversation runs both ways. What a player says back, or doesn't say, tells the coach something no amount of watching the stroke ever could.

 

A player's answer shows you where they are in the moment, how they see a situation, and whether they actually understand what's being asked of them. It's easy to assume that a player who nods understands. A question tests that assumption instead of trusting it.

 

That's valuable information for a coach.

 

But a question also communicates something beyond the answer. It tells a player that the coach is curious about them, their game, and what they see.

 

Being asked lands differently than being told. It tells a player that what they think matters.

 

Questions build relationships

 

What starts as a single exchange, repeated often enough, becomes something more lasting than any one lesson.

 

Questions create dialogue and connection. There's a time and place for instruction, but a practice built entirely on answers rarely gives a player room to be open and give something of themselves the way a well-placed question can.

 

A lesson that includes real exchange, not just delivery, becomes something shared. The coach learns something. The player learns something. Both have contributed to the process.

 

That shift, repeated across enough practices, is what turns a coach-player relationship into a partnership.

 

Questions build culture

 

And what works between two people can work with a team.

 

Whether in small groups or as a full team, questions let a coach tap into the wisdom already in the room. That's what happened at my first Denver meeting.

 

For players, speaking up in front of the group, whether asking or answering a question, takes some getting used to. But over time, it can build something important. Players begin to see that their ideas have value, that they can learn from one another, and that they are part of something larger than themselves.

 

That's how a group of individuals begins to become a team.

 

As you reflect on the role questioning plays in your program, pay attention to how many real questions you ask in a lesson or practice. Not the questions where you already know the answer you want to hear, but the ones that genuinely open the door to another person's thinking.

 

Try it. Put a tally mark on your practice plan every time you ask a real question.

 

I still think about those fifty-two ideas from my first Denver meeting. They didn't come from a better team or a smarter group of players.

 

They came from a question.

 

The knowledge was already there. Someone just had to ask.

 

Are you tapping into the power of questions?