What makes a good question? The answer depends very much on context and objectives.

At sustainability-related events over the past two decades or so, one thing could be predicted with a rather high degree of probability. If he were present, consultant Jeff Robinson would almost certainly pose the first enquiry of a presenter following a talk.

This was might you might call a welcome inevitability. It’s so often the case that even the most engaging and informative of speakers face a silent void when questions are called for following a talk. Yet with Jeff in the house, you knew there would be at least one intelligent, robust enquiry, and often this would prompt further comments and queries from those present. The conversation would continue, which means the original presentation would resonate more.

“Judge a man by his questions,” says Voltaire, “rather than by his answers.”

In Jeff’s case the questions were often issued in two parts. The first component took the form of a statement, with some context-setting exposition. The second part was usually more probing. Together, the double-pronged enquiry demonstrated an understanding of the issue at hand, and an appetite for further exploration. It was also an opening up: an invitation to converse.

The questions were prepared in advance, and carefully thought about, which obviously required some research and preparation.

Jeff tragically passed away earlier this year, but incredibly (although perhaps not surprisingly), one of his questions was posed posthumously some weeks later at a MECLA* event he had been helping to organise before his demise. Jeff, of course, had prepared the question well in advance.

Just what constitutes a good question was something to which Jeff dedicated no small amount of consideration, even discussing it at length with Aurecon colleague Jamali Kigotho.

“I don’t think there is a definitive answer,” says Jamali when asked what makes a decent enquiry. “Jeff and I were similar in the fact we both love questions without a certain answer, but for slightly different reasons.

“My main reason for liking these sorts of questions is that it allows me to let my curiosity and creativity free to see what I can come up with. I think for Jeff those sorts of questions meant an opportunity to collaborate to try and find the answer.”

For a journalist – a professional inquisitor, in other words – a good question is one that elicits an interesting response. It’s about the answer more than the process.

Working as a sportswriter long ago, I learned on the job that one can prepare thoroughly for events such as press conference or interviews, but that sometimes it’s a bad, lazy or spontaneous question that draws the best response.

I can recall simply asking a coach for his thoughts after his team lost a hard-fought contest, only to be met with anger and contempt.

“I have many thoughts,” he grumbled. “Be specific.”

And there was the gift: I had been granted a glimpse behind the curtain of this carefully constructed professional façade.

One of the most important lessons a journalist will absorb is to learn to listen, and to do so without interrupting.

“You have two ears and one mouth,” according to the old maxim, “and they should be used in that order.”

“When people talk, listen completely,” advised writer Ernest Hemingway. “Most people never listen.”

I made some critical mistakes as a nascent professional, such as interrupting just when someone was about to say something interesting, not asking pertinent follow-up questions, or perhaps not recognising when a conversation had either veered off track or ventured down a path worth exploring. These mistakes nearly all relate to not listening.

Sometimes the best way of drawing an answer is not to pose a question, but to pause. To know when to remain silent, and create space for a response to emerge.

It’s something practised by UK journalist Kirsty Young, perhaps best known for the often intensely personal Desert Island Discs BBC radio program, which delves deeply into its subjects’ lives.

“Sometimes there is that moment,” she says of remaining silent during an interview. “I hope it’s not a glib trick, but I use it when I think there’s more. If I must sit, maybe you’ll go there. Sometimes people don’t; they just look right back at you.”

There is always the chance that an enquiry will elicit an unsatisfactory response, a bumbling answer, or silence. That’s the danger. Yet there exists, too, the tantalising possibility that something else results: a startling revelation, a hitherto unimagined pathway, or the simple pleasure of a considered conversation.

It all starts with a question.

*MECLA is the Materials and Embodied Carbon Leaders Alliance