Devoted to small businesses and those who run them

Rudyard Kipling, author of The Jungle Book and the Just So Stories was a journalist before he became a famous author.

Kipling's poem Six Servants calls on the basic journalistic questioning techniques of asking

• What?
• Why?
• When?
• How?
• Where?
• Who?

Kipling's Poem - Six Servants
I keep six honest serving men
They taught me all I knew
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who

Mentors & The Kipling Questions
Just as a journalist wants to uncover all angles to his story, the mentor wants to find out the whole picture of the mentee, their goals, progress, stumbling blocks and concerns. Using the Kipling Questions is a good start.

Kipling Questions - Examples 
What project are you working on? (Content)
Why is it important? (Goals)
When will you finish  the current stage? (Timeline)
How will you solve that problem? (Problem Solving)
Where will you find the information? (Research)
Who is involved? (Personnel)

The Kipling questions are open ended questions to elicit discussion, rather than a yes or no answer.