Of course you can and should always ask your colleagues questions in order to understand their point of view and way of thinking.

But that's not what Socratic questioning is. It is specifically when you ask pointed questions, pretending that you don't know the answer already, in order to make the student work out the line of thinking herself, or perhaps force her to flesh out her thinking more completely.

It's more about making the askee think than transferring information. As such, trying to mask that behind "I'm just asking questions" is rude.