Today’s Tuesday Reading is from Jim Bruce, Senior Fellow and Executive Coach at MOR Associates, and Professor of Electrical Engineering, Emeritus, and CIO, Emeritus, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA. Jim may be reached at [email protected] or via LinkedIn.
“Asking questions is a uniquely powerful tool for unlocking value in organizations. It spurs learning and the exchange of ideas, fuels innovation and performance improvement, and builds rapport and trust among team members. And it can mitigate… risk by uncovering pitfalls and hazards.” [1]
In the 1970s, a young engineer at Hewlett-Packard struggled with a particularly challenging technical problem. He had tried multiple solutions, but none seemed to work. Frustrated, he finally approached his mentor for advice. Instead of answering, the mentor simply asked, “What if the problem isn’t what you think it is?” That single question shifted the engineer’s perspective, leading to a breakthrough. That young engineer was Steve Wozniak, who later co-founded Apple, Inc.” [2]
“… to be effective, leaders need to ask insightful and inspiring questions to convey a shared interest in exploring to find the answers – and solicit help to move forward.” [3]
I haven’t thought of “asking questions” as a skill you can learn, improve, and practice. As a small child, I remember being full of questions, always asking them of my parents and grandparents. Too often, at least it seemed to me, adults brushed off my questions, ignored me, or told me “later.” I don’t think my parents and grandparents were being mean or ignoring me as they were busy. And I suspect my questions were unimportant to them, or they wanted me to “grow” by figuring it out for myself.
An unintended side effect of this is that over time, I asked fewer and fewer questions, always believing that I could figure it out myself. I didn’t want to ask because I felt that asking might interrupt the conversation or embarrass me, as people would have thought I should have known the answer. This lack of asking questions is a battle I still fight.
Tom Pohlmann and Neethi Mary Thomas [4] observed this a decade ago and wrote in the Harvard Business Review: “Proper questioning has become a lost art. The curious four-year-old has a lot of questions – incessant streams of “Why?” and “Why not?” might sound familiar – but as we grow older, our questioning decreases. In a recent [2015] poll, we found that those with children estimated that 70-80% of their kid’s dialogues with others were questions. However, those same clients said that only 15-25% of their interactions with others were questions. Why the drop-off?
We all need to be able to ask good questions and not be ashamed. A good starting point might be to follow Dale Carnegie’s advice in his classic How to Win Friends and Influence People [1]. There, he wrote, “Be a good listener… Ask questions that the other person will enjoy answering.” A friend asking me what I’m doing with my time as I get further into retirement, or a fellow congregant asking about the work of a committee I serve on will both automatically open a robust, enjoyable conversation that perhaps leads to more questions.
Alison Wood Brooks and Leslie K. John, in “The Surprising Power of Questions” [3], extend this thought, arguing that “Questioning is a uniquely powerful tool for unlocking value in organizations. It spurs learning and the exchange of ideas, fuels innovation and performance improvement, builds support and trust among team members, and can mitigate business risk by uncovering unforeseen pitfalls and hazards.” Further, the authors argue that we improve our emotional intelligence by asking questions, making us better questioners. So, what kinds of questions might we ask?
Brooks and John [1] note that people sometimes hold back when responding to questions. While eager to impress people with their own stories and ideas, they may not care enough to think about someone else’s idea or may have an opinion and not care to express it. And, sometimes, they simply don’t understand the value of a good discussion and choose not to get involved. Yet, they may have valuable insight that you may want to pry out gently. The knowledge you gain is often quite beneficial.
Research by Brooks and her colleagues at Harvard has suggested that “people have conversations to accomplish some combination of two primary goals: information exchange (learning) and impression management (liking). Recent research shows that asking questions achieves both.
What might you do to step up your asking questions? John Hagel III [5] suggests asking questions that “invite people to come together to explore major new opportunities that your organization has not yet identified.” These include identifying opportunities that create more value than you have in the past, addressing your existing clients’ emerging needs, identifying new clients that could benefit from your existing products, etc.
Finally, I want to note that asking good questions helps you be a better leader [6], [7]. John Cheverie notes that while the “ability to ask questions” does not often show up as a competency for leaders, it is, or should be, a significant component of any leader’s position. To Cheverie, “asking good questions often distinguishes the outstanding leaders and managers from average ones (or worse, poor ones). He provides four “tips” to provide the basis for good questions: Be curious, be open-minded, be engaged, and dig deeper.
You might consider these four “tips” as you interact with your staff during the coming week.
Which could most help you ask better questions?
Last week, we asked which lesson would be most helpful for you to focus on with your team:
- 20% said when things look insurmountable, break them down into manageable tasks.
- 17% said you are going to lose/fail (and how to deal with it).
- 13% said praise in a group and give feedback one-on-one.
- 13% said everyone is different.
- 13% said to be a good sport.
- 12% said networking.
- 12% said to lead by example.
When considering leadership lessons from athletics, it is noteworthy that many of us focused on overcoming difficult situations. Whether it be that impossible task, how to deal with failure, or how to give constructive feedback when a person could improve things, we found value not in the gold-medal finish but in the perseverance to keep going. As many of us ramp up for the beginning of the fall semester, in what ways might we benefit from more perseverance? How will you remind yourself of this when the going gets tougher?
References
- Dale Carnegie, “How to Win Friends & Influence People,” Joh Dale Carnegie Books, October 1988.
- Generated by OpenAI, ChatGPT. OpenAI, 14 Aug. 2024, chat.openai.com, providing examples of previous Tuesday Readings. The included story about Steve Wozniak’s work, while based in part on factual information, may be, according to ChatGPT, “inspirational storytelling rather than verifiable history.”
- Alison Wood Brooks and Leslie K. John, “The Surprising Power of Questions, “ Harvard Business Review, May-June 2018. https://hbr.org/2018/05/the-surprising-power-of-questions
- Tom Pohlmann and Neethi Mary Thomas, “Relearning the Art of Asking Questions, Harvard Business Review, March 27, 2015. https://hbr.org/2015/03/relearning-the-art-of-asking-questions
- Jon Hagel III, “Good Leadership is About Asking Good Questions,” Harvard Business Review, January 8, 2021. https://hbr.org/2021/01/good-leadership-is-about-asking-good-questions
- “Want To Be A Better Leader? Ask Better Questions,” Forbes > Leadership > Careers, https://www.forbes.com/sites/rodgerdeanduncan/2023/04/21/want-to-be-a-better-leader-ask-better-questions/
- John Cheverie, “Why Asking Good Questions Can Make You Be a Better Leader,” Educause Review, February 13, 2017, https://er.educause.edu/blogs/2017/2/why-asking-good-questions-can-help-you-be-a-better-leader