From the desk of Richard Metheny: During a recent coaching session my client asked, “if you could recommend only two books to a leader wanting to become more effective, what books would you recommend?” In the spontaneity of the moment I answered Leading with Questions by Michael Marquardt and Crucial Conversations by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, Al Switzler. After our session ended I began to ponder why I gave her that answer. Then it dawned on me, my recent interactions with leaders and self-observations, is that we (leaders) could be more effective if we could learn to talk. I should say learn to dialogue. In Peter Senge’s book,The Fifth Discipline, he discusses the work of a contemporary physicist, David Bohm, and his treatment of the subject of dialogue. Dialogue, as it turns out, is a very old idea revered by the ancient Greeks and practiced by many “primitive” societies such as the American Indians. Yet, it is all but lost to the modern world. All of us have some taste of dialogue – in special conversation that begin to have a “life of their own,” taking us in directions we could never have imagined nor planned in advance. (Senge, 1990, p. 239) A dialogue is very different from what we normally call a discussion or debate. A discussion is usually between people who have adopted definite points of view. And wish to convince each other or compare their outlooks. They are usually committed to a certain opinion. Sound familiar? Dialogue requires the suspension of points of view; it requires an acknowledgement that you do not know the “truth” and you are eager to investigate together in order to discover it. The foundation of dialogue is reflection and inquiry skills. Reflection is rephrasing what your heard the participant saying to check for understanding. Inquiry skill is the art of asking questions to seek to understand as Stephen Covey would espouse. In my interactions with clients, also supported by what I read, radical category breaking innovation is what is needed in organizations today. We know this but we cannot seem to get out of our own way. Why? In my opinion the number one enemy of innovation is “idea-killing communication.” Think of the comments you make when you are having discussions with people within your organization and/or team. Do any of these sound familiar?
1. It doesn't grab me. 2. It's not in our image. 3. It's not in our style. 4. It sounds too simple. 5. It sounds too complicated. 6. We'll never find the time to do it. 7. Sounds crazy to me! 8. We've never done anything like that before. 9. Has anyone ever done anything like that before? 10. It'll turn everybody off. 11. Yuck! 12. That's not consistent with the way we do things here. 13. How in the world did you come up with that?! 14. Let's be realistic... 15. Come on...get serious. 16. Great idea-but not for us. 17. People will say we're silly. 18. People will say we're reckless. 19. What will people say? 20. It'll never work. Innovation requires dialogue. Think about it and ask yourself do the following statements ring true about innovation and dialogue?
Is collaborative: the sides work together
Encourages people to identify questions
The goal is finds new ideas
You believe that many solutions might exist, and that different people have parts of the solution
You contribute your best ideas to be improved upon
You search for the good parts of other people’s ideas
Promotes open-mindedness, including an openness to being wrong
Encourages you to see all sides of an issue
Invited keeping the topic open after the discussion formally ends
You consider new ideas and even change your mind.
Dialogue, and innovation, requires the development of skills. Inquiry, or the art of asking questions, is the core skill. This newsletter is dedicated to helping us become more effective as leaders by understanding how to lead with questions.
Focus Area of The Month:Consciousness of Self Part VII - Understanding the Power of Questions
Are you an idea killer or idea facilitator? Do you spend most, or all, of your time in discussions and very little dialogue? Do you find yourself befuddled by your team or peers because you cannot get information or ideas to solve problems or ideas to improve the business?My belief is that great leaders are those that ask great questions and enter into dialogue with their team or customers.The leader of the past was a person who told. Peter Drucker once said, “The leader of the future will be a person that asks. A better understanding of questions may benefit us.
Selecting the right questions for the situation is a challenge. Questioners can choose from: closed, open-ended (context-free, behavior-description, diagnostic, challenging, informational, action) hypothetical, meta questions, and auditions, to elicit the answers. Here are some techniques to choosing questions.
Closed questions establish the boundaries for the rest of your questions. Use closed questions such as "How many people will be affected?" or "Do you agree with this decision?" to establish boundaries of what a person knows, what they have done, or they help to clarify understanding, or to reach closure.
Open-ended questions explore how a person wants work performed or performs work. If you use context-free questions such as, "What does success look like?" you can understand what your manager wants from you. If you use a behavior-description question such as, "Tell me about the obstacles you face in completing your objectives?” you get more information about a situation.
Here's how I use context-free questions when starting a project. First, I ask, "What does success look like?" Sometimes, I hear an answer such as, "We need to develop a strategic plan for the next three years." I then ask:
Why is this desirable?
What benefits would your company receive?
What problems would this solve?
What problems could this create?
Armed with the resulting answers, I can define success for the project. With a definition of success, I can recommend strategic planning models custom designed for their business and team and to create a process that has more than just a prayer of being successful A context-free question helps us gain an understanding of the real problem without biasing the user's input. These types of questions are the key to dialogue. They do not presume a “right answer.” They do not prejudice the person’s responses. They keep you in curiosity. Behavior-description questions help you gather information about the person’s skills. They elicit a story. Behavior-description questions are of the form "Tell me about a time when ..." or "Give me an example of ..." or "On that recent project, how did you ..."
If you're helping an employee with a challenge they are facing, you could ask, "Tell me about a time when you knew you had the right solutions for the problem. How did you know? Did you have to convince anyone else?"
I like to also ask the converse of that question, "Tell me about a time you were stumped on a problem. What did you do?" These questions help the employee articulate how he/she problem solves and what happens when he/she is stuck. Diagnostic questions seek information about a problem to find the solution. Primarily, diagnostic questions are used in troubleshooting (be it a technical, business, or other problem). Diagnostic questions could be:
What are the results when you try this procedure?
What happens if only a certain number of users are on the system?
If you reduce your investment in marketing, what happens to sales?
Challenging questions are the ones which are the most difficult to answer - and the most difficult to ask. If you want to be an excellent manager, you must learn the art of asking challenging questions. You only become a great manager if you are capable of getting things done through other people. Asking challenging questions are essential to holding people accountable and getting things done. Examples include:
What steps did you take and what should you have done differently?
Where is the breakdown in the process and how should it be corrected?
Why are we over budget two quarters in a row?
Convince me why we should go this direction.
"If you find a good solution and become attached to it, the solution may become your next problem." - Dr. Robert Anthony
Informational questions seek information about a situation, problem, or specific business requirement. Examples include:
What does the cash flow statement look like?
What is the status of the system install?
Where is the chart showing sales growth?
What was EBITDA for 2003?
Action questions are ones which prompt you to take certain action steps or describe how an action should occur:
What the steps you should take to solve the problem?
Describe the steps in your disaster recovery plan.
Which steps are necessary before product launch?
Hypothetical questions help you understand how people think about a problem. For a peer, you could ask, "How have considered the implications of your project on the organization?" For an employee, you can ask a question such as, "If things could be the way you wished, what would that look like?" or “If we make this decision, what effects could that have?” Meta questions are questions about the questions. After context-free questions, ask your manager or employee this meta question, "What else should I ask you?" Auditions help me see my coaching clients in action, depending on the situation. When a client tells me they have a crucial conversation with an employee, I say, "Show me." When coaching employees, you can consider the behaviors you want to see, and then design an audition around those behaviors.
Match your questions to your situation, and you'll elicit the information you need. As Marshal Goldsmith states in Ask, Learn, Follow Up, and Grow, “Sincere asking demonstrates a willingness to learn, a desire to serve, and a humility that can be an inspiration for the entire organization.” (1996, p. 231)
Recommended Self-Awareness Activities: Do You Know Where Your Team Is?
In the last 6 months I have reviewed 360 degree feedback results with more than 25 people. One common theme is that this is the first time that they have received feedback from their team. If they have the questions always seem to be framed in the context of identifying deficits. I am not a big fan of approaching feedback from a deficit point of view. I prefer the United Way approach of measuring percentage achievement versus percentage not achieved – the old glass half-full versus half-empty. The basic reason I prefer a more positive approach to feedback, and I am a huge fan of soliciting feedback, is that it keeps dialogue in the realm of the possible. If you want to know “where you team is” or how they feel about work, the team, the organization, or you crafting questions that make it a positive experience is the art. Ponder these questions:
When we (or work, or the team, or the organization) are at our best working together, what are we doing? This question identifies what is currently working and needs to continue or to be replicated more often.
To be even more effective in our relationship, what could we do? This question identifies aspirations for the relationship.
If a year from now you were to describe work (or the team or the company) as being the best it has ever been for you, what is happening?
Describe a time when you felt most alive, involved, fulfilled, and excited about your work?
What made it an exciting experience?
What was your role and contribution?
Who else was involved and what were their roles?
What was the task?
What made it a positive experience?
If you had three wishes to transform the company, what would they be in order of priority?
If you had three wishes to transform the team, what would they be in order of priority?
It is December 31, (next year). You are celebrating New Year's Eve and celebrating a fantastic year. The company had an outstanding year. You had an outstanding year. What happened during the year?
The questions can be used with individuals or teams. At a minimum you should sit with each person on your team and your team each quarter and ask some of the questions listed above. When asking the questions resist the urge to evaluate the answers, to challenge the answers or to kill the ideas with your responses, verbal or non-verbal. Reflect back what you have heard or think you have heard. Ask clarifying questions. And always show appreciation for the feedback, say “Thank You!”
After you have collected the feedback, spend time in reflection. Feedback can be a gift allowing you to grow and develop as a person, in a job or in a relationship. But some feedback is downright useless and best ignored. Yes, ignored. It is ultimately your choice how to act, or not, upon feedback received. Be cautious though, pay attention to the information that is hard to hear. There is reason it is hard to hear.
After reflection, move to inclusive impact planning and effective changes. Involve the feedback provider(s) in working towards plans to effect a positive change. If you handle that follow-up right, your employees will be far more productive -- and your team and/or business will be much more successful.
