4 Questions in 4 Days that Strengthen Teams and Elevate Performance – Pt. 4
Incompetent leaders don’t ask questions.
Statements are boring and safe. Questions expose wisdom.
Track curiosity:
- How many questions do you ask in an hour?
- What percentage of your questions begin with what or how?
- What percentage of your questions call for yes or no answer?
- What percentage of the time do you ask follow-up questions?
Dependency:
The more answers you give, the less everyone else thinks.
Leaders who don’t ask questions are bottlenecks. But you teach people to think when you ask questions.
Revelation:
- Questions show respect. 54% of employees say they don’t regularly get respect from their leaders. (HBR) The same study revealed that respect increases engagement by 55%.
- Questions reveal openness. Leaders who don’t ask questions are closed know it alls.
- Questions reveal values. Are you interested in people? Ask about people.
- Questions set direction. I ask question because I’m curious and a control freak. I don’t like wasting time.
Today’s question: What would you like to do a little more of next week?
I’m writing this on Friday. Ask yourself. Ask teammates.
Engagement goes down when people are pressured into doing things they don’t enjoy.
3 follow-up questions:
- What would be different for you if you did a little more of that?
- What needs to be true for you to do a little more of that?
- What happens for others if you do a little more of that?
A safer version:
If today’s question is too risky, here’s an alternative.
- What percentage of your job can you not enjoy and still enjoy coming to work?
- What percentage of ‘not enjoyment’ are you?
- How might you enjoy work a little more next week?
Why care:
I hate working with people who hate their work. How about you?
On the other hand, happiness pays. Happy employees have a 10% to !2% increase in productivity. (Happiness and Productivity)
What concerns you about asking today’s question? How might you answer your concerns?
In your opinion, what percentage of your job can you not enjoy and still enjoy coming to work?
Previous posts in the “4 Questions” series:
Part 1: What small wins might you celebrate today?
Part 2: How do you want to show up today?
Part 3: What decision do you/we need to make?
Good stuff Dan; thank you for sharing your wisdom with us!
Happy Friday, David! Thanks for the good word.
Asking questions is absolutely key for a leader! With that said, it is also vitally important that leaders ask questions with the curiosity to hear whatever the answer is. Too many times I’ve been asked questions by leaders where I felt they wanted me to give a certain answer and they kept asking questions until they got the answer they were looking for. It became an inquisition, not an exploration. The best leaders ask their questions with an attitude of curiosity and then actually listen to the answers that people give so they can learn, not just so they can respond.
Thanks Kristi. Great add to the conversation. Your observation re: inquisition vs exploration is so powerful.
Not only that, we should be concerned about how our questions make people feel. My curiosity can feel like an inquisition, even when I’m not looking for MY answer. I’ve learned to give a little feedback/response to answers before asking the second or third question.
Suspending judgment (we’re all guilty from time to time) and replacing it with curiosity — trying to better understand where the other person is coming from — can also make a big difference in our personal and professional relationships.
This was really good. I have something to look forward to how I will develop my team from now on. I use to ask a lot of questions and get people to go deep in their thinking but I use to think it was exhausting and they would hate when we would all come together.
Is there such a thing as asking too many questions and digging to deep in their psyche with how they think about certain things?
Great question. Yes, Unveiling. I believe we can ask too many questions. I also believe that we can ask about the past too much.
When it comes to personal questions. Try to get a feel for the comfort level of the people your are speaking with. No one feels good if they believe we are prying.
If I ask a personal question, I like to temper it with, “If you don’t feel comfortable talking about this, just let me know.”
Being aware of introvert/extrovert personalities also matters. Give introverts more time to prepare. You might let them know your questions ahead of time.
This is great advice… Thanks!!
I agree some people feel awkward with a lot of questions. If we are judging in the tone we use to ask the questions and they are leading questions (as described above) people will get offended. If we remain open and curious as we ask open questions, people are more likely to stay engaged. We all like to talk about our ideas, ourselves, when we know the person asking the questions is open to us and really listening to what we have to say. Neuroscience has confirmed this because when we are open and curious, asking open questions, dopamine is released and then oxytocin which creates a heart brain opening, which makes us feel good and enhances collaboration. (Conversational Intelligence, Judith Glaser 2014). I find this to be true even when I feel I am in conflict.
Thanks Dan for this series of 4 blogs on questions. I think they all have highlighted valuable ways to enhance our conversations and create greater understanding.
Thanks for the great post, Dan. If I may, and I might be stating the obvious – all that you have talked about with respect to questions is important and relevant in the practice of leadership. But, it is also important for the leader to understand and internalize, it(questioning from a place/position of curiosity) is just one of the tools (in the leadership toolkit) that they need to bring to the workplace to be effective in their role on a daily basis.
Thanks again!
Thanks for the reminders! Another good follow-up question to each of the follow-up questions: “What else?” This enables our interlocutors to dig deeper and discover more.
Dear Dan,
I agree Dan, Respect is missing and so as trust. I think more than 50 percent of my job, I do not enjoy. The reason- simply it is not intellectual work. It is mundane work. However I enjoy working because I get respect from my boss.There is high amount of respect present in the system. That keeps me glued to the work.
Here, I would like to highlight that many managers talk more about business. They always speak the language of business. They encourage and support business language. And this makes people less important. People start feeling less valued. And they start feeling less respected.
Business language is important but it is achieved through people. So, managers or organisation should offer more importance to the people. Business will automatically flourish. When it is done, I think people cohesion and performance will leapfrog.
Dan, you say that 54% of employees say they don’t regularly get respect from their leaders. If you google employee respect, what you get is 10000 hits on how to get employees to respect (or largely defer to) you as a boss. It seems that bosses respecting employees is perceived as roughly as important as respecting the carpet.
I need to keep working on asking questions.