I do many mistakes when it comes to questions, what I understood thanks to this book. Between them are:
- I don't ask enough questions and I don't ask right questions.
- Sometimes I ask questions which disempower rather than empower teampreneurs
- I tried to know everything, even though it’s unreal. Leaders should not know everything, they even can’t do that. And most importantly they never should think that they know everything.
How can I use questions to be a more effective leader?
I always (almost from start in Tiimiakatemia) had some bright times when I asked my team about certain topic. I realized that it's the best introduction for topics, which has to be thought through. Even though I had already something to say to it, some realization or whatsoever. But it was just really rare.
Now i try to use questions for inquiry when someone comes to me with any kind of problem or anything, i always try to ask first. It's so easy to think that I know exactly what will help at the moment or to do quick judgements to think that I know. But it's never like that. And still i sometimes jump into those fast conclusions, but I'm working on it. Questions help! To at first get the context, let the person think about it. Sometimes when they touch some point, which i feel is breaking point in that matter i continue to ask about that, so they can answer themselves.
I definitely should use more questions with my team. To inquiry new topics, which burden us without us even knowing it. Just opening the topics and let everyone's mind twiddle it on their own and then discuss it or let it yeast.
Questions are powerful tool to empower people, to learn them responsibility. To learn to be proactive.
Am I able to say “I don’t know”?
For a long time i wouldn't say so, or just rarely. It was so tempting to know everything, even though I don't. I had some problems with this, I still has to be very conscious about that and stop myself before I talk, because sometimes I snap to quickly. Now I am trying to be very aware of my answers, if i really know or if it's time for inquiry and others to find their answers. Selfreflection helps me in thes matter a lot.
What questions can I ask to help the people around me to learn?
About my insights, and let everyone think about it as well. I can ask questions to inquiry the matters that come up.
How can I encourage others around me to ask questions?
Start with leading by example. I can talk about it and it's benefits. Help them learn it.
How can I improve my skills in asking questions?
I have to work on my patience, on my ability to stop talking and thinking. I have to train. I try to reflect on it regularly. I have to train my ability of active listening. I wanna listen to other how they ask and inspire by them.
How can I develop and improve my questioning skills?
Not to ask about what I think is right, but to actually get to know what is in that matter, what could help, how it could be solve, have actually open questions not connected to any intention.
How can I ask questions that enable me to learn what is most important to the other person?
Active listening, i should think abotu the question after the other person goes silent not while he/she is still talking. I can ask with inquiry without judgement.
What are some ways I can set the stage when asking questions?
I should always say what is my intention, why i ask so many questions and this questions. If the person sees that there’s nothing bad behind it, it should be calmer, opener discussion.
Dolphins use a form of sonar to “see” in murky or dark water, using a click sound and waiting for the echo to return. Once they have a sufficient number of echo responses, they can navigate and find their food, as well as avoid obstacles and predators. Merchant observes that “questions are the business equivalent of sonar. Asking the right questions can assist you in finding the right, the real problem. Questions can also act as a filter to decipher the key issues in the situation. You also have to ask sufficient number of questions.
Why are questions such powerful tool?
- Questions asked by leaders transform the organization, as they can evoke the images of what employees hope to create, and of the values and behaviors desired by their people.
- You can use questions to encourage people to see things form different perspective and when we open our eyes and mind to another perspectives, we are opening to learning as well.
- Questions help us to think clearly, logically, and strategically.
- Questions increase communications and listening as well as prevent us from misjudging each other’s motivation. We can find the truth more easily through listening to each other’s questions than by being forced to listen to opinions and statements that are based on assumptions. Truth emerges not from opinions but from the free movement of open minds. Questioning causes us to view one another as resources.
- Questions encourage and enable individuals and groups to understand, to clarify, and to open up new avenues of exploration for solving the problem
- Questions can certainly empower and motivate people more effectively than exhortatory statements do.
- Only through constant questioning do we see more clearly just who we really are and what remarkable resources we have access to. We will also see more clearly what is really facing us, and we will become more capable of accepting and responding to change.
The “right” questions
“If you ask profound questions . . . you get profound answers. If you ask shallow questions, you get shallow answers. If you ask no questions, you get no answers at all.”
one of the reasons that questions cause trouble is that we often ask the wrong questions — questions that disempower others. Questions that disempower focus on the reasons why the person did not or cannot succeed. Such questions result in a defensive or reactive mode, immediately casting the blame on the other person.
Such questions prevent people from having the opportunity to clarify misunderstandings or achieve goals.
“We end up creating that which we focus on.”
Empowering questions, on the other hand, get people to think and allow them to discover their own answers, thus developing self-responsibility and transference of ownership for the results. Such questions can help them realize how they are contributing to the whole. Empowering questions build positive attitudes and self-esteem; they remove blocks and open people up to unexpected possibilities while inviting discovery, creativity, and innovation. Empowering questions help develop alignment within
teams and draw out the optimum performance from individual members and the team as a whole. They create a high-energy, high-trust environment and enable people to identify, clarify,and express their wants or needs. Such questions encourage people to take risks, nurture deep relationships, and dissolve resistance to change. Empowering questions enhance your energy level as they focus on what is already working, what can become energizing and supportive, and how best to clarify and
achieve common objectives. They also focus on benefits and yield responses that support movement forward toward the objectives.
This discovery process improves their self-confidence and self-esteem, empowering them in the process. Concurrently, they take ownership of the solution because they have participated in developing it.
the leader must resist the urge to give people advice. When people ask for help, the leader needs to ask questions so that they come up with their own answers.
“Effective questions are those that accomplish their purpose as well as build a positive relationship between the questioner and questionee.”
Process of questioning
“Asking a question at the right time in the right manner with the right person is just as important as the content of the question itself. When you frame the question in this way, the answers you get are likely to be open and informative.”
1. Small-talk
2. Setting the stage
As you set the stage, you are framing the question by establishing the context and background for the conversation. Setting the stage is primarily about you, not the other person. A learner mindset, not a judger mindset, is critical to getting free and honest answers and open conversation. So be clear about your intentions, topic and goal.
Be forthright in saying that the purpose of the conversation is to learn, not to judge
As long as your objective is learning rather than judging, specifying your objective clearly should not be threatening to the other person.
3. Questions
Examples of good questions:
What is a viable alternative?
• What are the advantages and disadvantages you see in this suggestion?
• Can you more fully describe your concerns?
• What are your goals?
• How would you describe the current reality?
• What are a few options for improvement?
• What will you commit to do by when?
“The most important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.”
Change of leadership style
The hard thing about questioning is that we actually have to pay attention and give space for them and the other person. To hear the words the other one says as well as the implied content and meaning embedded in both the content and the manner of the response. It is important to suspend your own preconceptions, associations, and judgments (but that’s really hard skill). And be careful not to begin planning your next question. This often requires allowing “wait time” before responding so as to be sure that the other person has really finished.
Questions are most effective when there is not a rush or push for immediate responses. Our answers work for us. We often need to let others find answers that work best for them.
Change to questioning style of leading people usually meets with some problems. Questions is likely to meet two kinds of resistance. The first comes from people who are taken aback by a leader who starts asking questions more regularly, who are used to having the leader tell them answers instead of ask them questions. These people have answer dependency. The second comes from other leaders in the organization who are uncomfortable in adopting a questioning style themselves, who see their source of power as stemming from giving answers. These people have telling dependency.
A change to a questioning style will usually cause those who have become dependent on the leader to feel abandoned. They may feel that the leader has some sort of secret agenda, or that the leader is only asking questions to catch them on something.
Questions for anyone
“Different people need different sorts of questions, depending on their personality, style of thinking, skill set, and other factors.”
The most valuable questions for me are those that turn people to look inward at how they are perceived by others.
Those employees author calls direct; I can direct them to do something and they answer the questions in a direct and linear manner.
For other, more abstract thinkers, I need them to cycle within. Asking questions like “Would it be useful to get Eliška’s ideas first? Would he be able to grease the skids for you?
Getting abstract thinkers to recycle their thought patterns in slow motion and out loud to someone and others raises questions within them that they may not have thought of before. For some people is just hard to actually speak about their processes in mind (or assumptions!) and it causes a lot of misunderstanding.
Question as a powerful tool
“The lesson I learned here is that when a “disturbing” question is asked, it creates a paradigm shift and urgency to act. When combined with the visible presence of the problem at hand, asking “disturbing questions” is a powerful way to get people to act with a heightened sense of urgency.”
Asking what others think enhances their participation in whatever decision will ultimately be determined, and consequently increases support for the decision and reduces the risk that the decision might be undermined by either inadequate consideration or unexpected opposition.
When a team gets stuck, the members often wait for the leader to make a statement, define a problem, or propose a solution. Team member hold back, waiting for the leader to accept responsibility. The wise leader will not fall into this trap.
Two questions that author frequently use are:
1. If you do nothing about this situation, what might be some consequences/outcomes that will unfold? (This is asked of someone after helping that person think of an ideal state of affairs versus the current state of affairs.)
2. What if you are wrong? How would it affect your position? Asking what if . . . allows the person to think of the other perspective that might be possible, so that he or she is prepared to cover all grounds and have contingency plans to act, just in case.
Leaders should deliberately seek a variety of perspectives in solving problems—and the more complex the problem, the more important it is to seek diversity of perspectives.
If we ask good questions and really listen, the solutions we select really work. We need to be humble, admitting we do not know all the answers, and thus we ask questions.
