Ask more questions, encourage more questions

There’s a certain degree of vulnerability in asking questions, rather than being seen to come up with the answer. But asking good questions, and encouraging others to ask questions, can lead to better all-round understanding and more confidence in the ult

CHILDREN OFTEN ask a lot of questions. As adults – and managers – we tend to ask questions far less frequently. The time we likely ask the most questions is when conducting job interviews. And a good percentage of those questions are directed to people we don’t appoint. What are we missing out on?

The evidence suggests that asking actual employees good questions elicits greater trust and enhanced engagement. The focus here needs to be on asking more open- ended questions. We are not lawyers in a courtroom – as managers, most of the time we don’t need to ask questions to which we already know the answer.

As managers, we need to understand the challenges facing the people who report to us, but we don’t need to know exactly how to do their jobs. Nor, in the realm of knowledge work, do we routinely need to be telling people how to do their jobs.

Asking great questions, we can generate that feeling of being in the problem- solving boat together. We can work through the detail of a problem that may at first be unfamiliar to us. And, all going well, we can engage in contrarian thinking – getting people to think differently, and more creatively.

With ‘ What if we…’ questions can go a ‘ Yes and…’ response taking the conversation into previously unimagined territory. ‘ What if we supported you in learning about this new process?’ ‘ Yes, and then I/ we would have the capabilities to develop that new market’.

If a manager is going to be among the best managers people ever had, then that manager is certainly going to be one that is interested enough in their employees to ask more than just a few questions. They have to learn what is unique about each individual and capitalise on it.

“Average managers play checkers, while great managers play chess,” is the analogy used by Marcus Buckingham in the classic Harvard Business Review article What Great Managers Do.

Buckingham explains checkers pieces are all uniform and move in the same way whereas in chess you have to know exactly how each individual piece moves.

“Great managers know and value the unique abilities and even eccentricities of their employees, and they learn how best to integrate them into a coordinated plan of attack.”

Another angle on all of this (and one I, of all people, should feel uncomfortable writing about) is not jumping to conclusions – or answering our own questions.

The psychology goes that growing up we probably got rewarded for correct answers (I sure did). What we now want to do as managers is expand our view and understanding of the problem(s) we are facing. It’s a different situation, with bigger stakes, and often great urgency accompanying the need for a solution.

There’s a certain degree of vulnerability in asking questions, rather than being seen to come up with the answer. But asking good questions, and encouraging others to ask questions, can lead to better all-round understanding and more confidence in the ultimate decisions. Kate Kearins is professor of management, and deputy dean at Auckland University of Technology’s Faculty of Business, Economics and Law.