Brian Grazer (2015), the movie producer of such blockbusters as Apollo 13, Splash, 8 Mile, A Beautiful Mind and Friday Night Lights, popularized the notion of being curious and asking questions in his best seller A Curious Mind: The Secret to a Bigger Life. Grazer makes the case that asking questions allows us to understand and imagine the perspective of others. This is obviously a useful skill when one is crafting a movie plot line that will grab the attention audience.
However, Grazer also contends that the ability to ask questions is a strategic tool for many professions. Don’t we want police detectives who are able to predict criminals’ next move, military leaders’ ability to stay ahead of the opposing armies and coaches’ ability to grasp the game plans of the opposing team and put counter plans in place?
Similarly, it is useful for organizational leaders to understand the wants and needs of our workforce. The best way to get into the minds of employees is to ask them targeted and insightful questions. Rather than guessing your employees needs, the most credible original source is the employees themselves.
This method of asking questions may sound like a simple task. In fact, it may not sound like a method at all! Isn’t asking questions an intuitive human behavior? Research and practice would suggest not. There is more to asking the right question, at the right time, to the right group of employees than initially meets the eye.
However, asking powerful questions is learnable. Skilled facilitators such as Dorothy Strachan (Questions That Work: A Resource for Facilitators, 2001) advises us to ask ourselves the following three fundamental questions in crafting questions for others:
- What do I want to ask?
- What information do we need to accomplish our work? For example, background information, data points, reflections, interpretations, etc.
- Why do I want to ask this question?
- How will the response to this question lead us to accomplishing our work? For example: Input of data, offers up a new approach, prioritization, clarification, etc.
- What response might I get?
- What is the possible range of answers I may get when I pose this question? For example: An initial response, confusion, curiosity, etc.
Your responses to these three questions will help you select a series of questions that will allow you to accomplish your purpose. This exercise will also help you craft individual questions for getting the most useful data back. Finally, the responses will help you figure out who else you need to ask these questions in order get accomplish the objective.
By asking myself these three questions, I developed a series of questions to ask during a change management initiatives that involved launching a new product. The objective of asking these questions was to engage this operations group in the change. I was attempting to build ownership in the employees for the change. The questions I asked dozens of times over a period of months were:
- What is it about this approach that most interests you?
- How will you use this approach?
- How should we evaluate the success of this approach?
- What can we do to ensure that you are committed to this approach?
- How can we transfer ownership of this approach to you?
The answers to the last two questions get directly at figuring out how we can ensure that employees are able to accomplish the work at hand and will continue to over time. The employees I posed these questions indicated that in order to be committed to rolling out this new product over time they needed more information about how the product worked, they needed to talk to potential customers to learn more about their needs and they needed to craft a more defined implementation process. Once I was aware of these needs, I was able to help facilitate them becoming a reality.
Our Hollywood producer, Grazer, provides us with what is perhaps the most convincing reason to start asking more questions: You can stop having to force, trick, cajole or even charm your workforce into being better. Instead, your employees will have the internal drive and excitement to carry them through any challenging work.
How does this happen? Peppering your workforce with interesting questions will inevitably lead to dynamic two-way conversation. Your employees will be actively engaged with you. At this point, your team will have the same level of enthusiasm and commitment for the tasks at hand that you do. By creating in your workforce a high level of interest and curiosity for the work at hand, you are essentially generating a self-sustaining culture of productivity.
Who would have predicted that asking key questions could result in such a powerful outcome!
Questions:
What are some key questions that you want to start asking your workforce?
What is your response to Grazer’s three fundamental questions?
What will asking these questions mean for you and your organization?
Kevin Anderson, Dr. Organizational Design 