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Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
Kategorie: Fachliteratur
Sprache: Englisch

Beschreibung

Many leaders are unaware of the amazing power of questions. Our conversations may be full of requests and demands, but all too often we are not asking for honest and informative answers, and we don't know how to listen effectively to responses. When leaders start encouraging questions from their teams, however, they begin to see amazing results. Knowing the right questions to ask--and the right way to listen--will give any leader the skills to perform well in any situation, effectively communicate a vision to the team, and achieve lasting success across the organization. Thoroughly revised and updated, Leading with Questions will help you encourage participation and teamwork, foster outside-the-box thinking, empower others, build relationships with customers, solve problems, and more. Michael Marquardt reveals how to determine which questions will lead to solutions to even the most challenging issues. He outlines specific techniques of active listening and follow-up, and helps you understand how questions can improve the way you work with individuals, teams, and organizations. This new edition of Leading with Questions draws on interviews with thirty leaders, including eight whose stories are new to this edition. These interviews tell stories from a range of countries, including Singapore, Guyana, Korea, and Switzerland, and feature case studies from prominent firms such as DuPont, Alcoa, Novartis, and Cargill. A new chapter on problem-solving will help you apply questions to your toughest situations as a leader, and a new "Questions for Reflection" section at the end of each chapter will help you bring Marquardt's message into all of your work as a leader. Now more than ever, Leading with Questions is the definitive guide for becoming a stronger leader by identifying--and asking--the right questions.

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Table of Contents

More Praise for Leading with Questions

“Great leaders ask great questions. Leading with Questions has enabled our leaders at Sony Music to learn how to ask better and better questions. We are indeed a greater organization with greater leaders because of the powerful ideas in this book.”

—Kathy Chalmers, executive vice president, Sony Music

“Marquardt presents a questioning technique that works and will enable leaders to grow from being good to being great.”

—Lisa M. Toppin, financial services professional, New York Life

“How many books have forever changed your life? Leading with Questions forever changed my life and my leadership by shifting my focus from the burden of trying to have all the answers to the simplicity of only needing some of the right questions!”

—Bob Tiede, director, global operations leadership development, Cru, and blogger, leadingwithquestions.com

“In Leading with Questions, Michael Marquardt maps the future of leadership. ‘The leader of the past was a person who told,’ Peter Drucker once said. ‘The leader of the future will be a person who asks.’ Read this book if you want to see the future.”

—Robert Kramer, chief learning officer, Centre for Leading Change, Brussels and Washington, DC

“I have learned that leadership is not about knowing all the answers. It's about knowing what great questions to ask, and carefully listening to those answers. This book is a timely piece of management wisdom that shows leaders how to ask great questions—questions that inspire, motivate, and empower the organization.”

—Patrick Thng, managing director, Development Bank of Singapore

“This book skillfully bridges scholarly theory and down-to-earth commonsense tactics to provide a crystal clear guide to a very powerful leadership technique that changes people and organizations.”

—Al D. McCready, chairman and CEO, McCready Manigold Ray & Co., Inc.

“Leading with Questions describes a very powerful and practical tool that has taken Constellation Power Generation into the top ranks of energy companies worldwide.”

—Frank Andracchi, vice president, Constellation Energy Group

“Successful questioning is one of the most powerful skills, not just for leaders but for all people, and Mike has spent his career both studying the power of questions and asking questions effectively. This book captures the wisdom of his experiences.”

—Keith M. Halperin, senior vice president, Personnel Decisions International

“I have experienced the tools and techniques of Leading with Questions firsthand and highly recommend this book to new as well as experienced leaders. It has dramatically changed our leaders as they learn how to embrace Marquardt's questioning technique.”

—Liz Cicco, training and development specialist, Bowne & Co., Inc.

“From the days of Socrates, our ability to ask the right questions has been revered as one of the greatest skills a person should possess when leading others. Marquardt's latest book is an invaluable ‘how-to’ resource for those intent upon finding solutions through reflective questioning.”

—Eric Charoux, executive director, Charles Telfair Institute, Mauritius

“Leading with Questions is brilliant and thought-provoking. It is a huge wake-up call to all leaders that smarter questions are the best recipe for lasting success.”

—Alastair Rylatt, author, Winning the Knowledge Game: Smarter Learning for Business Excellence and Navigating the Frenzied World of Work

“This book is a terrific guide and magnificent resource for those who wish to explore the power and benefits of leading with questions!”

—Dan Navarro, vice president and general manager, Pragmatics, Inc.

“Leading with Questions provides wonderful illumination on a subject often hidden in the shadows. In this book the genius of the author is his ability to capture the essence of what successful leaders do with questioning, and how they can use questions to change their lives and those around them for the better.”

—Kenneth L. Murrell, professor of management and MIS, The University of West Florida, and author, Empowering Employees

“The ability to frame and ask the right question is a desired skill for everyone in life. Leading with Questions is a must-read book for those engaged in developing people to their maximum potential.”

—Mohammed Effendy Rajab, director, Adult Resources, World Organization of the Scout Movement, World Scout Bureau, Geneva

“Marquardt has powerfully expressed how to reach the heart of effective leadership. This is a book not just to enhance existing leadership power but to develop everyone's latent leadership qualities.”

—Francesco Sofo, University of Canberra, Australia, and author, Six Myths of Critical Thinking

“Marquardt has discovered the way to effectively lead the twenty-first century organization through questions and reflective learning. This book captures the essence of the questioning process and sets a practical basis for the long-sought-after learning organization!”

—Harry Lenderman, president, The Elk Forge Group; advisor, Sodexho University; and author, Breaking the Educational Glass Ceiling

“By focusing on the right questions, Mike Marquardt has peeled back the onion to reveal the true power of questions. This book shows leaders how to give their organizations the cutting edge that makes the difference between a good company and a great company.”

—Bea Carson, president, Carson Consulting

“The ideas in Leading with Questions will provide leaders with new perspective on leading in the challenging twenty-first century.”

—Lim Peng Soon, president, Learning & Performance Systems

“This is a must-read book! Leading with Questions will change the way you manage in your organization. This book is Marquardt's latest contribution to improving the way we work and communicate in our increasingly complicated world.”

—Howard Schuman, managing director, Jodoh Investments LLC

“This book is the ideal guide for the corporate executive who would like to create a winning organization by asking the great questions.”

—James Y. Lim, human resource manager, Arrow Asia Pac

“Leaders worldwide will be especially well served to master Marquardt's art of leading with questions!”

—Banu Golesorkhi, director, Research and Development, Pharos International

Cover design by Adrian Morgan

Cover image : © Shutterstock

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Marquardt, Michael J.

Leading with questions : how leaders find the right solutions by knowing what to ask / Michael J. Marquardt.—Revised and updated [edition].

1 online resource.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed.

ISBN 978-1-118-83222-6 (pdf)—ISBN 978-1-118-83010-9 (epub)—ISBN 978-1-118-65813-0 (cloth) 1. Leadership. 2. Communication in management. 3. Questioning. I. Title.

HD57.7

658.4′5—dc23

2013047036

eISBNs: (epub) 9781118795118, (epdf) 9781118795064

Introduction

Do you feel that people aren't providing the information you need? Do you wonder whether the people in your organization really understand your vision for where things need to go? Do you speculate about what your boss is really thinking?

Have you ever thought about getting all this information, and more, by asking questions?

Questions can elicit information, of course, but they can do much more. Astute leaders use questions to encourage full participation and teamwork, to spur innovation and outside-the-box thinking, to empower others, to build relationships with customers, to solve problems, and more. Recent research—and the experience of a growing number of organizations—now points to the conclusion that the most successful leaders lead with questions, and they use questions more frequently. Successful and effective leaders create the conditions and environment to ask and be asked questions. When the Center for Creative Leadership studied 191 successful executives, its researchers discovered that the key to the executives' success was creating opportunities to ask, and then asking questions.1

Consider these comments from among the successful leaders interviewed for this book:

Chad Holliday, chairman of the board and CEO of DuPont: “I find that when someone engages me in a question, it wakes me up. I'm in a different place. Throughout the day, I try to do the same thing. I ask questions: I rarely make statements until I have sized up the person's energy and focus, and whether they are open-minded; only then can I move. If I don't ask questions, I could be underrating the situation and problem and miss the key issues.”

Pentti Sydänmaanlakka, former director of human resources at Nokia Networks: “Leading with questions has been always part of my leadership because I believe that leadership is not telling, but inspiring and showing others new places where they haven't been earlier.”

Isabel Rimanoczy, partner, Leadership in International Management: “I was working with pragmatic engineers who initially were upset that they were not able to get immediate answers and solutions to their questions. By focusing on questions rather than on answers, we inverted the process they were accustomed to. We put the focus on them, trusting their knowledge and wisdom. And, even when they did not think they had answers, they dived into themselves for the answers, and—not surprisingly—they always found the answers. . . . They had increased their self-awareness and realized that there was wisdom inside them that could be unearthed with questions.”

Robert Hoffman, executive director for organization development at Novartis: “Questions have changed me immensely. I have greater self-confidence and a more relaxed attitude. I don't feel that I always have to have the answers in conversations or in situations where I need to speak at the spur of the moment. I feel this has increased my communications skills, especially listening and persuading.”

These leaders have discovered the amazing power of questions. Questions wake people up. They prompt new ideas. They show people new places, new ways of doing things. They help us admit that we don't know all the answers. They help us become more confident communicators. Unfortunately, many leaders are unaware of the amazing power of questions and how they can generate short-term results and long-term learning and success. If you have never considered making questions a tool in your leadership kit, this book is for you.

Of course, many leaders do ask questions constantly—questions such as these:

Why are you behind schedule?

Who isn't keeping up?

What's the problem with this project?

Whose idea was that?

Too often, we ask questions that disempower rather than empower our subordinates. These questions cast blame; they are not genuine requests for information.

Other sorts of questions are often no more than thinly veiled attempts at manipulation: Don't you agree with me on that? Aren't you a team player? If you tend to ask these sorts of questions, this book is for you.

So the point isn't that leaders just don't ask enough questions. Often, we don't ask the right questions. Or we don't ask questions in a way that will lead to honest and informative answers. Many of us don't know how to listen effectively to the answers to questions—and haven't established a climate in which asking questions is encouraged.

And that's where this book comes in. The purpose of Leading with Questions is to help you become a stronger leader by learning how to ask the right questions effectively, how to listen effectively, and how to create a climate in which asking questions becomes as natural as breathing.

Research on Leaders Who Lead with Questions

Over the past twenty-five years, I have been involved in research and developing leaders around the world, both as a professor and as a consultant and adviser to corporate executives. I have noted more and more frequently that leaders of the more successful companies tended to question others and themselves more often. I have sought to discover why questions are so important to leaders, why they result in such success, and what questions are the most powerful and used most frequently.

Who are some of the leaders who ask questions? And when and why did these leaders first begin using questions in their leadership work? What questions did they find to have been most powerful and successful? Why do these leaders ask questions, and what has been the impact of those questions on them and their organization? Over the past several years, I have asked individuals and audiences from around the world to identify leaders they believe use questions effectively. I then contacted professional colleagues who worked with leaders worldwide to identify leaders who both asked lots of questions in their work and were seen as successful leaders by their colleagues and subordinates. Occasionally the leaders I interviewed would refer me to another leader whom they saw as someone who also led with questions. I made an effort to get leaders from large and small companies, from public and private organizations, and from all parts of the world.

Among the many leaders who were identified, I interviewed a total of thirty from all over the world. I prepared the following list of questions to use in my interviews:

When did you start using questions and why?

What are some of the ways in which you use questions?

What questions have been most effective?

What has been the impact of leading through questions on your organization?

How has the use of questions changed you as a leader?

Their responses to these questions and their stories are interwoven throughout this book.

Throughout the pages of this book, you will find the experiences of leaders who lead with questions—and the questions they ask. Among those who shared their experiences as questioning leaders are CEOs and top leaders from DuPont, Alcoa, Novartis, and Cargill; public leaders from global and national agencies, as well as the political arena; and academic leaders at the secondary and college levels. They come from Brazil, Finland, Malaysia, Mauritius, Singapore, Korea, Australia, and Switzerland as well as North America. Brief biographies of these leaders are contained in Resource A.

Based on my quarter-century of experiences and interviews with scores of leaders who do indeed lead with questions, Leading with Questions provides a comprehensive foundation on ways to employ questions effectively when leading others. The book offers a variety of principles and strategies for asking questions as well as numerous stories of how leaders from every type of organization have used questions to attain organizational success and personal fulfillment.

Key Aspects of Leading with Questions

This book is composed of three parts. In Part I, I explain why questions can be so powerful for individuals and organizations. Chapter 1 examines why leaders often prefer to provide answers rather than ask questions, and how limiting—and disastrous—that can be. I show why questioning is actually the ultimate leadership tool. Chapter 2 details the benefits, for leaders and organizations, of creating a question-friendly organizational culture. A questioning culture strengthens individual and organizational learning; it improves decision making, problem solving, and teamwork; promotes adaptability and acceptance of change; and helps empower people by strengthening self-awareness and self-confidence.

Part II offers practical guidance on asking questions effectively. Chapter 3 explains the stumbling blocks many of us face in asking questions and tells the stories of several leaders who have overcome them and benefited enormously. Chapter 4 shows how effective questions are empowering whereas ineffective questions disempower. It offers a thorough analysis of different types of questions, and it describes the roots of great questions. Chapter 5 explores the art of asking questions effectively, examining how one's attitude, mindset, pace, and timing all affect the impact of asking questions. As this chapter demonstrates, active listening and following up are integral parts of the art of asking questions. Chapter 6 turns from the personal level to the organizational, offering detailed advice on fostering an organizational culture that is conducive to questions.

Part III presents guidelines for leaders on using questions to achieve specific results for individuals, teams, and organizations. Chapter 7 discusses how leaders can use questions in managing their staff, strengthening relationships with direct reports, helping them to grow, and encouraging action and innovative thinking. This chapter also reviews the use of questions in orienting new staff, setting goals and objectives, conducting performance appraisals, and leading staff meetings, among other topics. Chapter 8 describes how leaders can use questions to improve team functioning, energize team meetings, solve problems, help teams overcome obstacles, and resolve conflict. Chapter 9 explores how and why questions can be effective in solving problems. Chapter 10 shows how questioning can strengthen entire organizations—sharpening strategy, vision, and values, and building the capacity for change—focusing on questions with both internal and external stakeholder groups. The Conclusion encourages the reader to begin the journey to becoming a questioning leader.

Three resources are included in the book. Resource A provides brief biographies of the thirty leaders who shared their experiences in asking questions. Resource B describes how action learning develops questioning skills with leaders. Finally, Resource C identifies organizations, training programs, and websites for developing questioning leaders.

A New Level of Leadership

Leaders who lead with questions will create a more humane workplace as well as a more successful business. Leaders who use questions can truly empower people and change organizations. Most leaders are unaware of the potential of questions and needlessly endure a fractious, pressure-filled existence. My hope is that readers will change their style of leading and be more easily successful and fulfilled as leaders.

There is no doubt that all of us, especially those of us who are leaders, need to ask more questions—questions that will assist in the development of individuals, teams, organizations, and ourselves. Questions have become essential for our success. Poor leaders rarely ask questions of themselves or others. Good leaders, on the other hand, ask many questions. Great leaders ask the great questions. And great questions can help you become a great leader!

Notes

1 Daudelin, M. (1996). “Learning from Experience.” Organization Dynamics, 24(3), 36–48.

Part I

The Power of Questions

Chapter 1 An Underused Management Tool

We live in a fast-paced, demanding, results-oriented world. New technologies place vast quantities of information at our fingertips in nanoseconds. We want problems solved instantly, results yesterday, answers immediately. We are exhorted to forget “ready, aim, fire” and to shoot now and shoot again. Leaders are expected to be decisive, bold, charismatic, and visionary—to know all the answers even before others have thought of the questions.

Ironically, if we respond to these pressures—or believe the hype about visionary leaders so prominent in the business press—we risk sacrificing the very thing we need to lead effectively. When the people around us clamor for fast answers—sometimes, any answer—we need to be able to resist the impulse to provide solutions and instead learn to ask questions. Most leaders are unaware of the amazing power of questions—how they can generate short-term results and long-term learning and success. The problem is, we feel that we are supposed to have answers, not questions.

I interviewed leaders around the world about their use—or avoidance—of questions. This comment by Gidget Hopf, president and CEO of the Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired—Goodwill Industries, is typical: “I just automatically assumed that if someone was at my door with a problem, they expected me to solve it.”

Hopf thought it was her job to provide answers. Then she realized that there was another way: “Through coaching I realized how disempowering this is, and how much more effective I could be by posing the question back to the individual with the problem. . . . What I came to realize is that solving others' problems is exhausting. It is much more effective to provide the opportunity for them to solve their own problems.”

Unfortunately, from an early age we are discouraged from asking questions—especially challenging ones—be it at home, school, or church, as this is considered rude, inconsiderate, or intrusive. Thus we become fearful of asking any questions. As we ask fewer questions, we become ever less comfortable and competent in asking questions.

And then when we become leaders, we feel that it is important for us to have answers rather than questions. We feel that asking questions—or being unable to answer questions addressed to us—may show that we are somehow lacking as leaders. But this attitude leads to inertia. Consider what Jeff Carew, a vice president at Collectcorp, told me: “The easy way to lead, particularly if you are competent at your job, is to tell people how to do things in the way you have been successful.” Usually, as Jeff has observed, people become successful either through a very capable boss who taught them the ropes or through their experiential learning that resulted in a successful track record and steady career advancement.

Successful executives think they know the answers. “The problem with this,” Jeff noted, “is if you do not create and maintain a working environment where you are always asking questions of your employees and forcing them to think, then you will probably never be any better tomorrow than you are today. Yesterday's solutions will not solve tomorrow's problems.

“I learned that you need to get to a different level of thinking if you are going to tackle tomorrow's problems—and who else is better to teach you how your environment is changing than the managers on the floor or in the trenches?”

Like Jeff Carew, a growing number of leaders recognize that their organization's success, if not its very survival, depends on creating a learning organization, an organization that is able to quickly adapt to the changing environment, where every engagement becomes a learning opportunity, where learning and business objectives are necessarily interlinked. The ability to ask questions goes hand in hand with the ability to learn. A learning organization is possible only if it has a culture that encourages questions.

Gary Cohen, author of Just Ask Leadership, rightly observed that it is not possible for leaders in the twenty-first century to be a know-it-all, nor is it in their or the organization's best interest to try.1 It is more important that leaders ask questions that move others to action and answers. We should recognize that the employees that work for you today probably know more than you do about their job. And as leaders move up the ranks of an organization, they will undoubtedly end up leading people who perform tasks that the leader will not understand. Mike Stice, CEO of Access Midstream Partners, said to me, “I need to continually ask questions to become part of the organization. Questions enable me to increase alignment, engagement, and accountability. And it is not simply asking more questions. It is asking more and better questions.”

Do you ever feel defensive when people ask you questions? Do you ever hesitate to ask a question, fearing it may reveal ignorance or doubt? If so, you are closing off the free flow of information and ideas your organization needs and potentially undermining relationships with those around you. In fact, avoiding questions can cause serious harm—and even disaster.

What Happens When Leaders Do Not Ask Questions

History is replete with tales of dire consequences experienced by leaders who did not ask questions. Recent disasters at Lehman Brothers, Barclays, WorldCom, Enron, and Arthur Andersen can be attributed to the lack of inquiring leaders. Historians who carefully examined the events and details behind the disasters of the Titanic, the Challenger, and the Bay of Pigs have determined a common thread: the inability or unwillingness of participants and leaders to raise questions about their concerns. Some group members were fearful that they were the only one who had a particular concern (when, in fact, it was later discovered that many people in the group had similar concerns). Others felt that their question had already been answered in the minds of other group members, and if they asked the question, it would be considered a dumb question, and they would be put down as being stupid or not going along with the group. Because people did not ask questions, people lost lives when the Titanic sank, when the Challenger crashed, when President Kennedy authorized a covert attack on the Bay of Pigs in Cuba.

Sinking of the Titanic

Why did the Titanic sink? When the luxury ship went down, on April 14, 1912, more than fifteen hundred passengers perished. Afterward, many questions were raised on both sides of the Atlantic. How could the allegedly unsinkable ship go down on its maiden voyage across the North Atlantic? What had gone wrong? Why couldn't the planner and builders have foreseen such a tragedy? Upon investigation, it was discovered that several of the planners and builders of the ship had indeed been concerned, though none of them had ever raised their concerns in the company of their colleagues. Why not? Because of their fear of appearing foolish by asking dumb questions. If no other “expert” seemed unsure about the structure and safety of the ship, then everything must be OK. Once the voyage was under way, many reports came in from nearby ships describing icebergs around them. “Titanic received many incoming messages warning of ice,” Robert E. Mittelstaedt writes in Will Your Next Mistake Be Fatal?, “but there is no mention of her inquiring of others for updates or more information. What if someone was curious enough to ask for more information from the ships in the area?”2

The Explosion of the Challenger Spacecraft

The Space Shuttle Challenger was launched on January 28, 1986, and exploded seventy-three seconds after liftoff. Much of the research into what went wrong with the Challenger launch focuses on the lack of communication between NASA, Morton Thiokol, Inc. (MTI), and the Marshall Space Center. MTI, the contractor responsible for the component that failed during the launch, depended on Marshall for the contract, and Marshall in turn depended on NASA for funding and support. Almost two years before the fatal launch, MTI became aware that there could be a problem with the O-ring, a sealing component that prevents hot gases from escaping the solid rocket booster and burning a hole in the fuel tank (the physical cause of the Challenger disaster). The engineers at MTI documented this problem and insisted that further testing needed to be done to determine the reliability of the O-ring. On further testing, they confirmed that the O-ring was not reliable, particularly when the temperature dropped below fifty-three degrees. Why then was the Challenger given the go to launch on January 28, 1986, when the temperature at launch time was thirty-six degrees, well below the safety margin? The people around the table were afraid to express their doubts or even to ask questions that they had determined, before entering the room that morning, that they would ask.

The 1961 Bay of Pigs Invasion

Fears of shattering the warm feelings of perceived unanimity—fears of rocking the boat—kept some of Kennedy's advisers from objecting to the Bay of Pigs plan before it was too late. “How could I have been so stupid?” President John F. Kennedy asked after the Bay of Pigs fiasco.

What happened? In 1961, CIA and military leaders wanted to use Cuban exiles to overthrow Fidel Castro. After lengthy consideration among his top advisers, Kennedy approved a covert invasion. Advance press reports alerted Castro to the threat. More than fourteen hundred invaders arrived at the Bahía de Cochinos (Bay of Pigs) to find themselves vastly outnumbered. Lacking air support, necessary ammunition, and an escape route, nearly twelve hundred surrendered. Others died. Top CIA leaders blamed Kennedy for not authorizing vital air strikes. Other CIA analysts fault the wishful thinking that the invasion would stimulate an uprising among Cuba's populace and military. Planners assumed the invaders could simply fade into the mountains for guerilla operations. Trouble was, eighty miles of swampland separated the bay from the mountains. The list goes on.

Groupthink is the term Irving Janis coined for this phenomenon: the kind of flawed group dynamics that lets bad ideas go unchallenged by questions and disagreement and that can sometimes yield disastrous outcomes.3 Kennedy's top advisers were unwilling to challenge bad ideas because it might disturb perceived or desired group concurrence. Presidential adviser Arthur Schlesinger, for instance, presented serious objections to the invasion in a memorandum to the president, but suppressed his doubts at the team meetings. Attorney General Robert Kennedy privately admonished Schlesinger to support the president's decision to invade. At one crucial meeting, JFK called on each member for his vote for or against the invasion. Each member, that is, except Schlesinger—whom Kennedy knew to have serious concerns. Many members assumed that other members agreed with the invasion plan. Schlesinger later lamented, “In the months after the Bay of Pigs, I bitterly reproached myself for having kept so silent during those crucial discussions in the cabinet room.” He continued, “I can only explain my failure to do more than raise a few timid questions by reporting that one's impulse to blow the whistle on this nonsense was simply undone by our inability to challenge one another and ask questions.”4 After that huge blunder, JFK revamped his decision-making process to encourage questions, dissent, and critical evaluation among his team.

Day-to-Day Disaster Prevention

Questions and a questioning attitude are not just important for avoiding historic disasters: they are also useful day in and day out for giving feedback, problem solving, strategic planning, resolving conflicts, team building, and more. When we avoid questions, all these activities suffer, even if that doesn't lead to disasters of historic proportions. Consider what Cindy Stewart, president and CEO of the Family Health Council of Central Pennsylvania, told me:

One of the first jobs that I had was in a sewing factory. My job title was “floor girl,” which was the assistant to the “floor lady”—no kidding! This job entitled moving work from one process to another to assure that none of the workers in your section were without work, and that specific garment lots would be completed by the deliverable date. It was not considered a management position. I distinctly remember overhearing the management team discussing a particular bottleneck that routinely occurred with this one style of nightgown. As they wrestled with solutions, none of which worked, I can clearly recall that I was thinking: “I wish they would ask me.” Since I was the one that worked the closest to the problematic process, I felt I was in the best position to solve the problem. Of course, they never did ask me.

In avoiding questions, the management team at that sewing factory closed off a potentially important source of ideas and information, and their problem-solving ability suffered as a result. The experience left a lasting impression on Stewart:

I think I made up my mind at that time that, if I were ever to be in a leadership position, I would never assume that having the title would mean that I had all the answers. Over my twenty-plus years in executive positions, I have come to realize that much of my success can be attributed to the fact that I believe in the capacity of the people who have worked with me. I truly think that the leader who tries to know it all and tells everyone what to do is doomed to failure.

Facing Reality

No company can become great, Jim Collins tells us in Good to Great, without the ability to confront the “brutal facts of reality.”5 Consider the story of the Boston Red Sox. As is well known, the team's 2004 World Series win was long in coming. But in the 1940s the Red Sox were one of the dominant teams in baseball. Then in the 1950s the team went into a significant decline—attributed, in part, to racism. As other major league teams were widening their talent pools by recruiting black players, the Red Sox were slow to change. The team passed on hiring Jackie Robinson and Willie Mays, and it became the last major league team to recruit black players. Not until 1959 did a black player show up on the diamond in a Red Sox uniform. Prejudice played an obvious role. But reinforcing this prejudice was an unquestioning attitude. As Sidney Finkelstein writes in Why Smart Executives Fail, “Tom Yawkey, the owner of the Boston Red Sox, provides an all-too-typical example [of complacent prejudice]. When his scouts reported that African-American players were not good enough or simply not ready for big league play, he accepted their reports without question. Yet any serious attempt to verify these evaluations might have caused Yawkey to question his picture of baseball reality.”6 When leaders fail to ask questions, they forgo the opportunity to test their own assumptions and prejudices, whether those prejudices involve race or beliefs about consumer behavior, strategic threats, market conditions, product quality, staff abilities, or what have you.

The failure to ask questions, in other words, allows us to operate with a distorted sense of reality. In fact, in “Zombie Businesses: How to Learn from Their Mistakes,” Finkelstein calls companies that are unable to question their prevailing view of reality zombies. A zombie company, he says, is “a walking corpse that just doesn't yet know that it's dead—because this company has created an insulated culture that systematically excludes any information that could contradict its reigning picture of reality” (p. 25).7 But as GE's former CEO Jack Welch says, leading successfully means “seeing the world the way it is, not the way we hope it will be or wish it to be.”8 Those responsible for the Bay of Pigs, the Challenger disaster, and the sinking of the Titanic were all operating under a distorted picture of reality because they failed to ask questions.

Organizations and leaders that avoid questions are actually losing opportunities to learn, according to Noel Tichy. “This is not a trivial issue. Many executives close off learning. In their day-to-day interactions with staff they are usually either issuing instructions or making judgments about the ideas or performance of others.”9 By telling rather than asking, Tichy says, they are actually making their organizations dumber, “less smart, less aligned, and less energized every day.” In such organizations, “there is little or no knowledge transfer, intelligence is assumed to reside at the top, and everyone below senior management is expected to check their brains at the door.”10

Mike Parker, president and CEO of Dow Chemical, notes, “A lot of bad leadership comes from an inability or unwillingness to ask questions. I have watched talented people—people with much higher IQs than mine—who have failed as leaders. They can talk brilliantly, with a great breadth of knowledge, but they're not very good at asking questions. So while they know a lot at a high level, they don't know what's going on way down in the system. Sometimes they are afraid of asking dumb questions, but what they don't realize is that the dumbest questions can be very powerful. They can unlock a conversation.”11

Questions as the Ultimate Leadership Tool

Many years ago, in his best-selling classic How to Win Friends and Influence People, Dale Carnegie noted that “an effective leader asks questions instead of giving orders.” Oakley and Krug call questions the “ultimate empowerment tool” for the leader.12 They observe that the better we as leaders become at asking effective questions and listening for the answers to those questions, the more consistently we and the people with whom we work can accomplish mutually satisfying objectives, be empowered, reduce resistance, and create a willingness to pursue innovative change.

John Kotter, the noted Harvard professor and author on leadership, writes that the key difference between leaders and managers is that leaders focus on getting to the right questions, whereas managers focus on finding solutions to those questions.13

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