Talk Less, Question More

This is the 2nd of several posts this week on Change Your Questions, Change Your Life by Marilee Adams, Ph.D. (Berrett-Koehler, 2009). A recommended read for any leader.

As leaders, most of us want to have the right answer when people ask us, especially our boss. So we study for briefings like they were final exams. And like many professors from the old school, the boss will often ask a question about an obscure footnote to see if they can catch you unprepared. This approach is not only unproductive but damaging to the person and the organization because it cuts of important other broader and more thought provocative questions.

1. Adam’s would argue that great leaders have great questions, not THE exact answer. Instead of being an answer man or woman, we need to be more critical thinkers asking the right questions.

2, Asking questions respects the knowledge of others and opens the questioner up to a dialog of thought, he or she might never have thought about.

3. Try this: In your next conversation instead of talking 80% of the time, talk 20% and listen 80%.

Questions vs. Answers

This is the first of several posts this coming week on Change Your Questions, Change Your Life by Marilee Adams, Ph.D. (Berrett-Koehler, 2009).

"Some men see things as they are and ask why? I dream dreams that never were and ask why not?” Ted Kennedy quoted this line from George Bernard Shaw’s play “Back to Methusala” to describe his brother Bobbie Kennedy—after he’d been assassinated--to the shock and dismay of the country and the world.

Marilee Adam’s book, Change Your Questions Change Your Life, helps explain how questions create frameworks of the mind. Most especially, she explains how questions transform our thinking and eventually our actions.

Many of us have grown up and been rewarded (and punished, Adams might add) for being the “answer person.” She explains how having all the answers is far more dangerous and less productive than having all the right questions. Moving from a position of Judging (having the right answers) to Learning (asking the right questions), creates a wining dynamic and keeps us out of what she calls the Judger Pit…a morass of blame, second guessing, and finger pointing.

This week, I’ll explore her work in a series of posts and hope you’ll join me.

Final Observation from an Executive Coach

Fifth and final observation....

5. Listen and be inclusive: “I will listen to you, especially when we disagree.”
Listen to your detractors with the same vigor as those who would hail you as chief.

Remember to appoint a “devil’s advocate” to offer counter arguments in every major discussion you have. Do this especially when you generate a new idea yourself or whenever it’s an idea proposed by someone who thinks just like you do. No one needs to remind you about the power of diversity.

Finally, let me end with my very best wishes as you begin your journey as president.

“Yes We Can!”

PS...Be sure to listen to perhaps your best sounding board: Michelle!

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[Dr. Steve Gladis is the author of The Executive Coach in the Corporate Forest and serves as an executive coach in the greater Northern Virginia/Washington Metro Area. He may be contacted at 703-424-3780 or at sgladis@stevegladis.com.]