The power of smart questions in leadership

Most leaders acknowledge the importance of asking the ‘right question,’ but how many actually make a conscious effort to fully develop this leadership capability? And if a leader wanted to become better at asking strategically important questions, how would they do so? This is the topic addressed in “The Art of Asking Smarter Questions” by Arnaud Chevallier, Frederic Dalsace, and Jean-Louis Barsoux, three faculty at the IMB Business School. The authors make a compelling case for why the ability to ask smart questions is so critical. The business environment is evolving much too quickly for today’s business leader to be some all-knowing source of knowledge and answers. Rather, leaders are now called on to ignite the creativity of their teams, take full advantage of what the organization knows and has learned through its people, and ensure their organization explores all relevant areas that might impact its success. This latter point is especially important: as the authors point out, the questions that get leaders into trouble are they ones they fail to ask. Putting a finer point on the importance of smart questions today, some organizations are holding ‘question-storming’ sessions as opposed to ‘brain-storming’ sessions to help ensure the right questions get asked.

Five types of questions are highlighted:

• Investigative – What is known? These questions help clarify the situation/issue and dig deeply into information that may be non-obvious. Asking “why” and “how” repeatedly can provide insights that get beyond a superficial understanding of an issue.
• Speculative – What if? Here, the leader focuses on considering an issue more broadly. “What if,” “what else,” and “how might we” help open a team’s collective mind up to new possibilities, breaking out of the proverbial rut of convention, tradition, or “we have always done it like that.”
• Productive – Now what? These questions focus on making something happen. What resources are needed? What risks need to be managed? What is the timeline? What are the specific milestones and metrics?
• Interpretative – So what? These are sensemaking questions – getting to the essence of the issue – and are natural follow-ups to investigative, speculative, and productive questions. For example, interpretative questions might focus on clarifying whether a trend identified through an investigative question is relevant or not.
• Subjective – What’s unsaid? This is a different category entirely. Whereas the other questions all focus on the substance of an issue, these questions address “the personal reservations, frustrations, tensions, and hidden agendas that can push decision-making off course.” Here, leaders are trying to get at how decisions might land with employees, customers, or the broader public, surfacing reactions that may mean a different solution is required or identifying a set of issues that must be managed.

Leaders can self-evaluate their own questioning capabilities by taking an inventory of the questions they typically ask. All of these types of questions are important, and a leader who constantly “cuts to the chase” and focuses on productive questions might improve their decision-making by asking more speculative and subjective questions. As one executive quoted in the article put it, “the lesson I have been learning is to let go of the ‘how to get there’ and to focus on ‘where we are going.’”

Of course, as with about any leadership capability, questioning can be overdone – and this is the focus of Luis’ Velasquez article “When Asking Too Many Questions Undermines your Leadership.” Constantly asking questions can irritate the team, positioning the leader as a micromanager. Too many questions may undermine the leader’s credibility, signaling to others “a lack of self-assurance in their expertise.” And, in the end, decisions must be made – continuing to ask questions and forcing people to dig even deeper for more answers can create a classic case of “analysis paralysis.” The article offers some good tips for managing how you ask questions – primarily focusing on how questions are framed and how leaders can move ahead once questions have been answered.

Combined, these two articles offer an insightful perspective on an important leadership capability: asking smart questions – both how to do it and how not to overdo it.