Can you help me ... ?

A short story on how I recently helped a small leadership group that was anything but a team. Although they all got along very well, they were simply working alongside one another rather than with each other. They were not ready for a big two-day team session so I recommended to start with the basics: a weekly team huddle of no more than 30 minutes, where each shared with the others something really great that had happened in their scope the previous week, and updated them briefly on the progress on their priorities. No Powerpoints or meeting room tables: the huddle was done standing up in the open space, visible to the others in the organization. And the last part of the team huddle was where the team leader asks who needed help from anyone else in the coming days or weeks to be successful in their priorities.

The team huddle went well and created a very basic but regular exchange where people learned about what was going on in the others' areas. But the interesting development happened with the last part of the team huddle. The first team huddles, when the team leader asked if anyone needed help, there was awkward silence, fiddling of empty hands, and soft but unconvinced whispers of "no, thanks ...". And then in the fourth team huddle, John spoke up "Yes, in fact, I would like Susan to help me with ...". The huddle was concluded and John and Susan walked off and started to discuss the issue John was struggling with. The ice had been broken and in the next team huddle, there were multiple requests for help. The final part of the huddle, which at first had been an uncomfortable way of concluding the session, became the way the team connections started to form. And soon, people were going to see the others in between sessions, not to talk about their priorities, but to ask others for help.

Asking for help is a powerful glue to start building a team. You cannot mandate it, but as a leader, you can model it. And when you ask someone for help, do so in front of others. If you want to build a team, start small !

The Power of Silence

We are so hooked on fighting for air-time, making sure we are heard and showing what we know that keeping silent is a challenge for many leaders. Asking a question, waiting for the answer, and then really listening and exploring is the core of real leadership.

When you ask a question and end up answering it yourself ... you are basically saying that you knew the answer and were just "testing" if your team knows or not. You are also saying that you do not really have the time or interest to listen to their ideas.

"But what should I do if they are quiet ? If they have no idea ?" leaders often ask me. My answer is invariably ... "Shut up and wait !". "But what should I do if they are quiet for 5 minutes ?" For one, it will probably never be 5 minutes, although it may feel like that. Second, if you are really interested in their answer, you should just wait.

Think carefully about the questions you are asking. Are you trying to find out if they know the answer ? That's a test, not a question. Do you have the answer to the question you are asking ? If so, why ask it ?  Too often, leaders ask questions to find a way to say what they know or think. A question that is really meant to find out what others are thinking is powerful. Rhetorical questions, gotcha-questions, multiple-choice or do-you-know questions are not how you build trust, innovation or your leadership.

An interesting article recently about the power of uncomfortable silences on the BBC website:

http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20170718-the-subtle-power-of-uncomfortable-silences

When do you start building trust and respect ?

In the leadership program I am currently running in a global company, managers share their challenges through Action Learning sessions. Most of the management issues that participants discuss are about their direct reports. Very often it is about a particular person in the team with who things aren't going so well. Performance may be below par, or the "behaviors" are not as expected. Although the managers don't use the word, it is pretty much about som

eone very different from themselves and "difficult" to work with.

The process of asking open questions (as opposed to fact-finding investigative questions or "let me share what I think you should do" discussions) often leads to the insight on the part of the manager that there is a genuine gap between themselves and this particular person. The manager can give plenty of examples of behavioral or performance issues. But when the questions are about how they work together, how well the manager knows the person and his or her challenges, what other work related things they talk about ... the manager often gets quite silent. He realizes that all they do with this direct report is work, talk about work and complain about the work that doesn't go well. They realize there is not really a "foundation" to their working relationship. There is only work and that's all they talk about. And that's (maybe ...) OK as long as things are going well.

But when they don't, the lack of genuine relationship, the lack of trust or mutual respect makes it very difficult to get out of the negative spiral. Without a solid personal foundation based on other things than "work" (which can cover KPI, job role and responsibilities. payment, benefits), difficult situation often turn sour.

As someone in a recent session shared at the end, "I realize that I need to start working on trust and respect right from day one, not when something starts to go wrong."

What questions were not allowed ?

Samsung's debacle with the Note 7 caused a loss in profit of more than 2 billion US$ and the company's image will be dented for a long time to come. Who will rush out to buy the Note 8 ??

The official cause for the batteries catching fire has not yet been communicated and there will undoubtedly be technical explanations about the reasons the phones overheated and started to melt. And maybe a few engineers will be shamed (publicly, undoubtedly) and for sure a good part of the blame will end up in the lap of the suppliers who built the batteries.

But very likely, someone, at some point, at Samsung or at the supplier, had raised questions about the stability or safety of the new generation batteries that were being rushed through production to meet the deadlines. Maybe it was an engineer or technician who thought that some test results were too borderline to allow for the next phase in design and production  ... And they were probably told that the impact on the timely launch would be too important. The Challenger and Titanic disasters are examples where people had raised questions and concerns but been overruled or ignored.

These are dramatic examples. For sure your company will not end up in the headlines to this extent. But just wonder how difficult questions are dealt with in your organization ? Are they written off as disconnected with the business priorities ? As a disturbance ? Or are they looked upon as a way to challenge current practices and do better in the long run ? The impact may not be as dramatic as in Samsung's case, but the way you deal with questions will definitely impact how your organization grows ...

About questions and onions !

When a team experiences Action Learning through a first discovery session, the questions they ask can be a bit haphazard. It sometimes feels like there is a competition for asking as many questions as possible. This can frustrate the problem presenter who might think that this “great new tool” that would help with the problem feels more like an inquisition ! And indeed, not all questions are created equal. Team members are aware during the session what questions are really powerful and helped the problem presenter, and which ones were not really helping that much. So after debriefing about what they learned, they sometimes ask me “But how should we ask more of these great questions ?”.

I prefer to avoid any attempt to “teach” which questions are great and which questions are average. After all, it is the person who receives the question who determines whether that question helped to open up new thoughts, or whether it felt more like a burden to answer. There is no such thing as “the one great question” that works in any situation !

It is not really a matter of great questions versus average ones, but more about the extent to which the questions help the problem presenter think. I use the metaphor of an onion (see the picture) before we start the session. I explain that there is no harm in asking the questions that are at the level of the outer peel of the onion. When exploring a new issue, team members need to get basic information. These questions are useful for the team members to start to know about the problem, but they will not really help the problem presenter develop new ideas. For new ideas to be explored, team members need to try and move “towards the center of the onion”.

The team typically gets this concept very well. In a recent session, I asked the team what they thought about the kind of questions that were asked. One team member replied “We are asking questions at peel of the onion !”. The team immediately picked this up and confirmed that they would have to try and move to the center of the onion if they wanted to help the problem presenter. A similar intervention when I feel a team is asking rather superficial questions is “Team, from the questions we have been asking so far, have you seen the problem presenter having to think a lot or not ?”. The metaphor of the onion comes up almost immediately.

Avoid to teach what a great question looks like. Invite the team to think about questions that help the problem presenter … think !

Nipping ideas in the bud ..

I keep on coming across managers who tell me their team members have no ideas or inputs when asked for them. I wrote a blog sometime earlier about what you can do to create an environment where people are more comfortable to share their ideas. With a rote learning education and associated culture, many folks in organizations in Asia are not used to ask, challenge or propose.

Illustration by Saul Steinberg

So managers should put extra effort in inviting their team members to share their ideas. But I have come to think that the real problem is elsewhere. The real problem lies in the reaction the manager offers when someone brings up an idea. The courage to share the idea is often squashed but the very first things the manager does while the words are still floating in the air.

Those first things can be ...

1. the body language ... What does your FACE say when someone shares an idea ? Does it show genuine interest or does it show that this idea is not what you expected ?

2. the dreaded "but" ... as in "Great idea, but ....". But is then followed by "let me explain you why this won't work", "I have tried this in my years of experience and ..." or "this is not compatible with the main plan" ... or a combination thereof !

3. the follow up ... If you do not act upon the ideas your team proposes, or better still, give them the green light to act upon their own ideas, you are sending the message that you had the better answers anyway.

Next you find yourself frustrated with your team members' lack of ideas, input or creativity, think about how you react when they do propose something.

Looking for A-Ha: what neuroscience tells us about creativity

That was the title of my talk at ASCIM 2016 in Bangkok recently. I really enjoyed preparing for this talk. It took me probably a full 4 days of researching, reading, putting pieces together and then changing them all again. The best reward for this kind of effort is double. First of all, I learned a lot by preparing for this. The reactions from participants during the talk, and from those that came up to me after the talk, confirmed that they had learned some valuable new things as well. Nice visual summary made by the conference drawer to remember the key points !

What insight looks like

One key objective of an Action Learning session is to help a colleague get a better understanding of his or her problem. A better understanding leads to better solutions ! Asking questions helps a leader explore possibilities he or she had not thought of before. This takes time, and simply telling someone what should be done does not work. To come to a genuine insight, our brain requires questions and explorations.

We often ask team members to write out in a full sentence their understanding of the underlying problem. Sometimes, the leader sharing the problem insists that he understands the problem very well, and that there is not really a need to write it out.  Yet the different rounds of asking questions to one another and evaluating different perspectives can sometimes lead to real insights. When the "light bulb is switched on" leaders immediately see their challenge - and the solutions - in a whole different way.

Here are two examples from actual sessions.

The leader's understanding of the problem at the start of the session:
"How can I improve the employee engagement score related to the department's leadership ?"

The leader's insight of the problem at the end of the session:
"How can I develop trust between myself and my leadership team ?"

And the second one ...

At the start:
"How can I improve the relationships between myself and the team ?"

and at the end:
"How can I control my emotional reactions to minimize the impact on the team ?"

Maybe it is time for you to take a fresh look and the challenges you are facing ?

Meetings that work !

I was lucky to be able to deliver the first public workshop on Action Learning in Vietnam last week. At the end of the session, all participants confirmed they really saw the value of the approach and they would apply it in their organizations. As a facilitator, it feels good to get this kind of feedback but I am also aware that very often, reality (with deadlines, emails, presentations to do ...) sucks us up very quickly.

So I was really excited to receive an email from one of the participants of the Vietnam branch of a global FMCG company sharing his very first - and innovative - application of the principles of Action Learning !

His sales team had scheduled the annual Joint Business Meeting with a key customer the day after the workshop. In the past, this Business Meeting was a full day of Powerpoints where each team shared their views, their objectives, results and challenges. And the hours were spent in discussing, explaining, debating, resulting in some agreements and some disagreements. Pretty much a long day for everybody involved, with hours of time spent up front to create the Powerpoint slides.

So my participant, in charge of the sales team for the global FMCG in Vietnam, decided to try and apply the principles of Action Learning in this annual Joint Business Meeting. Out with the laptops, and out with the Powerpoints. The sales manager adapted the standard WIAL Action Learning script to fit his need for this meeting, maintaining the core ground rule of "Statements are only made in response to questions". Participants asked questions to one another to dive into the challenges their respective businesses were facing. Quite a difference from stating your point and trying to convince the other side yours is the right view. Both teams followed the Action Learning approach and achieved a high level of consensus on the key challenges they faced. At the end of the meeting, next steps were jointly identified to work towards and solve the challenges. Participants rated the session 8.5 out of 10 !

Next step: do the same with 2 other major customer teams.

Now that's what I call Action Learning ... in action !

Learning ... one KISS at a time

KISS Keep It Simple Stupid was originally coined by the US Navy to emphasize the importance of keeping things as simple as possible. The target the navy commander had given to his mechanical design team was to ensure that a ship's engine system could be repaired by a mechanic with limited experience or specific training. The idea was never to refer to that mechanic as stupid. In fact, the original KISS was written without a comma, meaning that things needs to be kept simple AND stupid (without writing the 'and'). Since then, many have changed the original meaning and added a comma to read Keep It Simple, Stupid ... Written that way, the 'stupid' becomes an insult to whoever the message is addressed to.

I recently came across another meaning of KISS I had never heard before. A business leader told me his team always ended their meetings and working sessions with a "KISS" ! KISS in this context stands for:

Keep: what did we do well in this meeting that we should keep doing ?
Improve: what did we do that was so-so and we should think about improving next time ?
Stop: what did we do that didn't work and we should commit to not doing again ?
Start: what was missing and we should add or start doing for our next meeting ?

A simple way to remind yourself and your team that learning happens all the time. There is no need to make things complicated. The only requirement is to spend a very small amount of time to reflect together on a key number of questions and create a shared commitment on making sure the next meeting, project, session or retreat is better than the last one.

What if they have no idea ... ?

A key principle in coaching is to let the coachee - quite often the subordinate - come up with ideas for making progress on a particular issue him or herself. This goes a long way towards ownership and accountability: acting on one's own ideas and suggestions is more meaningful than doing what the coach or boss suggests. In workshops where young managers are practicing their coaching or feedback giving skills, they often share "Well, I tried to ask them for their ideas, but they said they don't have any."

Well, thinking and developing ideas is one thing that separates humans from animals, so when someone says they "cannot think" or they "don't have any idea", they are looking for a quick way out of what is for them an uncomfortable situation ! In some countries in Asia, in Thailand in particular, many people have not been brought up in family or educational circles with a focus on developing their own ideas. You will need to help them learn again ... or rather learn for the first time. Here are three tips I have found to work rather well.

1. Give them some time. Don't stare them down or have them sit in front of you "until an idea comes out". Give them anything from five minutes ("I am going for a break and will be back in five minutes to give you some time to think") to one day ("Let's talk about your ideas again tomorrow at 9 AM"). This releases the pressure of having to come up with something right now or else ....

2. Ask them for three. If you ask for one idea, this is often interpreted as if there is somewhere one correct answer, that you expect them to come up with. This increases the pressure and often blocks people from sharing anything. Asking for three or five sends the message that there is no single perfect answer. 

3. Approve right then and there. Experienced managers often have the tendency to take someone's idea or suggestion and modify/improve/complete it. This sends the message that the manager anyway knows better or more. Refrain from this temptation. Approve their idea, or part of their idea, and encourage them to implement it and get back to you in x days to discuss the result. The ownership and learning will be far more powerful.

We all know how to think but sometimes, a bit of help is needed !

Is Action Learning the secret key to self-management ?

In Reinventing Organizations, Frederic Laloux describes the way Buurtzorg (Netherlands, nursing home care, total 7000 employees) functions on the basis of self-managed teams of 10-12 nurses. On page 70, the author lists the key principles around which teams in Buurtzorg are organized:

- it's okay for tams to struggle: from struggle comes learning, and teams that have gone through difficult moments build resilience and a deep sense of community;

- the coach's role is to let teams make their own choices, even if she believes she knows a better solution;

- the coach supports the team mostly by asking insightful questions and mirroring what she sees;

- the starting point is always to look for enthusiasm, strengths and existing capabilities within the team; the coach projects trust that the team has all it takes to solve the problems it faces.

Anyone who has ever participated in an Action Learning set immediately recognizes these principles: this is exactly what develops when a team embraces Action Learning as a way to collaboratively solve problems. Asking questions to one another creates powerful connections. Team members take actions and share the results and their learning with their peers. The team learns and moves from strength to strength. Engagement and ownership is guaranteed when teams can create and put in place their own solutions.  

Buurtzorg is a fascinating organization: there are no managers, no quality departments, no central structures. Teams of nurses manage everything related to their profession. And the results are extraordinary. 

Leaders often feel the need to thoroughly change their organization's culture (the way things are done), but are not sure about how to get started. You cannot dictate a culture change and we all know the probability of a corporate change initiative being successful ! Getting teams to use Action Learning to solve their own problems is definitely a solid start.

Learning by doing is not enough

We all know the saying that we learn by doing, not by sitting to listen to a lecture. And it's not just a saying, research has confirmed this (see the picture). Real learning happens only when we do stuff.\

Have you ever spent a full day doing plenty of stuff ... ? For sure you have. Meetings, reviews, phone calls, discussions, preparing a presentation, dealing with all the emails that pop up without interruption. So much doing, the whole day long ! With hardly time to breathe in between these events. Lunch lasts about 20 minutes, or happens at your desk, doing some more email stuff. So on your way home, at then end of that busy day where you did so much, what was playing in your mind ? Were you telling yourself "Wow, so a great day full of learning by doing !". Probably not. It was more something like "Thank God this day is over and done with !". So there was all that doing, but apparently no learning ? What is missing to turn doing into real learning ?

Doing requires an external focus. And thinking or reflecting brings an internal focus. Recent research lead by HBR has shown that the internal focus, of thinking or reflecting, increases the learning retention by up to 22%. How do you bring this internal focus into a busy day of doing ? The key trick is to use questions ! Spending some time at the end of a day, or better still, at different times during the day, to ask yourself a few questions, makes all the difference. Questions such as ... How was this meeting ? Did we achieve the objectives ? How was the team dynamic ? What was the quality of the decisions we took ? How was this meeting different from the one before ? These simple questions and the reflection that follows them, are where the doing gets transformed into learning. Reflecting on what we did, why things happened they way they happened, is where the learning happens, not just in the doing part.

Now all this thinking and reflecting does not need to take more than 5 minutes, so "We are really so busy" is not a valid excuse ! And if you skip the reflection part, you will just move from doing lots of stuff one day, to doing even more stuff the next day. Train yourself to reflect and help yourself learn on how to grow. Even on a busy day.

Chinese ears

The Chinese symbol for listening is pretty powerful. As shown in the picture, it is composed of several sub-symbols. Of course there is the symbol for the ears, which is what we associate with listening at the first level. But the real interest lies in the other symbols that complete the symbol that represents listening:

- mind (to think): what are you thinking about when you are listening ? Are your ears listening but is your mind wondering off, thinking about something completely different ? Are you thinking about what you can say next to show you know better ? Or are you really immersed in the story, its context and the different angles ?

- eyes (to see): what are you looking at when you are listening to someone ? Are you glancing at your cell phone for the latest email, or at the clock on the wall ? Or are you looking at the person in front of you, their body language, the way they look at you ? Looking people straight in the eyes ...

- undivided attention (to focus): do you focus completely on the person you are listening to ? To their words, their posture, the actual words they are using, the sentences that are being spoken ? Or are you preparing in your head that email you want to send, or the difficult meeting yesterday with your boss ?

- heart (to feel): are you feeling what the other person is feeling ? Do you "hear" what is not being said, or about maybe the underlying message that is being shared hesitantly ? Or are you filtering out that information that is not aligned with your views or values ?

Listening or hearing are words we use easily ... "Yes yes, I am listening ... I am hearing you". Yet to what extent do we use not only our ears, but also minds, eyes, heart and give the exchange our undivided focus ? Fully listening is not easy: it requires a bit of practice, but is very rewarding, not only for the listener, but even more so for the person who is sharing his story.

Why brainstorming won't get your team out of the box

Brainstorming is a very popular tool to address a problem or challenge with a team. The logic is that the ideas of a handful of people will be more creative or powerful than those of an individual. No issue here. In a brainstorming session, each participant takes turns to come up with an idea, and all are listed on a flipchart, without evaluating, judging or even reacting. The long list of ideas is then reduced, ideas are voted on, or combined.

Brainstorming is very intense. Energy is high. Participants think hard to come up with a brilliant idea waiting their turn ... and hoping that nobody else will have the same idea ! Nothing worse in a brainstorming session than to have your neighbor steal the idea you were about to share !

Neuroscience has demonstrated the limits of brainstorming when it comes to finding real breakthrough ideas. Because of the high level of energy and the dynamics of a brainstorming session, participants come up with those ideas or solutions that require the least thinking effort. The brain is forced to work hard: while others shout their ideas, the brain works overtime to come up with something - anything - by the time it's its turn. After a second of relaxation once the idea has been added to the list, it's back to thinking hard to come up with something - again, anything - before the next turn.

Research by David Rock (Mr. Neuroleadership) has shown that forcing the brain to think under time pressure does not mean great ideas will pop out. It is quite the opposite. Real breakthrough ideas occur when the brain is at rest. When some question or riddle jumps around in our unconscious brain, the weaker connections between neurons are activated: those are the things we know but we don't use them routinely. And that's where new solutions are found. So David Rock recommends the following process. When you are faced with a really complex challenge, spend some time with your team to agree on what the key question is the team should answer in order to solve this challenge. Let the team disperse, and go back to what they regularly do. Then bring them together, one or two days later. The brain has been allowed to rest, and the question has been playing around in team members' brains over this period. Doing a brainstorming at that moment will deliver far superior ideas than the immediate brainstorming.

Need urgent and great new ideas ? Slow down first !

Looking for a-ha's ?

In a recent HBR article (November 2014), Mohanbir Sawhney and Sanjay Khosla indicate 7 areas where people or organizations can look for new insights and new ideas for products or processes or improvements in general. They define insight as an “imaginative understanding of an internal or external opportunity that can be tapped into to improve efficiency, generate revenue, or boost engagement.” A more simple term is “the a-ha moment” that we have all experienced at some point. The authors list different areas where individuals or teams should be looking for such insights, like  anomalies in customer data or evaluating the frustrations customers (internal or external) have with your organization’s services. They explain clearly WHERE to look, but the key of HOW to look is a bit buried and not made really explicit. They end each of their 7 sections by giving examples of how to actually find these insights, and the how in this case is ... the question ! The authors each time highlight the potential discovery by examples such as “ask yourself … is this or that possible ? what would happen if … ?” And this part ... the HOW ... is really the key to creating insights, because you can apply this to any situation, way beyond the 7 proposed by the authors.

Asking questions to yourself, and hoping that some of them will generate an insight, is possible but limited by our own mental models. It is difficult to pull yourself out of your comfort zone and questions that you ask yourself would probably be limited in depth or degree of innovativeness. So that’s why it is useful to put a group of people around a table, and instead of brainstorming for solutions or answers to a given problem, ask each to come up with questions. The rule is that people can only state questions, and nobody will be answering them. The questions are there to stir up ideas. Just like in brainstorming, no questions are off limits, and nobody can react and judge what others are saying.  At first it will be a bit awkward, and some of the questions will be very basic. But keeping the practice up for some time, you will create a dynamic where certain questions trigger other questions. Don’t be discouraged by sometimes long periods of silence. Thinking is not a bad thing when it happens !

You can hope for a-ha moments while in the shower or doing your favorite sport. Or you can teach your team to create them by asking each other questions … Give it a try !

Questions to ... yourself !

I read a lot. I read all the time. Mostly books around leadership and management and approaches on how to make teams more effective. But I have to admit that very few books really stand out: it is very often a nice idea spread over 300 pages. And if I'm honest, I also have to admit that it is very rare that I read something that really stays with me, and that I apply going forward. The last time that happened was when I read "Time Management for Dummies" and became addicted to creating and re-updating "to-do lists". This was a long time ago, but it stuck and to-do lists are still very much a key element of how I remain organized.

So I was not expecting a lot when I recently started Marilyn Adam's book "Change Your Questions, Change Your Life". First of all, it's a management book written in novel style, and I really don't like that. As I started, I thought it would be another book about asking good questions and getting the best out of people.

But they key insight for me was not about what questions to ask to others, but what questions to ask to yourself ! In particular in tense or difficult situations, situations where we sometimes give priority to what to say rather than to thinking about the best answer. Asking a question to yourself creates a space for reflection. It is really different that "talking to yourself" because asking a question gives you the choice of answers, while talking to yourself is more descriptive.

And I have to say that this idea of asking a question to myself has for some reason really stuck. I find myself easily asking MYSELF a question, when faced with a particular challenge or difficult situation. This happens very quickly, it's just a second or so, but creating the mental "pause" under the form of a question allows to look at options. Rather than diving in with the first response or intuition that comes to mind, asking a question, thinking about options and then taking the next step is really powerful. I have found it extremely easy to actually apply that several times per day.

Next time you are faced with a challenge, a difficulty, a tense situation, ask yourself a question. "What could be another explanation ?", "What would really be the best next step here ?". No need to rack your brain for the perfect question: just creating the pause and scanning the few options before moving ahead has helped me take better next steps. I am happy I didn't put the book aside !

Digital feedback anyone ?

In a recent workshop to help managers provide feedback - both positive and negative - to help with their team members' development, I was taken aback by a question of one of the participants ...

"Can we also give feedback by email ?"

Managers in Asia struggle with giving feedback, in particular the feedback for improvement. The fear of "what the discussion will lead to" very often simply means that managers avoid addressing the issues, and the team members don't get the feedback that would allow them to do better. Issues remain unsaid for way too long until they reach crisis proportions, and then it becomes easily an end-of-employment discussion. Lose-lose for sure. 

So now it seems that (maybe) some have found a solution: feedback by email !! After all, they must be thinking it is better than avoiding giving feedback all together, and sending out a feedback email means they can 'tick' this off of their to-do list. "Oh yes, I did give him the feedback ...!". There is nothing so easy to ignore as an email. And sending an email tells a lot about the effort the manager is willing to put into this ... The medium IS the message.

So no, giving feedback for improvement does not happen by email. Muster the courage to have a face-to-face conversation. Get comfortable (before you start) with the fact that the conversation will probably not turn out exactly as you have in mind. And keep in mind, whichever way the conversation goes, that your target is a win-win solution. Finally, don't forget that this is a conversation, so catch yourself when you become aware you are the one doing all the talking: ask a question, shut it and listen.

Seeing the same elephant

In the Indian parable of the six blind men and the elephant, each is very convinced about what he is facing from the way he is interacting with it. Yet when they share with each other what each thinks the strange creature they are facing is, it is clear there is no cohesion in their views.

This often happens in organizations. A team is asked to deal with a challenge, but people are hesitant to ask questions for fear of looking incompetent or unsure. After all, we are paid to solve problems, so when we are given one, we need to deal with it. A few days or weeks or months later, gaps and cracks start to appear. The solutions are not really working. What HR thought is not really compatible with what the production or the finance team has in mind. A lot of bickering appears about whose solution is better and why this or that won't work. Very rarely does the team go back to the starting point: what is the problem we are dealing with ?

That is a critical phase we spend a lot of time on when we apply the Action Learning methodology with a team facing a challenge. In fact, we will not talk about or suggest solutions, until the team has reached a shared understanding of what the problem is, and has written it down. Only then will the team go into looking for appropriate solutions. Spending time to reach this key point has clear advantages, as was demonstrated again in a recent experience.

The team had already spent 2 sessions (1/2 day each time) to work on the challenge, to look at it from different angles. Asking questions and identifying actions each of them took after the session, to try and get a better understanding. A better understanding of the problem the organization is facing, not a better understanding of solutions. And when, during the 3rd session, the team came to a consensus about what the real root cause of the problem was (and wrote it out in full, see the picture), two things happened:

(1) there was a real sense of achievement and of having made progress ...
(2) with a clear agreement of the problem, the solutions became almost obvious - although maybe not easy to implement.

The first point about sense of achievement is really critical. After all, the team had "only" reached a shared agreement of the problem ! They hadn't even solved it yet !! However, the positive energy that had built up in the earlier sessions, and the clear consensus of where the root cause lay, ensured that the team could quickly come up with a very comprehensive list of proposals (in the 4th and final session) that was proposed to management. And it was a clear team effort, with everyone feeling 100% at ease with the solutions.

When you keep on dealing with the same problem year after year, ask yourself the question: is my team really seeing the same elephant ?

There is no such thing as "the great question"

We all know the value of asking questions, rather than giving the answers (although the application of this principle may be more difficult). I am often asked "how do you ask a good question ?". There are blogs and even books that are written about "good questions" to ask. People make lists of the "top 10 questions" to ask in a coaching session.

This is pretty silly. There is no such thing as a good question, in absolute terms. My definition of a good question is a question that makes the other(s) think, and that this thinking leads to insights or breakthrough ideas. It is not about who asks the smartest question in the room. It is about what is the best question, for a particular context, at that particular time.

We recently ran an Action Learning session where one of the participants shared the concern she had about the motivation of her team members, given the fact that all of them had been working long hours for several months. She had brooded about this issue for quite some time and considered she was stuck.

If the participants in the session had read the books on asking good questions, they probably would have asked questions like "Why is this important for you ?" or "What would you do if there were no constraints ?". Great, open-ended and thought provoking questions ... in some circumstances. Instead, someone asked "Have you asked your team members what they think about this ?". "Of course" the problem presenter said "I don't know why I just think about this by myself without asking them what they think !". She explained that she had a very good relation with the team members, and that they often had lunch together and talked about everything ... except this issue. This was the end of the session ! The light bulb had gone off in the problem presenter's head. You might argue that it is rather basic to check with the other team members ... Well, maybe it is basic. For you. But that was not the case for her.

There are no rules for what makes a great question. The great question is the one that gets the light bulb going ... in the OTHER person's head, not in your's ! It depends on the other person, the context, and the particular moment in time. The next great question is not listed somewhere in a book ...