Leadership: The Practice of Focusing on the Right Questions vs. Having the Answers!

I continue to be amazed at the common and ineffective practice by ‘leaders’ at all levels and in all types of organizations.  Regardless of sector, size, geographic or other demographics and psychographics, these leaders still believe that successfully managing and leading their organization is all about having the answers rather than asking the right questions at the right time! Here are some of the key reasons explaining why this is wrong-headed thinking that too often leads to undesired results ranging from unintended to even catastrophic.

From the perspective of effective task or productivity-focused performance, this drive to know the right answer leads to decisions that fail to first clearly discover and define the actual desired result. Emphasis on quick decisions, actions, and results increase this risk by not first making sure what the intended result will look like when achieved. For example, production-focused revenue targets are too often set without including other key criteria like key customer retention/growth, adherence to quality standards as part of this target, or achievement ‘without any unintended, negative impact on our business and key stakeholder groups.’ Suffice it to say, that worldwide business disasters like the Valdez and subsequent Louisiana oil spills could have been either averted altogether or minimized by asking the right question before these ventures began. For instance, "How can we prevent any catastrophic oil spills from occurring?" Or, if determined that it is not feasible "How can we immediately and totally recover if an oil spill occurs to prevent adverse environmental and economic damage to others?" Now, some might say this is naïve thinking. Yet, I can recall in the early stages when 3M had developed the ‘sticky’ paper but found that the cost was too high to be marketable. The management team responsible initially said that they couldn’t do any better. And, yet, after being told that if they couldn’t discover a more economic solution within the next two hours that they would be replaced with others who would, they came up with a creative solution that reduced the cost by 75% (25% better than the target). I have often successfully used a similar strategy with leaders and managers by asking "If your actual life REALLY depended on it, do you think you could find a solution somehow, somewhere?" For those who can’t imagine this as a reality I have substituted "their life" with "their job and career" and "company’s survival and ongoing success." In these cases, typically, by breaking out of their own thinking and decision-making habits with this unfreezing question, a better solution is discovered! Don’t you think that the same could have been true for these oil spill catastrophes? And, how about your own past ‘disasters’ to ‘misguided decisions, actions’ simply by asking the right question at the right time?

Just to make sure you don’t think this practice is limited only to task-focused situations; let’s also take a look at how it applies to influencing and/or managing people. Especially now, with the increasing demands on everyone due to more limited resources in a tougher, more competitive economy, people tend to also make this error for a variety of reasons ranging from responding as a creature of habit under stress, to implementing solutions that worked previously for them—though in different situations with different requirements, to deciding by ‘groupthink’ conformity in the face of adversity when different thinking is required for better results. In such situations, managers/leaders tend to over-delegate to individuals or teams that are NOT likely to successfully deliver the expected results. To minimize this, here is an antidotal practice—ask (yourself first and/or others who would REALLY know)—"Has this performer or team previously achieved the result as expected on a consistent basis for this same situation or a similar one?" If yes, then ask them to capitalize on that proven ‘know-how’ for this current challenge. If not, ask them "If your life REALLY depended on it…?"

Finally, this is not a problem limited to only certain types of individuals or organizations as noted at the start. Instead, it is becoming an epidemic in our fast-changing, fast-paced, market-driven world where the ‘call to action’ without ‘clear thinking’ is otherwise likely to have further disastrous results for us personally, organizationally, and societally! And, yet, the solution to preventing these consequences lies within our own power IF we simply choose to exercise and develop it! Remember…."your life DOES depend on it!"