What Kind of Questions Do You Ask – or Do You Remember to Ask at All?
The biggest challenges companies face often stem from what has been overlooked—questions that were forgotten or never asked.
One of a leader’s most critical roles is to surface information, insights, alternative solutions, and critical questions that no one else in the organization has thought to ask. Gaining such insights requires actively asking questions and positively challenging the available data. Yet, asking questions actively can feel difficult. Why?
Leaders are often expected—or expect of themselves—to possess a high level of expertise. A leader may fear that asking too many questions could diminish their perceived authority within the organization. Moreover, the right questions may not come to mind in the heat of the moment but only in hindsight.
In their Harvard Business Review (May-June 2024) article, “The Art of Asking Smarter Questions,” IMD Business School professors Chevallier, Dalsace, and Barsoux challenge leaders’ ability to ask the right questions often enough. They encourage actively developing questioning techniques to significantly improve decision-making capabilities within organizations.
According to the article, questions can be divided into five categories:
- Exploratory Questions: What is known?
Aimed at understanding what is already known, the goals, and what needs to be learned to achieve them.
Example: What happened? What’s working and what isn’t? What’s causing the problem? - Speculative Questions: What if?
Focused on exploring possibilities or alternative options.
Example: Could we do this differently? What potential alternatives have we not considered? - Generative Questions: What now?
Designed to understand available resources and capabilities.
Example: What’s our next step? Do we know enough to move forward? - Interpretative Questions: So what?
Intended to deepen understanding of the problem and the proposed solution.
Example: What does this mean for our operations now and in the future? What are we trying to achieve? - Subjective Questions: What’s unsaid?
Aimed at understanding individual perspectives and experiences.
Example: What concerns you the most about this? Are stakeholders genuinely aligned?
Do You Actively Ask Questions?
What types of questions feel most natural to you? A simple way to develop and expand your questioning technique is to create a list of questions under each of these five categories and systematically apply them in all decision-making situations.
If more questions had been asked…
… would your strategy look different?
… could a bad investment have been avoided?
… would the organization have been more committed to a tough decision?
… would your growth metrics be on a whole new level?
If you’d like to dive deeper, here’s a link to the insightful HBR article: https://lnkd.in/gQ5rwfmu
