Sagacious Think

seeing through the trees

This list of 4 tips on asking questions came from a Harvard Business School newsletter and they struck a nerve with me.  Asking questions is such a powerful tool in developing ideas, and some of the best ideas come out of a dialog that starts with “This may be a stupid question, but…”

Here’s the four tips:

1. Keep them open ended.  As a provocative questions that encourage team members to think for themselves.  Start with “why” or “how.
2. Don’t Lead.  Avoid questions that you know the answer to.
3. Encourage solutions. “What do you suggest we do to get the best results?” is a great question as it encourages ownership of the issue.
4. Create a question culture.  Ask team members to bring critical questions to meetings to show that you value their queries.

Some of my best hires were smart people from outside the industry that did not necessarily meet all the criteria on the job requisition but had the smarts.  Because they did not have that industry experience they asked those “dumb” questions that really needed to be answered, and when people respond, “because we always did it that way” it causes everyone to pause and rethink, because they realize that is just not a good response.