Making a Valuable Contribution to Meetings by Asking Good Questions

Part 2 of 5 on the Power of Asking Questions

Bernice Moore-Valdez

Asking questions is an important way to contribute to a meeting. Most people know how to give their point of view without hesitation. It is more difficult to ask good questions. When we do, it enhances teamwork, group understanding, and positive action. To insert a good question, listen carefully to the conversation. Track what is missing or needed as people talk, and add your question in the flow of the conversation.

Here are some overall guidelines for questions:
Make questions open-ended, so the question can’t be answered “yes,” “no,” or “maybe.” A good question requires a thoughtful response, at a minimum a sentence.
Listen to the answer: inside and out. What was said and what did it mean? What was our reaction? Listen with a willingness to be influenced.
Respond. Engage in the conversation.
Ask another question and engage the group in an inquiry that leads to greater understanding

There are several kinds of questions:
Questions that seek information
Questions that clarify
Questions that invite other opinions and points of view
Questions that support collective understanding

Not all questions are useful. Sometimes, questions are phrased in a way to advocate a point of view and not necessarily to invite a response. I like to call these “false questions”, and will talk more about them in the fifth blog of this series. The focus of this particular blog will be on questions that seek information and to clarify.

Here are a couple of examples of questions that seek information. Guess which ones are the open-ended questions:

a. What do we need to do to complete the project on time and under budget?
b. What can get in the way of our completing the project on time?
c. Do we need to complete the project by the 15th of this month?
d. What tasks or deliverables have we overlooked in our project plan?

Pretty simple, isn’t it? Question c just clarifies the date—it’s answered with a yes or no, do we have to complete it by the 15th or not?

Questions a, b, and d are open-ended questions that seek information to help the entire group. The conversation the follows will lead to answers that will help the whole group understand the task at hand and how to avoid potential obstacles. Once you get the hang of it, open-ended questions become second nature and will play a valuable role toward giving your team needed traction.

Now that you’re seeing how important questions really are, how would you respond to the following statement:
A frustrated project manager throws down her pen: “This project is going off track in a hurry.”

The easy way out would be to just button your lip and let someone else take the heat, but that won’t solve anyone’s problems. This would be a perfect opportunity to ask a clarifying question, which helps to gain perspective from another. Again, good questions asked in an open-ended manner will help provide more information and determine what is truly needed. You might ask one or more of these clarifying questions:

What is going on?
What is making you so concerned?
What can we do to get it back on track?
What are the consequences of the project being off track?

The 4 examples are all open-ended, and the project manager can express why she is frustrated. These questions help the project leader and everyone present understand what has happened. Then with additional open-ended questions and ideas about possible actions, people know what to do to get the project back on track or how to mitigate the damage.

Clarifying questions help flesh out the information so that unanswered questions and concerns can be addressed. Clarifying questions are not only used when things are going wrong; they can also help clarify a new idea or potential solution.

Here’s another application of a clarifying questions. George presents a new idea for a process improvement at a group meeting. The following questions will help clarify the nuance of this proposed improvement:

How will your idea impact our bottom line?
What do we need to do to implement this idea?
How would we test this to make sure there are no unintended consequences?
What are the benefits and risks of implementing this?

Clarifying questions are a useful tool to ensure that their are no uncertainties or missing information that leave people guessing about what to do next.

In conclusion, when we ask good questions, we contribute to a group process that spurs conversation and helps us find collective answers. The best approach is to experiment. Try out open-ended questions and see what happens. If you have examples of how you’ve used open-ended questions to seeking information or to clarify, then please feel free to share them as a comment. Your participation in this blog is more than welcome and will enrich our collective engagement.

Please join us for our next blog as we explore questions that invite other perspectives and questions that support group understanding.

Increasing Efficiency in Team Meetings: The Importance of Asking the Right Questions

Part 1 of 5 on the Power of Asking Questions

Bernice Moore-Valdez

Without questions, meetings rapidly degenerate into posturing and positioning. One point of view is countered by another point of view. Sometimes the points are in opposition; sometimes they are points about completely different tracks that never come together.

To come to some kind of shared understanding and agreement that endures longer than the life of the meeting, posturing doesn’t help. Someone makes a point; some people nod with agreement, and maybe they agree, maybe they disagree, but you won’t find out what they really think in the meeting. Some people just keep their mouths shut, keeping their opinions to themselves. When people walk out of meetings shaking their heads, the lack of agreement is tangible. Sometimes the lack of agreement shows up at the water cooler.

Where it shows up and really hurts is when a group has important work to do that requires collaboration and everyone has a good opinion, but no one is asking questions like:

"What will get in our way?”
“How do you think this solution will work?”
“What do we agree about?”
“What are our areas of disagreement?”
“How did you arrive at that solution?”

All the opinions can be intimidating, especially when people with power have strong points of view and don’t understand that they also need to listen to get a different perspective on things.

I have worked with teams that argue their way to missed deadlines, overrun budgets, and team conflict. All the finger-pointing in the world can’t dig some groups out of the hole they are digging themselves by not seeking agreement, but by plowing ahead with multiple disagreeing points of view without asking questions that help to move a group closer to shared understanding. One team I knew with critical responsibility for developing software that was essential for the next generation of products disagreed their way to failure.

It is easy to point fingers; it is easy to believe in your own rightness and to get mad at the people who disagree. But when we have complex work to do and we really need to understand how to accomplish it, if we don’t ask questions, we don’t go in the same direction.

Is it important to go in the same direction? Silly question. In this age of “doing more with less,” the “new normal,” has us stretched pretty thin. Being courageous enough to ask a question to help people understand things the same way is important for creating alignment. Without it, it’s just another lousy meeting. We leave the meeting and do work arounds as best we can, trying to do what we think is needed from the best knowledge and understanding we have.

We all have good intentions. We all have good opinions. What we need to develop is the ability to ask the questions that move us and others toward shared understanding. When our collective intelligence gets cooking, no feat is too challenging. When our intelligence is isolated in our own heads that are full of opinions, the group’s IQ plummets.

Many of us have battle scars from trying to help groups be productive and work together better. Questions work most of the time; but every situation and group is different. Complexities abound. Without good questions, the complexities become disjointed. When questions open the space up for listening, the multiplicity of viewpoints alive in each moment can begin to sparkle and gain a laser focus.

Ask a question. Make it simple. Seek to understand, not to make a point. See what happens. Tell me how it goes.

Collaborationg with Questions: Introducing a Short Series on the Power of Asking Questions

Introduction to a 5 Part Series

Bernice Moore-Valdez

Once I worked in a telecommunications company that was growing by leaps and bounds—growing so fast things were breaking down. As we grew, the sales department fought with operations; sales over-promised and then blamed operations for under-delivering. Operations shot back: “Don’t sell what we can’t deliver!” IT tried to support the exploding growth by putting limits on it, cutting back the number of employees working at home, and our work-at-home employees were our lifeblood. We didn’t have enough employees to serve our customers. Customers complained that they weren’t getting what they paid for.

I was idealistic and wanted to help the business be successful and for the people to have good working relationships. I volunteered for a big assignment to lead a cross-functional team to improve interdepartmental communications. I was naive; I thought it would be easy to do. Boy, was I wrong! The team was a reflection of the larger organization; we struggled at every step with different points of view and approaches. No one had a corner on the right answer. Every meeting was filled with conflict, because everyone thought they were absolutely right.

The stakes were high and I felt like I was the captain of a sinking ship. I was forced to find a way to make it work, or it would cost me my job and possibly plunge the company into greater despair. As we moved forward, I learned by experimenting, failing, then by picking myself up and trying something new. I never gave up, and stayed one step ahead of the team to support them. This was truly a laboratory where I first learned how to help groups do good work together. Fortunately, I had a crew of team members that were sincere and well-intended; everyone wanted to help the business. Our conflictive dynamics could have destroyed us, but instead we pulled together and made it work by taking the time to listen and learn.

While leading this team, I learned the value of asking good questions and getting multiple perspectives on the table as equal voices. Another valuable concept that I learned from that experience was the importance of reflection. If you don’t take time to reflect upon what you have learned, then those meanings will not be added to your collective behavior and intelligence. Only when we understood each other, were we able to create an approaches that facilitated cross-departmental communications. It wasn’t easy. There was no silver bullet. It was hard work that was painful at times, but worth every effort.

Over the years with many other teams, I have refined my approach, learning new ways to create conditions that help people achieve the success they have dreamed about but feared impossible.
In the next few posts, the Collaboration Catalyst Blog will talk about some of the things I’ve learned about the power of asking good questions. I’ll give you tips, how-to’s, and also make you aware of some potential warning signs. In addition, I’ll share some insights into challenges of leading in a virtual environment and describe ways to create collective engagement with a globally dispersed team.
I hope you’ll join me and add your voice to an inquiry on how to get work done better by igniting collective capacity and strengthening relationships.

How Collaboration Helps Innovation

It's no secret that collaboration helps in the formation of good ideas, but this charming little video from writer Steven Johnson explains why it works.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NugRZGDbPFU&feature=player_embedded