Leading with Questions, 3rd Edition

3Why We Have Trouble Asking Questions

Remember Cindy Stewart's story from Chapter 1? As the “floor girl” in a sewing factory, she heard the factory managers discussing a bottleneck in the production line. “As they wrestled with solutions, none of which worked, I can clearly recall that I was thinking, ‘I wish they would ask me.’” Unfortunately, many of us can see something of ourselves in those managers. They were having problems, their solutions didn't work, and they still didn't reach out to others with questions.

If, as noted in Chapter 2, the open inquiry represented by the free flow of honest questions and conversation is so powerful and beneficial, the question naturally arises: Why do we so often have trouble asking questions? In discussing this with leaders around the world, we have found that a number of answers come up consistently. We have difficulty with questions for four primary reasons:

1. We avoid questions out of a natural desire to protect ourselves.
2. We are too often in a rush.
3. We often lack skills in asking or answering questions due to a lack of experiences and opportunities, of training, and of role models.
4. We find ourselves in corporate cultures and working environments that discourage questions, especially those that challenge existing assumptions and policies.

Our Desire to Protect Ourselves

One of the most difficult challenges you may have as a leader is accepting that you may not know what is right, or best, for most situations. We have been accustomed ...