Leading with Questions, 3rd Edition

6Creating a Questioning Culture

The goal for the inquiring leader is to change the corporate culture from one of telling to one of asking, to help everyone see and understand that questions need to become their primary communications tool. As noted in Chapter 2, changing the culture of an organization pays dividends. And there is no more effective way of creating a questioning culture than by using questions to do so. “Questions have had the impact of changing the culture from one of employees' feeling disenfranchised to one of ownership,” Mark Thornhill told us. As CEO of the Midwest Region of the American Red Cross, Thornhill has adopted a questioning style of leadership. “It has empowered [my team] and caused significant change in attitudes and productivity. It has enabled my manager [and me] to better understand each other.”

The Leader's Role in Shaping a Questioning Culture

How can a leader develop a questioning culture? Here are some strategies that can build a powerful learning and questioning culture:

• Start at the top. The questioning culture must begin with the most senior leaders, who model the frequent use of good questions.
• Create an environment that enables people to challenge the status quo, take risks, and ask more questions. Recognize that many standard practices, policies, and procedures are no longer valuable to the company—if they ever were.
• Connect the values and processes of the organization to the use of questions.
• Optimize the opportunities to ask ...