How does asking the right questions make great teams?
It had almost been a year since Lakshmi started working as a graphic designer in a thriving start-up. She was great at her job. She could bring life to almost any illustration that she created.
Yet she was not satisfied. She couldn’t pinpoint what bothered her, but you could feel her discomfort. She was gaining finesse in her craft, but her enthusiasm was hitting new lows every day.
This was a matter of concern for her team leader, Samuel. He was a compassionate, thoughtful leader. But all the compassion couldn’t get him inside the heads of his team members.
I come across such situations in my career as a strengths coach, more often than one would expect. Great resources, good leaders, but low levels of connect with one another.
Most of the times, the real issue is not being able to find the real issue. Right diagnosis is a must for an effective treatment.
Spelling out what I am sure the title gives away; all you need here is to ‘ask the right questions.’ The journey from being a good leader to becoming a great one is all about being able to fill in the blanks and connect the dots.
Asking the right questions lets one to discover their strengths, their potential and their interests.
So, where do we start from -
Be honest. Address the elephant in the room, especially when it’s your responsibility. From where I was standing, I could see that Samuel was afraid of losing a great resource. It seemed safer to keep the issue under the carpet before it got real. All it did was make things worse.
Create an environment that ensures psychological safety. Lakshmi’s fear of sabotaging a pleasant relationship and losing her job for what seemed inconsequential was not helping her or anybody.
Now that you know that people aren’t being as candid as they should be- ask the real questions. Everyone’s approach is different Here are a couple of ways that you may frame yours.
It’s difficult being vulnerable. You can lead the way by sharing your experiences, relevant to context. Samuel began by stating how he was feeling about the entire situation and said that he really wanted to make it better for her.
Frame questions in such a way that they encourage people to spill the beans. Sometimes silence gets you the best responses. Ask the question and let it hover in the air. If nothing is forthcoming, give them options about how they feel. Then ask them to tell you the story.
Dig. Deep. Probe. So many of our struggles at work are sometimes manifestations of what’s going on at home. This is especially true of times when there is no clear boundary between work and home. Ask questions that make people reflect - If not this, what else would you be doing? What’s really bothering you? Is it so? Talk to me about it? What are the things that you miss about working from office? What’s the greatest gift of working from home? And such. You get the drift.
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It turned out that, all Lakshmi was missing was talking to someone who shared her interests at work. Someone who she could brainstorm with on similar lines, who she could compete with and collaborate with. Given it was a start-up, hiring someone else was not on the table then. But Samuel could think of various other alternatives including organising a ‘creative wall day’ where creativity was discussed and explored. It’s a more close-knit team than ever before.
If you don’t have the right answer, maybe you haven’t asked the right question yet.
