Over the past few months a number of my top clients have engaged me very specifically in the process of questioning. Of course, we've talked about how to ask questions. But we moved beyond the process to some very specific questions.
I was, therefore, intrigued by the Times interview with Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO, the design firm based in Palo Alto, California. Most of you may know that IDEO is probably the leading design firm in the world, and a firm rather philosophically oriented. So I wasn't surprised to see the column title: He Prizes Questions More Than Answers.
And Brown's career advice? Always be highly inquisitive and interested in not being siloed. I've always been interested in different things and different pieces of the process, whether it's as an organization or in design or whatever it might be. I've always liked being an interdisciplinary person, and I always give that same advice to others. Particularly in a world like today, where change is going on around us all the time, agility and resilience are two characteristics that organizations need, and individuals need.
Back to my clients and their questions about questions. One of my clients has asked how to ask nonthreatening questions. I told him I'd get back to him. I need to think about that. One of my responses is that if a question isn't to some degree threatening, perhaps it should be. Not threatening in an interpersonal way, but threatening in the sense that something a person is doing needs to be rethought. But I'm still mulling over that.
Still another client has me working on coaching and mentoring the top team in client relationship skills. They are well into the subject of questioning, and always searching. What I've found in listening to them is that their questions tend to be project oriented, project needs of the client--so they can sell to the client. They get a request for a proposal, and they try to figure out the proposal, the client expectations and all that usual sales stuff. They have positively brilliant questions about projects and the work.
But, I push them below those questions to deeper and more profound questions. Questions that go beyond the obvious boundary of the RFP. Their pencils came out and hit the paper when I suggested that they get outside the obvious issues, and ask questions like the following:
- Where is this RFP really coming from? What's driving it. I should say that my usual perspective on RFPs is that they are a means for purchasing agents to cover their ass in hiring, so they get the decisionmakers assent and the RFP functions as a protective device. Or, if an RFP comes in from out of the dark, it's usually wired. It costs a lot of energy, time and money to respond to an RFP, so I'm wary. On occasion, if the request is significant and the client determined, I'll get his agreement to fund my proposal workl. After all, what my potential clients want is to find out whether someone else has better ideas. I have no intention of giving that information away.
- What's in this project for your organization? I really want purposive responses, and not superficial answers to those questions. And I'll want to know how the project will tie into their business and strategy.
- What's in this project for you personally? That may or may not be related to obvious business objectives. Does she want to build a reputation? Does he get satisfaction out of making a contribution to the organization? One of the more intriguing responses I got was from a potential client that I'd gotten to know over a few years, and his boss called me in and asked me to work with his report. I was mystified. First of all, I couldn't see that he needed my services. So I went and talked with my potential client, told him I didn't think he needed my services, and asked why he wanted to work with me. "Very simple, he responded. In your interviewing you can find out whether or not I'm going to get promoted to VP. And if not, I'm out of here." I chuckled, and suggested that was so amusing I'd sign on to the project, but no promises whatsoever. It was a deal. Oh yeah. Just as soon as his boss got the feedback from the interviews, he was promoted to VP. Six weeks into the usual twelve month service.
What calls out great questions is the "opacity of living." Opacity. Swell term. It means that we lack clarity, lack transparency, issues are unintelligible. In a highly unpredictable, ambiguous world, we need clarity. I, too, prize questions.
In the final analysis, our questions are a critical study of how people come to believe what they believe. When your questions take you to that place, then you've really got something to work with in business as well as in life.