I recently read a survey which said an average 5 year old
will ask 65 questions a day - and a 45 year old may ask as few as five. As a
parent of young children that doesn’t surprise me. My daughter greets me most
early evenings with a long list of questions because she’s curious for
knowledge. Her latest, “Daddy, why do giraffes have such long necks?” is a
great example. Instead of just accepting that’s how it is, she wants to know
why.
At that age our enquiring minds need answers, we ask
questions because we are interested and we care. It was a good question that
needed a good answer. “They need long necks to get to their favourite food on
top of the trees,” I replied. Her approving nod told me that I’d succeeded, but
it meant something more too. By listening to what mattered to her and
answering, she continues to ask questions. With my HR hat on I might even say
she’s engaged.
There are certainly similarities. One of the benefits of
engaged employees in my experience is that they ask lots of questions. They
want to know why things are done in a certain way, are curious and question the
status quo; this leads to them having the desire to change things for the
better.
This was very much the case at Virgin; in fact, we’d even
try and assess levels of curiosity at interview by giving candidates a tour of
the building to see what questions they’d ask. Google is another organisation
that’s well known for encouraging questions. CEO Eric Schmidt says “we run the
company by questions, not by answers”. Google welcomes questions to top
executives each week which sets the tone that anyone can ask anything of anyone
else.
Sadly, not every organisation acts the same way which is
possibly why that survey showed such a drop off in questioning as we get older.
Some organisations have a culture that stifles the freedom to ask questions,
and the business suffers as a consequence. If employees don’t feel comfortable
asking “why are we doing it this way?” then they won’t find it easy coming
forward with good ideas. It might just be easier to keep quiet. Even worse, if
they don’t feel their views are valued by the organisation it’s a slippery
slope towards disengagement and exit.
However, when organisations embrace questions it encourages
an engagement culture of ‘we’ rather than ‘management versus employees’. If
employees are involved in asking questions that resolve problems they will feel
more engaged in implementing that change, especially if they have been the
catalyst in finding the solution themselves. How much more motivating is it to
be praised for thinking about the business than being told “that’s not how
we’ve done it here for the past 20 years”, or that dreadful innovation killer,
“if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”.
So, how do you encourage your organisation to develop a questioning
culture?
If you are a leader, it has to start with you. If you ask
more open and exploratory questions of the business (e.g. how could we do
things differently, how could we turn a set-back into an opportunity, etc.),
you’ll encourage others to think and contribute. You could even ask employees
directly, “what do you think we should do?” You might be surprised at how this
trickles down and where some of the best suggestions come from.
You should also support the outcome of good questions by
creating a sense of shared responsibility for the solution. The worst outcome
is when someone spots a problem and, as a reward for their question they are
told to ‘go away and fix it’. This will only add to their workload and make
them wonder, why bother? When responsibility is shared, solutions are shared
and the cycle of questions leading to improvement is not broken.
A questioning culture is not easy to implement, it has to
emerge through encouragement and being seen to act on outcomes. It has to be
believable and not a series of slogans or posters. You are asking employees to
question the business and the answer you’ll sometimes have to give might be “I
don’t know”. It can be a risk, but it’s far better to encourage involvement and
ownership than stifle engagement. You probably won’t be asked why giraffes have
long necks, but you may be asked a question that could transform your business
for the better.
- Richard Roberts, Employee Engagement & HR Consultant
at en:Rich HR
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