The former British Prime Minister Tony Blair wrote a marvellous autobiography, A Journey, which repays the reading as it contains a host of vignettes into the challenges faced by leaders. In the chapter 'We Govern in Prose', Blair offers some insightful thoughts about another British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain.
For those who are unfamiliar with this period of history, Chamberlain is perhaps most widely known, and often mocked, for his attempts to appease Hitler prior to the outbreak of the Second World War. In hindsight the course of action Chamberlain chose seems singularly clueless, but as Blair insightfully observes:
Chamberlain was a good man, driven by good motives. So what was the error? The mistake was in not recognising the fundamental question. And here is the difficulty of leadership: first you have to be able to identify that fundamental question. That sounds daft - surely it is obvious; but analyse the situation for a moment and it isn't.
For decision makers in organisations, the stakes are considerably lower than the likelihood of another world war. Yet, the principle involved, remains the same—have they identified the fundamental question?
This issue becomes greatly magnified when the flow of questions is coming thick and fast. In such situations, key insights and concerns are often pushed to one side as positional authority and authoritarian styles dominate the decision-making process in an attempt to maintain control and not lose momentum.
This intractable problem has no easy fix as a comprehensive solution involves reasoned deliberation, authoritative leadership, and capabilities which account for a complex range of strategic challenges. However, one key to the solution can be implemented by everyone within an organisation—regardless of seniority—and that is asking better questions.
Questions Are Cheap, Questioning is Expensive
If you have spent any time around children, or even vaguely remember what it was like to be a child, you will know that questions abound:
Parent: "It's time to go to bed now."
Child: "Why?"
Parent: "Because it's late and you need to sleep."
Child: "Why?"
Parent: "So you can be well-rested for school tomorrow."
Child: "Why?"
Parent: "Because getting enough sleep helps you learn and grow."
Child: "Why?"
Parent: "Because your brain and body need rest to function properly."
Child: "Why?"
Parent: "So you can have energy and feel good during the day."
Because questions come so readily as part of the human condition, we can be lulled into thinking that asking questions is a simple process—yet this is far from true. This is because there is a difference between asking questions and the process of questioning. The former can be discharged by simply asking "why?" and has become a widely used approach in organisations thanks to the 'Five Whys' technique. While this is not without some merit, it suffers from several criticisms—most notably that the volume of 'whys' creates a false sense of plumbing to the root cause of a situation. In consequence simply asking "why?" differs from a series of strategically positioned questions designed to take the participants on a journey of discovery.
This is a critical concept because in the world of business, the average manager has no more experience in asking questions than does the average employee. In many ways, questions are analogous to opinions (everyone has one), while the act of questioning is analogous to reasoned deliberation—only seasoned experts can do it well.
Unlike in other professions—psychologists, philosophers, lawyers, historians, or medical doctors—managers are not formally trained in the art of questioning. This is not only problematic, but highly costly for organisations.
AI is only adding momentum to this problem, as services such as ChatGPT or Copilot drive the shift from managers as subject matter experts (SME), who lead the team due to their expertise, to managers as questioners in chief. This shift in management approach was summed up by Jane Fraser, CEO of Citigroup, in an interview for Fortune magazine: 'innovation isn't happening because there's a genius at the top of the company that's coming up with the answers for everything.'