How to Use Questions for Improved Decision Making

🤔 One of the skills I've worked hardest to improve is asking better questions. Here are 7 tips I've learned to ask powerful questions: 1️⃣ Ask one question at a time Don't spray questions like shotgun pellets. If you ask 3-4 questions in a row, people will forget them. Ask one -> Get an answer -> Ask the next. 2️⃣ Opt for shorter questions Asking long questions is often as bad as asking multiple questions. Long questions confuse people. It takes a surprising amount of confidence to ask short, simple questions. 3️⃣ Become comfortable with silence If you ask a good question, you should expect some silence. Silence is the noise thinking makes. Leave space for it. 4️⃣ Ask open-ended questions You'll get way better information if you avoid simple yes/no questions. They're often too limiting. For example, asking your boss “How do you think I’ve been performing lately?” is fundamentally different than “Do you think I’ve been performing well?” 5️⃣ Avoid “Why” questions Questions that begin with “why” tend to make presumptions or assume the worst (e.g., “Why did you…”). They put people on the defensive. You want to invite someone into a discussion with you — not shut down the conversation with a question that prompts defensiveness. 6️⃣ Ask “What” and “How” questions Questions that start with “What” or “How” invite the other person to share their ideas (without any presumptions). The biggest difference you can make in your questions is to substitute "What" and "How" questions for "Why" or yes/no questions. 7️⃣ Don’t hide answers in your questions Questions like “Why wouldn’t we just [take this course of action]?” are what author Michael Bungay Stanier calls “offering advice with a question mark attached,” and it’s a subtle form of manipulation. Ask legitimate questions — not contrived ones. Thanks to friends and mentors like James Pratt, Harry Gefre, Brittany Blumenthal, and Bobby Moran for teaching me how to ask better questions!

Being the *decider* (as Bush famously said) becomes less important for a manager as your career grows. What got you here, won't get you there. Your decisions certainly have a huge impact. But as your org grows, they're making more decisions. And you can't scale to make more decisions. The percentage of important decisions you're making in your organization (vs other people make) decreases. What takes over? Your ability to teach your decision-making criteria. This is how leadership scales. How do you personally make a high-quality decision? You have a set of guidelines. If you think hard enough, you can recognize the criteria you used. Your more junior leaders don't have the same criteria in their heads. This is the gap you need to close. As you scale, instead of *making* decisions, you need to ask questions about their decision criteria. Not what decisions they made, but what criteria they used. "What are your team's priorities?" - This gives you visibility into what they value. Do they have a clear list? Is it documented? "Why is priority 3 above priority 4?" - Do they understand, and have they thought through their priorities? Are they worried about each area for the right reason? "How did you determine task #4 comes before task #5?" - Audit a few specific decisions, and ask what criteria was used. If their decisions consistently follow logical criteria, you can assume that other decisions follow the same logic. "What here should I be paying attention to?" - This is a key question. If you looked at the details of every project (which you can't), you'd recognize dangerous areas. Abnormal amounts of PR risk. Hiring risk. Visibility risk. Give your team practice in identifying what tasks require extra leadership visibility. What you'll do is approach decisions not from the decision itself, "Why did you launch on X date?" but instead by questioning the priority behind the decision. "Explain why hitting the date is your number one priority?" As you learn to ask the right questions, your leaders will improve their decision-making based on improving their decision criteria. For more on scaling your leadership (and unlearning things which got us here), read on!

One of the first sentences I learned in English (I was born in Israel) was "but why". This used to drive my parents mad and while I am still an unbelievably curious person, I understand the reason for that frustration of theirs. "Why" is not only overused, it's time to rethink its effectiveness. "Why" leads to inaccurate answers, often justifications instead of true motivations. These faulty explanations become anchors, thanks to biases like "commitment consistency" and "confirmation bias." So, what should we ask? 1️⃣ "What will this enable you to do?" - Shifts focus to the decision's context. 2️⃣ "Why is that important to you?" or "What's at stake?" - Uncovers emotional drivers. 3️⃣ "Who else cares about that outcome?" - Considers social influence. Moving beyond "why," we gain deeper insights and create a more impactful experience for the audience (customers, partners, leaders, or colleagues). **** By the way, when worded more conversationally, I have found these questions lead to far better outcomes with 10 and 12-year-old negotiators too... #insights2action #BeyondTheSurface #DecisionMaking