19.07.2024 Today’s Insights from Harvard Business Review: The Art of Asking Smarter Questions
Dear Students,
You may have heard it said that “asking good questions is more important than having all of the answers.” But what does this really mean, and how does it play out “in real life?” First and foremost, none of us, no matter how smart or experienced, can ever “have all the answers” (whatever that means, anyway). Gone are the days when employees, whether new or “seasoned,” relied on their business leaders to not only provide strategic direction, but also to micro-lead (my term) or micro-manage, to obtain the business results they were seeking.
Instead, given the ambiguity and uncertainty of the future (you’ve likely heard that our current world can be described as VUCA – volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous), effective leadership, whether that of a business function, a corporate division or an entire global company, corresponds more to devising and having the courage to ask great questions, then enabling and inspiring talent (like you!) to “think beyond,” eventually identifying strategies for making what seem to be the most optimal decisions at a given point in time (caveat: this is, of course, an oversimplification).
In the piece below, penned by three professors from Lausanne, Switzerland-based IMD (International Institute for Management Development), ambitious international students like you and your peers will learn about which kinds of questions are most strategic, productive and valuable, as well as considerations about how and when to leverage these most appropriately.
https://hbr.org/2024/05/the-art-of-asking-smarter-questions?ab=HP-hero-for-you-text-2&giftToken=12197835201720887214629
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With organizations of all sorts facing increased urgency and unpredictability, being able to ask smart questions has become key. But unlike lawyers, doctors, and psychologists, business professionals are not formally trained on what kinds of questions to ask when approaching a problem. They must learn as they go. In their research and consulting, the authors have seen that certain kinds of questions have gained resonance across the business world. In a three-year project they asked executives to brainstorm about the decisions they’ve faced and the kinds of inquiry they’ve pursued. In this article they share what they’ve learned and offer a practical framework for the five types of questions to ask during strategic decision-making: investigative, speculative, productive, interpretive, and subjective. By attending to each, leaders and teams can become more likely to cover all the areas that need to be explored, and they’ll surface information and options they might otherwise have missed.
hbr.org
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This is a great read for candidates like you and your friends, who may be seeking global leadership roles and astutely “planning for the unplanned,” in hopes of inspiring your teams, your organizations and of course, yourself, while evolving into an exciting, unknown, and ideally profitable future.
Wishing you a VUCA-free evening!
Best,
Amy-Louise