We talked about ‘asking the right questions’ in our leadership development program class today, classic week two content of a program I’ve been helping run for over six years. But I had a new insight from the discussion today about asking “why” questions.
I have it in my head that “why” questions are good . . . start with why, ask why three or five times, all those types of rules that boil down to leading with purpose or digging to the root of an issue.
But in other contexts, as we talked about today, “why” can be accusatory and put people on their defenses. “Why did this happen?” “Why are the numbers like this?” “Why do you think that?” Instead, we can think about reframing why questions using “how” or “what”. Example: “How are we currently doing it?” vs “Why are you not doing that?”.
“Why” questions clearly have a purpose, but maybe there are better ways (how, what, have you considered . . .) to invite discussion and get to the same end.
With Love,
Natalie