601 | Why Enhance Leadership Through Asking Questions?

Introduction (00:00:00)

Let's talk about how good questions improve communication, culture, decision making and accountability within a team. Stay tuned because that is coming up next.

Welcome to the Chris LoCurto Show where we discuss leadership and life and discover that business is what you do, not who you are.

Welcome to the show, folks. I hope you're having a fabulous day wherever you are. Today we are asking the question, why should we ask questions?

We are discussing how important it is to make sure that in leadership, in life, whatever it is, that you're asking quality questions. Right.

So we're going to explore enhancing your leadership through asking questions and why that's such a game changer.

Now, you may be thinking, Chris, this is so ridiculously basic. Why in the world are you talking about this? Well, it's pretty simple. Way too many people do not ask enough questions.

In fact, there is a great proverb, Proverbs 18:2, that says fools have no interest in understanding, they only want to air their own opinions.

I can tell you that in this life there are a lot of folks who struggle with gaining understanding but have no problem making statements or giving their opinions. And that is a common thing. It's-- I think a lot of people don't even think twice about it.

They think that that's the way it's supposed to be. I should just give my opinions, my opinion matters. The statement I make is the thing that matters.

I've been in 14,000 different meetings where instead of gaining quality perspective, asking good questions, finding out what other people think, really, truly coming to understand them, instead what happens is people just throw out their opinions.

So think about it. How many meetings have you been in where when you walk out, there's been tons of talk, lots of discussion, but when you walk out, there's really no solution, there's really no productivity that's going to happen after this.

It was actually a waste of time because all people did was give their opinions or make statements. Well, as a leader, you just don't have that luxury. You have got to solve problems.

You've got to get to the best answers to the best solutions to the best communication, whatever it is. And when leaders don't ask enough questions, there are a lot of pitfalls. Think, think shallow communication. Think horrible decision making.

Right. Think culture issues. These are things that will affect you immensely if you don't start learning how to ask lots of questions. Quality questions, gaining quality perspective. And then if you don't teach your team to do the same.

The Importance of Asking Questions (00:03:13)

So why does asking questions matter? Well, that's a great question. I'm so glad you asked. First thing is, is that it absolutely improves leadership effectiveness.

Now, if we just spend time telling people what we want, dictating to them the things that we want them to hear, instead of gaining insight into what they think, gaining quality perspective by, you know, asking them how they see things, then what happens is we just transfer information to somebody else and expect that they go and do exactly what we think they should be doing.

Instead, when you start asking really good questions, you make sure that people understand what you're communicating or you find out that they don't. Are they clear on what it is that you're communicating?

If somebody's communicating to you, are you clear on what they are saying? So a great thing is that it fosters open communication. It also creates considerably better problem solving.

One thing that happens a lot when an issue comes up or a brainstorming session is happening is that instead of truly trying to understand what somebody is saying, we're just waiting to throw out our opinion.

So we go around the room, people make statements, throw out their opinions, and that's it. There's no real discussion, or the discussion is no, I think you're wrong because of this.

We've all been there, right? So there's no alignment in what we're trying to accomplish. And the problem solving is at best, surface level, because all we have is a bunch of opinions. Instead, when we dig in to find out, what is it that you're seeing?

Why is that the answer? What happens when this, you know, we do this over here. I hear what you're saying. How's that going to affect this over here?

When you dig in, ask quality questions, and get everybody aligned on getting to the greatest perspective, it changes problem solving.

You might have somebody who has a great idea, but since nobody ever listens to them or asks questions or, you know, takes their thoughts to heart, they just don't answer.

You've probably been in many meetings where somebody just sits there. They never say anything. And when you dig in and show them that you actually care to understand what they think, then they can open up, they can talk about things.

Common Leadership Pitfalls (00:05:49)

So not only does it help you be effective in problem solving and brainstorming, but it also helps you to kind of avoid some common pitfalls. What are those pitfalls?

Well, like I said in the beginning, what about shallow communication where all we do is we just give the minimum amount that we think is required? Or again, some people don't speak at all.

They don't talk about it, they don't talk through it, they don't share information.

So really we're not getting to any depth of problem solving, direction, communication, sharing, vision, making sure that people understand what projects we're working on, what strategy we're focused on.

It just seems very shallow. Another thing is that it really creates shallow discussions if people don't know how to ask questions. Well, and I know it seems silly.

Well, of course people know how to ask questions. Yeah. However, many people are not trained on how to ask the right questions and be open minded and be willing to gain quality perspective in something like a problem solving session. Right.

If we're having a meeting on solving a problem, a discussion on it. So what happens is we don't get to any really good quality information and then instead of being aligned on what we do, we're misaligned.

Another thing is that we're missing out on opportunities for accountability and growth.

Something that happens all the time in accountability, or let me say the lack of accountability is instead of discovering why something's not happening or what, what is holding a team member back or holding a project back or whatever.

Instead of getting to what's really going on by asking quality perspective gathering questions, what we end up having is some sort of discussion, debate or argument on why somebody isn't where they're supposed to be.

And then we miss out on holding them accountable. We miss out on actually asking questions of like, well, this is the thing that we said you were going to do. Like this is the expected result.

We've discussed this, you've signed off on this. This is something that has been in place for months now. Help me to understand why we're not doing this. When we don't dig in and ask great questions, then what happens is we get a lot of excuses.

We might even get a lot of blame game. We might even get a lot of victim mentality. When all of that happens, then another terrible pitfall happens, which is the lack of growth.

We're missing the opportunity for growth. When you as a leader become more focused on getting to the best information that you can and spending time asking questions and spending time, you know, gaining perspective.

Even if perhaps the perspective that you're gaining may be a struggle, maybe somebody struggling with victim mentality at the time, that's okay.

The more you dig in and ask quality questions, what you may discover is it opens them up to being truthful and honest with themselves. Self awareness is massive.

If you can help somebody get there, then they may be able to grow out of this process. So there's a lot of great reasons for why we should be asking questions.

What Happens When Leaders Don’t Ask Questions? (00:09:33)

What are some risks if we don't? These are easy.

You probably already can list this off yourself. Communication breakdown is probably number one. When we don't ask good questions, then we see that team interactions become ridiculous, they become chaotic.

Well, nobody told me this or I didn't understand that thing. How many times have you had somebody when you ask them, hey, why isn't this thing happening, getting done, this project, moving forward, whatever the answer is, well, nobody told me.

Nobody explained that to me. Well, I didn't understand that. I didn't know I was supposed to do that. One of the things that we see a lot with, you know, there's some really good operating systems out there that have terrible accountability.

They work on a good linear level, but they just don't have great accountability. And what we discover all the time is that they are lacking in deep diving into what's going on and what the problem truly is.

Therefore, people walk away thinking everything's fine, only to find out months later there are problems, there's issues. We help companies fix this all the time because it's just not quality communication, right?

There's communication breakdowns. Another thing is cultural missteps, right? A lack of questions breeds confusion around what are our values? Right? What is the thing that we value the most?

You might find a team member is actually really stuck on being in a silo, not recognizing that they're being in a silo because they don't truly understand that we're supposed to work together as teams.

We're supposed to care about the entire company. Don't just go focus on your own thing. How does your thing affect other people? How does their stuff affect you?

What kind of information can you give to help other people to solve problems in their areas? Instead of being stuck in one's own cultural values inside of a company, do we truly understand what the company values most?

Do we truly understand how a company values its clients? Right. Do we have team members understanding, hey, as much as we possibly can, the client comes first. They're the ones who put the food on our table.

So focus on taking care of them. What can you do? What can you do differently? How can you solve problems? Right? I can't tell you how many times I have listened to leaders talk about how it appears as though their team members don't really care about the clients.

They just care about what they do. They just care about what they do on a daily basis. You know, they just focus on their job. It's almost as if they're the Important ones, and the client just doesn't seem that important.

That is a cultural misstep, folks. What about how a lack of quality questions creates misunderstandings if we don't get to the best information? How many times have you had somebody make the best call they could?

Well, I don't have enough information on this, so I'm just going to assume that it means this. We all know what happens when we assume things, right?

Things fall apart, things don't go the way we expect, we don't get the results that we expect. Well, what happens when it's a cultural issue? Well, I just thought that I could do this because, well, nobody told me that we're not supposed to do this over here, right?

When we don't dig in and make sure people understand and make sure that we're on the same page and make sure that they are asking quality questions as well, then what we get is cultural misunderstandings.

And I can tell you that tends to be something that a lot of businesses struggle with. If you have a business where there's aspects of your culture that's just not going the way that you want, chances are it's because it's not communicated really well.

I guarantee you it's because there's also not accountability attached to it. Other risks of not asking questions would be flawed decision making, folks. It is too critical. Business is running at a incredible rate of speed.

It is too critical for you to make sure that you have the best perspective possible before making decisions. Now, I'm not saying wait three months to make a decision.

What I am saying is make sure that you're asking enough questions to gain as much quality perspective that you can make the right decision with the amount of information that you have.

You're not hearing me say, don't pull the trigger until everything is perfect. That is not what I'm saying.

What I'm saying is that if you don't get the best perspective that you can, you know, at the time, or however much time you have, make sure you know how much time you have before you must make a decision, then what happens is, is that you end up making not so good decisions or even poor decisions.

The more quality perspective you have, the better decisions you make. Another risk of not asking questions is once again that accountability gap. Right?

When you spend time asking quality questions of perhaps somebody who is not doing the right thing, not doing a good enough job, they're not getting to the expectations that you have, then an amazing thing happens.

It tends to drive responsibility. When somebody can get on the same page with you. When you're asking enough questions of why is this not happening, then what happens is, is that starts to reveal a problem.

You're not doing your job correctly. Right.

So the thing that I always say when it comes to, like reviewing somebody's car, a right, their key result areas is I will ask all the questions of why somebody's not hitting 100% of what I expect, and then all of their reasons I will go through.

And if it's a leadership issue, I will solve the leadership issue. I will do everything I can to solve the leadership issue.

Once I've solved all leadership issues, if the person is still not doing it, then this is now on that team member and this helps that person to recognize that they have a responsibility.

Hey, this isn't getting done. This expectation isn't being met. You're not solving this over there.

You're not communicating with this people the way that you're supposed to, whatever that is. All of a sudden starts to show the team member that there is a responsibility that they have that has been expected, that they're not getting to, that they're not accomplishing.

So another risk of you not asking quality questions is that you end up with conflict that is unresolved.

Issues that are unresolved, expectations that are not being met, team members that are not working well together, all of these things are going to affect your business to a pretty high level.

So if this is not happening at a high level in your business, then I can guarantee you it's not happening through your business. Right. So we probably have a lot of issues that are not being resolved.

We probably have a lot of conflicts that are not being resolved. We're probably spending a lot of money not getting the productivity that we expect. So these are risks that we have got to overcome.

Top Reasons to Ask Better Questions (00:17:19)

So what are some of the top benefits for asking better questions? Well, obviously deeper understanding. What's the purpose of a question? It should be to understand.

It should be to uncover root causes of why something's happening. Right.

It should be to gain better insight into how the team is operating, what the team dynamics are, how well they're communicating with each other, how well they're progressing on projects or, you know, whatever it is that they're working on at the time.

It should help us to get to a better understanding. It should help us to encourage openness.

When a team member sees that you as a leader are asking quality questions and you're getting good responses and there's not a ton of judgment, people are being treated with dignity.

Then what it does is it kind of promotes an atmosphere where team members feel that they're safe to share ideas, that this is an okay thing.

They can share ideas, they can ask questions themselves. It solves this kind of need for openness, open communication among the team. It also improves the engagement of the team.

When teams feel valued, when they feel like somebody cares about their input, when they feel like somebody cares about their ideas, then it literally boosts their morale.

It literally boosts their productivity. Now we want them to be asking questions as well. But folks, think about it.

When somebody comes to you and wants to know what you think about something and wants to know how you feel about something, there's this instant morale boost. Oh my gosh. My opinion to you matters.

Now on the front side, you heard me say a fool only wants to have their opinions aired. Here's the deal. We have to get other people's opinions as part of the question asking process.

Yes, we want people to share their opinions, but then what we also want to do as leaders is we want to teach them how to ask quality questions as well.

We want to teach them how to care about gaining quality perspective from other people.

But if it doesn't start with leadership, if you're not doing it as a leader, then I can tell you there's a really good chance they're not going to do it on their own.

They're not going to do it just because you tell them to. Instead, they need to see it modeled. So you need to be self aware as a leader and then you can teach that to other team members.

Another great thing is that it enables informed decisions. Oh, for the love. We have to make sure as leaders that we are training people to get the best information to make the best decisions.

The more diverse the perspectives are that a team member has, chances are the better decision making they're going to have. It doesn't mean that you have to use everybody's perspective.

But what I do all the time, I ask a bajillion questions. What it does for me is it gives me a ton of information that I'm filtering through. Some stuff I may use, some stuff I may not. Some stuff may be phenomenal, some stuff may be not so good at all.

It doesn't matter. I'm not sitting there judging the information on whether or not I think it's good enough or bad enough. I'm judging the information on whether or not it can inform me to make a better decision.

The more you teach your team to gain quality perspective, the better decisions they will make. Isn't that exactly what you want? Don't you want your team making the best decisions they can?

Oh, I don't want them going around asking 20 different people what their perspective is on something. That's not what we're talking about here.

We're talking about asking questions of those who have insight or might have insight into the thing that they may be making decisions on. That's the important piece, right?

It's fostering that growth in that team member by allowing them to understand where other people are coming from to see what other people see.

You know, it never surprises me. One of the big things we do here is we teach on values. And if you have not gotten your team to go through DISC and Values, make it happen.

Go to chrislocurto.com/store and get your DISC and Values for your team members. One of the things that never blows me away is that when somebody has a really high value of something that I don't, that they have a different perspective.

So if somebody is a High Aesthetic or a High Individualistic, these are people that think differently than I do.

And so it never surprises me when I'm, you know, asking questions, trying to gain perspective that they throw something out that I'm like, oh, man, that is fantastic. And I never even saw it that way.

Why does it not surprise me? Because they think differently than I do. The last thing I want is to only gain perspective from people who think like I do.

That's not going to give me a whole lot of different perspective, a lot of diversity in the perspective. Right?

So make sure that you're teaching your team so that they can be informed with the best possible information so that they can make decisions.

Another great thing is that it does foster growth and accountability like I talked about a little bit ago, right? It identifies these opportunities. The more you dig in, the more you discover, the more you ask questions, the more perspective you gain.

What you find is that it creates these opportunities. Things are going to start to come to the surface that we're not seeing just by having a surface level conversation. Right?

And as a leader, it gives you the chance to point out opportunities of growth. The more you dig in, find out why somebody's doing something, find out why somebody's thinking something, find out why somebody responded the way that they did.

All of these things reveal opportunities for you to help somebody grow. You might just discover something so simple as, oh, wow, hey, listen, I can see where you came up with that idea.

If you would have just asked a couple different questions like this, this and this you could have added to your perspective and made a different decision. So by doing so, it fosters this ability for growth.

Folks, if you've been listening to me for any length of time, then you know the number one issue when it comes to business, when it comes to family, when it comes to friendships, is having a lack of high quality communication to make sure that you are absolutely winning in every aspect of your life.

It all starts with having great communication.

The best way to get that communication is to understand your personality style and to understand the personality style of the folks that you're spending the most time with, whether it be at work, whether it be at home.

The best way to do that is to go to chrislocurto.com/store and get your personality profile and personality profiles for your team today. Get it for your family members today.

As you go through that profile, you will begin to see the greatest ways to communicate. Go to chrislocurto.com/store today. Another thing, and I am massive on this.

So this whole question episode is about communication. But one thing that it drives is that is so important is accountability.

The more you dig in and find out what's going on, the more you dig in and find out what somebody's thinking, what somebody's perspective is, then it gives you the opportunity for accountability.

Help me to understand why you did this. Help me to understand why you said this. Help me to understand this response that you had. Getting that information out allows you then to press accountability back in.

If somebody is acting in a way that does not align with our culture, dig in and find out why. And then that gives you the opportunity to say, hey, listen, this is not how we do things in this culture.

This is not how we respond in this culture. That's not how we treat a client. In this culture. It allows you to push back, which creates accountability. And I'm telling you, every company is lacking in it.

Every single company is lacking in it.

Practical Examples and Scripts (00:26:22)

So I want to kind of give you some practical tips on what you can do. So like let's say, let's say you're talking to your sales team and the thing you're wanting to say is, hey guys, we're not hitting our sales goals.

You know, we need to hit our sales goals. And a lot of people will actually press in on, you gotta do this, hey guys, this has to happen.

You know, a lot of that statement making, dictatorial type of responses to a team, what could we do? How could we change that? What if we said something like, hey guys, we're not hitting our sales goals.

So here's my question for you. What do you see? And I want to hear from every single person, what do you see as the biggest obstacle to achieving our sales goals? This now changes everything.

Instead of just telling somebody we have to hit our sales goals, which, by the way, it's very important for you to understand this leader, telling somebody that they have to do something doesn't make them become incredibly more productive.

What it does in their mind is they go, okay, so keep doing the same thing I'm doing every day, right? Because I'm assuming the thing I'm doing is the thing that's going to get to our sales goals.

They don't think, wow, now I'm super pumped up because the sales team leader said, we've got to hit our sales goals. That's not what runs through their mind. They think, okay, I hear you.

And then they go back to doing the same exact thing they've been doing day after day after day. So instead, flip the script, change the script. Start asking questions, start digging in and finding out why they're not hitting the sales goals.

Hey, guys, what do you think is the biggest obstacle? What's the thing that's holding us back the most? What's the thing that's keeping you from getting to your sales goals?

Today you're going to find that they will actually give you a bunch of answers. Most likely they're going to say, well, you know, I have to spend, I don't know, a half hour every time after a phone call filling out this sheet, and it keeps me from getting to the next phone call.

It'd be great if I could bang out, you know, 20 phone calls and then spend some time doing the admin. I don't know. I'm just making this stuff up, right? You might actually get to a better answer.

Funny thing is, you may get answers that you don't change anything with it. It just reveals something that they start answering their own question, right? Somebody might start talking through, well, you know, I don't know.

I guess because my sales call takes, you know, I talk about this, this, this, and usually that takes a certain amount of time. And they start to realize, oh, maybe I don't have to spend that much time on that.

Maybe I can cut that piece down and they can start solving problems, whatever it is, by asking a question and getting them involved, treating them with dignity, right? Helping them to get their perspective out on the table.

It gives you things that you can solve. It helps you to understand where they are coming from. Now there's a bunch of you out there going, oh my gosh, I know, I just get a bunch of victim mentality.

If I did that, that may be. It is possible that that's what you would get. But wouldn't you rather get that on the table and shine a light on it and get it fixed?

Solve that, knock it out so that people can get back to doing what they're supposed to be doing with the right mindset, it should, that should be something that you desire.

What's another possibility? Instead of saying, hey guys, our project is way behind, right? We are way behind on schedule. What if you change that and you're like, hey, what is causing the delay? What do you guys see that's holding you back from getting this project done?

And how can we support you? How can we help? What do you need? What tools do you need? What's missing?

Whatever it is, you may find that you're expecting a team to accomplish a project, but you also have them in seven meetings a day and they don't get to spend any quality time on the project.

Who knows, you may find that there's a tool that they're missing that if they just had this tool or software or something, that they can accomplish things faster.

Right? So dig in, ask good questions. Don't just assume that they don't have good answers. Right? You may--

A lot of times leaders assume that somebody's just going to whine or complain and they truly may come up with something that changes your mind.

So those are really good ways for you to just make sure that you're asking quality questions instead of just telling people, making statements, right? Don't just make a statement.

Get in there, treat them with dignity, get them to give their input, get their perspective.

And then that changes everything. Another big, big tip is, and I tell people, just write this on a board somewhere, write it on a post it note, stick it to your computer, stick it on your mirror, do whatever, but be curious.

Try to replace assumptions with curiosity. Now I remember back to my, my early days of having a boss who never asked questions.

And I say, a boss. I hate the term boss, but really, this was a boss back in the day that would come in and just yell and scream at people. Just, you know, walk into my office and is like, why did you do this?

And I got to the point where I would just go, do you want to ask any other questions about that? And they're like, what?

What are you asking? What are you saying? What question am I supposed to ask? Well, ask me If I had anything to do with that. Did you? No.

Oh, okay. And then storm out the door and it's like, what in the world? This is the worst leadership style, right? We've all probably experienced that somewhere in our lives. The thing is, is those types of assumptions just destroy relationship.

They destroy people. They don't help you to actually solve anything, right? Instead, be curious. Choose to be curious. Choose to ask questions, to dive in deeper, right?

The more that you do that, the more that you will find you will get to way better answers than what you were assuming.

The funny thing is, is you can still assume things, but by asking questions, you may discover that you're wrong and you're so glad you didn't respond with that assumption.

At the same time, you might ask a bunch of questions and find out that you're right. What did you lose by asking questions? Nothing. So stop assuming. Replace assumptions with curiosity.

In fact, just be curious, period. Try not to assume things, just be curious.

Next Steps for Leaders (00:33:31)

So what are some things that you can do right now? What are some next steps for you as a leader? First thing is start small.

Commit to asking at least, at least one thoughtful question in every meeting. Write it down if you need to write it. You know, I usually carry a little blue pad, a small one with me that I just write things down before I go into a meeting.

So if there's any thoughts that I need, I can always just look back to it so that I don't walk out and go, ah, dang it, I forgot to ask a good question, right?

Write it down. At least one thoughtful question in every meeting or in every one on one that you have this week. No matter what. Start small and then ask another one.

You'll be amazed that when you ask a question, this becomes something. It becomes kind of a force of habit because you start to get information that you're like, oh, gosh, I want more. I want to know more about this, right?

Second thing is practice replacing statements, right? Frame responses as questions to encourage deeper thinking. Don't just make statements that's just always going to be so shallow and you're only going to get surface level responses.

And by the way, there's a really good chance if you make a ton of statements that you have team members who just aren't opening up to you. So replace statements with, you know, responses that are questions, encouraging more of a deeper type of thinking.

Third thing is, focus on some critical areas. Clarify the goals. You know, what are the goals that we're trying to get to here?

A great thing is what are the root causes? What happened here? What caused this thing? What caused this problem? What caused this delay? What caused this situation?

Another critical area is drive your team toward accountability. I cannot, cannot say it enough. Every company who's come through StraPlan comes to a place of understanding how far they are behind on this fantastic thing called accountability, right?

That we are not driving our team enough towards. Another thing you can do is you can encourage innovation through curiosity, but you've got to be the person who's actually modeling this, right?

The more curious you are, the more you ask questions, guys, what could we do with this? Hey, here's the project that we're going to be working on. But what are some things that we can do better?

What are some things. How could we do this faster? Could we make a bigger impact? The more that you're curious and the more you're looking for growth, innovation, all that kind of stuff through your curiosity.

The great thing is, is that that's going to foster that in your team, because a team of champions wants to constantly do something better, bigger, more, you know, bigger impact. And if they see that that's okay, then they will do it.

Next thing I want you to do is I want you to challenge yourself. While you're replacing statements with thoughtful questions, I want you to observe the impact that it's having on team communication.

I want you to observe the impact that it's happening on team member or team results. I want you to see what happens the more you dig in, challenge yourself on this.

Start, you know, start recognizing how you asking questions is affecting your leaders, your team, your spouse, your kids, your family, your friends.

Dig in with more questions and start asking yourself this question. How did this impact this person? How did this impact this project? How did this impact my entire team's communication? Am I seeing changes?

I promise you, given enough time, you will start to see that you are making a big impact. So asking better questions is not only about gathering information, right? It's about driving growth. It's about driving collaboration.

It's about considerably better leadership outcomes. So here's what I would love. I would love to hear from you.

I would love for you to share your experiences with implementing these types of techniques and how it's improved your leadership, your team dynamics.

Send us that information at [email protected] we'd love to know. We'd love to hear it. We'd love to share it. Also, do us a favor, if you enjoy this show, we need your help.

We want to reach more people. Please go and review us. Please go. Leave us five stars. We'd love five stars. But whatever you think, however, this is impacting you, if you would help us with that, we can help more people.

Well, folks, that's all the time that we have for today. Hopefully this has been helpful to you, as always, always take this information. Change your leadership, change your business, change your life.

And join us on the next episode.