vlerick hrday 2013: the power of questions. - prof. katia tieleman

VLERICK HR DAY!HR PRACTITIONERS MEET HR ACADEMY

12 JUNE 2013

Welcome in the trackThe power of questions!

Vlerick HR DAYThe power of questions

Prof Dr Katia Tieleman

3Prof Dr Katia Tieleman© Vlerick Business School

Your neighbour as a potential customer

� Imagine that your neighbour is one of your

potential customers

� You get 10 min. to try and convince this

customer to work with you

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Discussion

�How much of the time did you talk?

�How many questions did you ask?

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This afternoon’s menu

�What is the first thing you should do as a

hostage negotiator seeking contact with a

hostage taker? And what does this mean for

your day-to-day life?

�How to lead effectively?

�How to stimulate innovation and create value?5

“ You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers.

You can tell whether he is wise by his questions”

Naguib Mahfouz (Nobel prize winner)


Creating impact

� How do you create the strongest impact? How do you build

relationships? How do you engage a potential customer? How

do you make the best possible impression?

� We tend to think that:

� ...magic happens by being ad rem, being brilliant, saying the right

thing at the right moment.

� ...asking questions gives a somewhat stupid and uninformed

impression.

� ...progress is made by answering questions.

� But history proves us wrong.

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�Drucker was famous for his intense

„questioning sessions“ with customers

(no consultant but „insultant“)


� „I can always tell how experienced and

insightful a prospective consultant, banker or

lawyer is by the quality of their questions and

how intently they listen. That is how simple it

is.“

�CEO van 12 billion dollar company11


Socrates: de father of ‘the art of questioning’ as

a way of life.

� Allegory of the cave

� Dialectic (Elenchus)

� Looking for real answers

to key moral questions.

Questioning assumptions

and the principle of

falsification

� The highest form of

human excellence is

questioning oneself and

others


The role of Socrates

Classic

� Communicating your own position

� Expert role

� Controlling knowledge

� Assuming meaning

� Showing how smart you are

� Analyses

Socrates

� Questioning

� Expertise of participants

� Include experience of others in conversation

� Seek meaning

� Showing them how smart they are

� Syntheses


Putting your brain to work

� Statements put the logical and analytical capacities

of our brain to work, leading us to fast conclusions

� Questions trigger the creative and imaginative

capacities of our brain, in an exploratory mode.

� Questions activate our brain automatically to think

for itself instead of purely reproducing

14© Vlerick Business School


„Sometimes we don‘t get the right answers, simply because we haven‘t asked the right questions“

�Questions are one of the most powerful

communication tools: they can lead to hope,

connections and new insights or to despair and

assumptions.

�We loose our curiosity: a child asks an average

of 200 questions a day.

� The key to opening up the power of questions is

to choose your questions carefully.


Imagine...

� Someone you know can’t find a new job after

being let go for economical reasons.

He has been to a number of interviews, but

doesn’t seem to get a job offer...

He asks himself „What’s wrong with me?

Why won’t anyone hire me?“.

� The one million dollar question: „Why do

Afro-American students score lower on

mathematical tests?“

� How do we make the Ford Gent plant more

productive?

� Good examples of bad questions.


Choosing questions deliberately

� The moment you formulate a question, your brain

automatically starts working to provide you with the

answer.

� The moment you ask yourself what’s wrong with you,

your brain will provide you with answers: you’re too old,

too young, too inexperienced, overqualified,...

� Existing assumptions are confirmed.

� You could also ask: ‘How do I make my job interviews

more memorable?’ Or ‘How do I focus on the best job

opportunities?’


3 types of questions

�Questions because the process is important

�Questions because the answer is important

�Questions because the question is important18


3 mindsets

� We invest way too much in trying to adapt the

other’s behaviour instead of their mindset.

Mindset 1:Connecting

through questions

Mindset 2:Leading through

questions

Mindset 3:Discovering

through questions

© Vlerick Business School

HOSTAGE NEGOTIATIONS

Prof Dr Katia Tieleman20


Mindset I: Connecting through questions !

� What’s the exempli gratia of establishing this

connection, even in the toughest situations, with a

success rate of 95%?

� In hostage situations.

� Book George Kohlrieser: „Hostage at the table“.

� Psychologist en hostage negotiator.

� First step: confidence, building alliance and

connection.

� Basis of all other steps.


How to get 95 %

� „Secure base“ or safe HOME BASE – this is what hostages

miss most (they are caught in a spiral of anxiety, rejection,

pain and misunderstanding).

� That safe home base is what you try to offer. You are relaxed,

not threatening, not condemning, you try to understand, you

try to build a relationship of trust.

� In most hostage situations, arguments don’t work.

� Your most important weapon is ASKING QUESTIONS – the

right questions. By asking questions, you show sincere

interest, you make a connection – you offer a safe home

base.

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„De-hostage“ the people in your environment

� That safe base is also what is missing in many

difficult and sensitive negotiations in our daily

lives.

�So is asking questions

�Asking questions is transformative (me and

them become we).


„De-hostage” yourself

� Moreover, it is liberating: often we ourselves are hostages

of our own assumptions and fears.

� By asking questions about the intentions and background

of others, but also of ourselves, we can uncover those.

� According to Kohlrieser we automatically focus more on

negative aspects, on the avoidance of fears and pain.

� It is the leader’s role to change this “mind’s eye” by offering

choices, perspectives and reflection moments.24


Power Questions (Sobel and Panas)

� „Can we start over“?

� If you forget to ask questions or ask the wrong one

�Don’t jump into the deep end

� In case of a bad start

� In case of emotional

escalation


How would you want to be treated if the situation would be reversed?

�Help to look beyond emotions and judgements.

� Imagine you have your own company, and one

of your employees – a good friend – steels from

you. What would you do?


Don‘t fix the blame, fix the problem

�What should they/we should differently?

�Why doesn’t this happen?


Mindset II: questions to steer!

�Steering questions contain (part of) the answer or steer the interviewee into a desired direction.

�Aim is to control the situation.

� Transformation: you let the other say what you want to attain/give (the other reaches your conclusion).

�Were you in the Vermont Hotel on the night of February 15th 2012?


Typical „pitfalls“

� Supposition questionsHow big will the price increase be?

Do you have problems with your boss?

� Link statement questionsA lot of people are against the Greek support. What do you think?

� Implication questionsIf you go to that party tonight, how will this affect the results of your exam

tomorrow?

� Acceptance questionsDo you agree that we should rescue the whales?

� Compulsory questionsYou do believe this is important, don’t you?


Split-second persuasion: flipnosis (Kevin Dutton)

�Biological factor.

� The playing field is determined even before you

say something: „The more you can say without

having to say it, the bigger your advantage“.

� Principles: simple, close to the other, surprising

(do you know how monkeys negotiate?).

� Emotions come first, followed by beliefs,

followed by reasoning.


Subtle leadership

� We often steer people into a certain direction with our questions (either intentionally or unintentionally)

� This effect is strengthened by the fact that the way you ask your question also influences the answer to that question.

� Examples: how tall/small is that basketball player; do you often have headaches and how often vs do you sometimes have headaches and how often (2.2 times often headaches versus 0.7 times sometimes headaches).

� Post hoc questions can influence our memories.

� Stress and tensions strengthen our suggestibility.

� Children are very vulnerable to „leading questions“.

� Ethical line: keep walking in the planned direction. Learning goal orientation or alienation of authentic goals?

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Power questions (Sobel and Panas):

�No gorilla dust

� Is it yes or no?

�Check the commitment

�No time to think things over, no considerations, no

“maybe” or “if”

� Example: Reclaiming the American dream (R.

Cornuelle)


Is this the best you can do?

� Kissinger: the best report

� Steve Jobs: starting the first Mac

� Ask yourself

� Ask employees who don’t perform at their best

� Ask questions when you’re working on important projects

� Continuation questions: What keeps you from doing an even

better job?

� Is it worthwhile to invest more of yourself into the project?


What do we have to decide? What have we decided?What do we need to discuss today?

� People are afraid of decisions, having to be to

the point

� Procrastination

� Leads to frustration

� Essential before and after meetings


Mindset III: questions to discover

� It’s not about steering, but about letting go,

understanding and discovering.

� Transformation: from positions to interests, from

subjective truths to the absolute truth, from naive

realism to pieces of the puzzle.

� Partnership implication – equivalence.

� Important in negotiations, conflict management,

brainstorming, problem solving, deadlocks,

innovation.


Thoreau in his journal:

� „The greatest compliment

was paid to me today.

Somebody asked me what

I thought and actually

listened to my answer.“


Power Questions (Sobel and Panas)

� The 3 words: “what do you think”?

�Can you tell me something more?

�What are your plans? � Information

� Commitment

� Ownership

� Example: Gladstone and Disraeli, 2 former British Prime Ministers (19th Century) dine with the same eloquent lady. Her comment:„After my dinner with Mr Gladstone, I thought he was the cleverest man in all of England. After my dinner with Mr Disraeli, I felt as though I was the cleverest woman in all of England!“


Why-questions: you can counter everything as long as you know why things went wrong

� Why is that important to you?

� Why do you want that (or do not want that)?

� Why do we do this?

� Why do we do things this way?

� Organisations know what they do and how they do it: the attractive story is in the why.

� This is no different for people

� Essential: when you want to get to know people, organisations and their motives.

� If you need to overcome resistance.

� No “what” questions, but “why” questions.


Sales conversations

� What would you like to know about us? (instead of

answering the wrong question, giving boring/sleep-

inducing answers, loosing a sales opportunity)

� Are they willing to buy? What do you need? Is there

a problem or an opportunity? Do you know these

problems/opportunities?

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The foundation of innovation

�What is the/your question?

� The better the question, the better the answer will be

� Formulate every problem/every challenge as a

question

�Helps to ask the right question

�What are the possibilities?


3 important questions

�What surprised you?

�What didn’t I ask?

�What is the question?

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� Questions open the door for endless exploration

and for opportunities, to strengthen relationships

and to influence others

� The ultimate transformation: Ask yourself questions

about yourself

CHANGE YOUR QUESTION,

CHANGE YOUR LIFE

Enjoy your coffee break.

A delicious birthday cookie with your coffee is offered by Quintessence.

vlerick hrday 2013: the power of questions. - prof. katia tieleman

Education