Vlerick HRday 2013: The power of questions. - Prof. Katia Tieleman

VLERICK HR DAY!
HR PRACTITIONERS MEET HR ACADEMY
12 JUNE 2013
Welcome in the track
The power of questions!

Vlerick HR DAY
The power of questions
Prof Dr Katia Tieleman

3 Prof 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
3

Discussion
How much of the time did you talk?
How many questions did you ask?
4

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.
7

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 company
11

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 important
18

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.
22

„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 questions
How big will the price increase be?
Do you have problems with your boss?
Link statement questions
A lot of people are against the Greek support. What do you think?
Implication questions
If you go to that party tonight, how will this affect the results of your exam
tomorrow?
Acceptance questions
Do you agree that we should rescue the whales?
Compulsory questions
You 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?
32

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?
44

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

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