You want to help, and so are ready with the answers. But is there a better way?
As a committed and talented HR professional, your expertise is sought out. You probably have a broad remit across multiple business units, as well as your own team to lead. You want to help, and so are ready with the answers. But is there a better way?
The ‘generation effect’ - replicated in a number of behavioural and neuroscience studies - shows that people are more likely to remember an idea that they generated themselves, than an idea provided to them.#
If you notice that people repeatedly ask the same types of questions, or even that your previous solutions aren’t being implemented, it might be time to tell less and ask more.
Leaders who ask leverage the power of the brain
When you give people the answers (‘tell’) the person’s rational brain may be listening, but this won’t necessary help with recall or ownership.
Conversely, when you ‘ask’ questions that lead people to a new understanding, ‘insight’ is involved. Insight is that sudden light bulb moment of understanding - a ‘Eureka’ moment - where the brain pulls seemingly unrelated ideas together and connects them in new ways to reach a fresh understanding.
Why are insights so valuable? An insight engages the brain’s reward systems and trigger a release of dopamine: a neurotransmitter associated with the brain’s rewards system known as a ‘happy chemical’. The simple act of searching for and finding our own answers is rewarding to the brain.
Insight activates the hippocampus, the area of the brain responsible for long-term memories. Insights are memorable because there is an emotional component; the amygdala—the part of the brain responsible for emotional arousal—is engaged.
Our memory is then augmented by insight because we construct rich neural connections to things we already know and are then able to apply the solution more broadly in future. So, one insight can address multiple challenges across different time and context.
So we can ‘tell’ and we may get one off compliance. Or we can ‘ask’ questions that lead to insight, engagement and accountability.
‘Helping too hard’
The project director was working on increasing his adoption of coaching questions in his corridor conversations, knowing that this was the key to releasing operational load and allowing him to focus on more strategic leadership.
He knew how to ‘ask’ and not tell, and he was confident coaching when he chose consciously to do that… So why wasn’t he using those skills throughout the day? His three reasons were ‘habit’, ‘time’ and ‘the desire to help’
Exploring that further, he was clear that:
- In the short-term it took less the time to answer the question than to coach the person to their own solution, AND
- In the longer-term Brendan was maintaining a dependency on himself.
He also had a significant realisation - in his desire to help he was actually ‘helping too hard’ and denying his people developmental opportunities on the job.
The Project Director’s plan to break his telling habit and adopt a more conscious response that involved pausing and asking questions of his people has been successful. The leaders who report to him have become more self-referencing. He is more relaxed, and his executive leaders have commented on his increasingly strategic focus.
What’s your ask:tell ratio?
A simple way to build your awareness around questions is to monitor a conversation you have with a colleague who seeks out your help. Notice your ‘Ask:Tell ratio’. How often are you asking searching questions that cause them to think and lead them to their own answers? How many times do you tell them what to do?
How about your meetings? How often are you in broadcast mode, rather than engaging others through questions? And what about when you are working with a senior leader seeking your counsel? What could happen if you upped the percentage of ask?
Over to you
More is expected of HR leaders than other leader in the business when it comes to people and culture. What you say is important, and how you lead even more so. Are you a leader who asks? Or are you a leader who tells, unwittingly limiting the potential of your people, team and organisation? What would your people say? And what are you willing to do about that?
The shift from being a leader who tells to a leader who asks is not an easy one to make, and yet it’s one that will make a profound impact for you as an HR professional, and for the business you support.
# See ‘Why insight matters’ by Josh Davis, Christine Chesebrough, David Rock, and Christine Coxin Neuroleadership Journal Sep 2015.
CORRINNE ARMOUR is a leadership expert who helps leaders and organisations develop Fearless Leadership and deliver transformational results. She is the author of Leaders Who Ask: Building Fearless Cultures by telling less and asking more.
