If you’re a leader, you know one of your main jobs is to help your team be strong, especially when things aren’t going well.
But, this can seem like a daunting task. I know how it feels to have a team that has lost confidence and is a bit shaken. It’s hard to know where to start.
Thankfully, I learned how to help my team be strong by asking them some simple yet very clever questions.
I learned this technique from one of the best question-askers around. You’ve likely heard of him. But if you haven’t, let me have the privilege of introducing you.
An expert on asking questions – Michael Bungay Stanier
Michael Bungay Stanier is an expert at asking thoughtful questions.
His book, “The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More, & Change the Way You Lead Forever”, contains a set of seven transformative questions coaches and leaders around the globe use every day. In fact, it is the best-selling book on coaching this century.
Michael also founded a training and development company, Box of Crayons, that has taught coaching skills to hundreds of thousands of people around the world. Box of Crayons helps organizations move from “advice-driven to curiosity-led”.
And, being curious means asking good questions.
So during the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020, Michael started a podcast called “We Will Get Through This” to help his listeners stay strong and be resilient during difficult circumstances.
This is an exceptional podcast I highly recommend.
I found one particular episode particularly valuable because it was packed with information on leading well during difficult circumstances. A situation many of us are familiar with.
A podcast episode to help you and your team be strong during crisis
Before I dig into the seven questions, I can’t stress enough how impressed I was with this episode. The full 30 minutes is filled with wisdom and practical advice.
It is a must-listen for any leader who is in the middle of or preparing their team for difficult and unsettling times. Or, in other words, every leader.
If you want to help your team be strong during times of crisis and change, listen to this episode.
Click any of these links to listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, tunein, or Google Podcasts.
The episode is based on the Harvard Business Revenue article, How To Answer An Unanswerable Question which is another outstanding resource.
6 tips for dealing with difficult questions during times of uncertainty
In the article and in the conversation with Michael, Ron Carucci, gives these six tips for leaders to help their team be strong and resilient during a crisis.
Ron is co-founder and managing partner at Navalent and speaks from a wealth of experience.
- Acknowledge your own anxiety
- Listen for the need underneath the question
- Ask questions that help others find strength
- Don’t interpret questions as critique
- Practice your tone and physical delivery ahead of time
- If you blow it, recover quickly
All of these tips are highly valuable and I encourage you to study the article. But, tip number 3 impacted me the most.
The insightful questions Ron provided to help my team stay strong caught my attention. They stuck with me.
And, Michael added another question that was equally powerful.
4 questions that help others find strength
As Ron writes in his article, great leaders empower their teammates by helping them discover their own strength.
Leaders can do this when confronted with anxiety-driven inquiries by asking questions that draw out people’s deeper concerns.
From the article, these four questions help team members discover the answers they have but are hidden below their own fears.
- When you sense someone is having trouble adapting, ask, “What’s something you’ve learned during this crisis you would have never expected?” This can help them recognize they are more capable than they think.
- If someone is struggling to see past the current challenges, ask, “What’s one thing you hope remains after this crisis?” This will allow them to acknowledge that they’ve discovered things they actually might enjoy — like the perks of remote work and extra family time.
- To help others discover their resilience and combat anxiety, questions like, “What’s the worst thing you could imagine happening from all of this?” can help people sort through real vs. irrational concerns.
- Asking, “What’s one of the worst things you’ve ever overcome or endured?” helps people tap into sources of hope and fortitude from their own stories.
2 more powerful questions to help your team be strong
In the podcast episode (at 18:25), Michael adds two more powerful question for leaders to use to help their team be strong when coping with a difficult situation.
Here’s question 1.
On scale from 1 to 10, how do you think you are doing in dealing with this difficult situation?
Pretty simple, right? No magic there.
Question 2 is the clever bit.
Why didn’t you give yourself a lower number?
As Michael points out, this approach causes the person to consider the positive attributes in themselves that caused them to pick this number. Even if your teammate answers with a 2, they can point to something that’s caused them to not be a 1.
The question opens up a “self-awareness of the person’s capabilities, competence, and confidence.” as Michael notes.
Whereas, asking them what it might take for them to get to a higher number might trigger negative thoughts of judgment and feelings of inadequacy.
Michael credits Dr Michael Pantalon at Yale for this question. You can learn more from him in his book “Instant Influence – How To Get Anyone To Do Anything Fast”.
A helpful alternative is one more thoughtful question. And, you can use this one if your team member picks a “1”.
1 last thoughtful question
Instead of discouraging your teammate by asking them why they didn’t pick a higher number, try this better question.
“What needs to be true for you to have selected a higher number?”
This question drives thoughts of practical actions that would have to be taken and grounds the conversation in reality while displacing often irrational speculations.
Positive, forward-thinking discussions will occur and stimulate progress as well as self-confidence in your team members.
You will not only be encouraging them during a time of crisis, you will also be helping them continue to deliver results during periods of uncertainty and fear.
Applying this to the Red-Yellow-Green method
If you’ve read my post, “An Easy Way To Check In With Your Team“, you learned the Red-Yellow-Green method to start a conversation to better understand how your teammates are really doing.
An easy way to further the discussion after asking
How are you doing?
And getting the response of “yellow” or “green” would be to ask,
Why didn’t you pick “red”?
This question will likely cause the person to realize they have many things going well in their situation. And, the inquiry will likely stimulate thoughts of areas they can and have influenced the outcome.
They will become empowered and encouraged as they become more aware of the strength they possess to positively impact their circumstances.
But what if they pick “red”?
Easy.
Simply ask them this.
What would need to be true for you to pick “yellow” or even “green”?
As described above, these questions might transform your check-in conversation to a positive and encouraging planning session for the future.
This connection between how we ask a question and the mindset of the person we’re talking with is a reminder that caring for our teammates can lead to higher performance and sustained results. Even during the most challenging circumstances.
Great questions lead to great results
As I listen to and learn from experienced experts the incredible power of asking thoughtful questions continues to amaze me.
These seven questions from Ron Carucci and Michael Bungay Stanier are outstanding examples.
By asking these simple questions we can help our teams be strong and resilient even during the most challenging times.
And, best of all, our team members will get the strength they need not from us but from themselves. As they ponder the answers to the questions we ask, they will realize the power they already have even when it is hidden under the feelings of fear and uncertainty they are experiencing.
What more could we ask for in our quest to be kind and confident leaders?
Let’s lead with kindness and confidence.
Greg
Discussion Questions
- What questions have you found to be the most useful when leading your team through difficult circumstances?
- How did your team react when you asked them these questions? Were the resulting discussions beneficial to you and them?
I’m interested to know how you put these questions into practice with your team. Please share your experiences in the comments section so we can learn together.
