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Creating Sustainable Change
I mean, not just checking things off a to-do list or focusing on an employee survey score and raising it. This is about really feeling a sense of awe because together you did something different this time. You found the high leverage points to achieve success. You had real conversations with your co-workers that inspired creative thinking. There was no fear of conflict and you eliminated surface talk. It can happen. It does happen. Are you up for it?
A Balancing Act for Better Meetings & Conversations
I love questions.
I love them so much that I thought about getting a tattoo on my wrist that was a big green question mark to remind me to always be curious. But then my friends told me I would look like The Riddler from Batman so I scrapped the idea.
Asking great questions is an art and takes skill, but with practice, anyone can be a great and curious inquirer.
Questions alone don’t create great conversations. Balancing them with skilled advocacy can help people and teams get UNSTUCK in a meeting or avoid repeating the same old conversation.
Advocacy is expressing a view or making a statement about your position.
Inquiry is exploring the views of others through questions.
Advocacy and inquiry are the basic elements of any conversation.
HOW you advocate and inquire determines the quality of the conversation.
When advocacy reveals the steps in your thinking and gives specific examples, it promotes learning. When inquiry is effective, it seeks alternative views, probes others’ thinking and invites others to challenge your own thinking.
Reflection: How much time do you spend in advocacy and inquiry? Do certain people, meetings or situations bring out one more than the other? Why do you think that is? What does that help you learn about yourself? How effective is your team at balancing advocacy and inquiry?
Here are some suggestions to help you and others get better at these essential conversational skills:
Advocacy:
General rule: making your thinking process visible to others
- Share your data and what you know.
- Tell others about your reasoning and thought processes.
- Be aware of your assumptions and acknowledge them to others (this takes practice and self awareness).
- Test your conclusions rather than treating them like fact.
- Invite and explore alternative interpretations of the data.
Sounds like: ”Here’s what I think and how I got there. What do you think about what I just said and what can you add? What flaws/missing links do you see?”
Inquiry:
General rule: ask open ended questions to promote further exploration
- Ask questions that surface reasoning and data.
- Seek alternative views.
- Stay curious.
Sounds like: ”What are we missing? Can you give me an example? What assumptions are we making? What obstacles could get in our way of success? What would it take to ________ ? What’s everyone’s definition of __________ ?”
Action: Pay attention this week and see how much time you and your team spends in advocacy or inquiry. At your next meeting look for patterns of being higher in one or the other. Ask yourself, and others, “What would it take for us to balance these?” Start a dialogue by asking, “What would it take for us to change the quality of our meetings and our conversations?” Use this blog and the resources below to help educate yourself and your team on how to be more effective at leveraging your meetings to promote learning, creativity and innovation.
For additional resources on advocacy and inquiry, you might want to check out:
- Dialogue: The Art of Thinking Together by William Isaacs
- and the article from the Society of Organizational Learning: http://www.solonline.org/pra/tool/inquiry.html which gives specific examples and verbiage to use when practicing these two skills in a conversation.
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