Ask or Answer?

Dear Luis,
There are two aspects and both involve asking questions.

First is if the team is junior then I would certainly ensure to ask thought-provoking questions. This is necessary for uplifting them and the more questions I ask and guide them along the way for finding the answer, the more quickly they will learn the process and start contributing. This would essentially be a training type of session, instead of decision making.

Secondly, if I need a decision then the inclusiveness of all the team members would be extremely essential. Two parts are important here: first, ask the relevant questions and wait for a response and secondly ask them what drives them to think that way. This will not only ensure that they contribute but also correlate if they have all clarity of the underlying process. If there is any broken link, the team member would himself be challenged to fix it. After spending a bit of time, one can arrive at a better decision where all the stakeholders are equally satisfied.

Regards,
Syed M Baqar

Dear Rami
Thank you for participating in this reflection and for your opinion

What is the most appropriate approach in general?
Ask or Answer?

Dear Rami
Thank you for participating in this reflection and for your opinion

What is the most appropriate approach in general?
Ask or Answer?

Luis,

If a decision has already been made (e.g. by upper management), then you should state the facts as they are to the team, providing appropriate context. Otherwise, if you have a problem that is going to impact your team, then it is appropriate to engage the team for solutions. If that is the situation, then read further.

I’m a firm believer in “challenge-based problem-solving” (which I will explain below). However, for such an approach to work, the team must have a strong sense of psychological safety in the area of being “wrong,” and as with most things, this starts with the leader. You see, when a leader admits they are wrong, others recognize they have the freedom to do the same, and an atmosphere of challenge-based thought is created. This occurs as the verbalizing of thoughts and ideas is no longer constrained to the fear of being wrong. And when fear is vanquished, barriers fall down. To make this point to other leaders, I jokingly say, “being wrong is the new right” to encourage the leaders to break the ice and be publicly wrong for the sake of their teams.

So, if you have a conducive environment for challenge-based problem-solving (i.e., the team doesn’t fear being wrong) then I believe the best approach is to engage your team regarding the question or problem that is on the table. To do this, the leader literally states, “let’s have a challenge-based discussion,” and the leader states the concern and the challenge (i.e. productive arguing) begins on the subject. When ideas are stated, you invite additional challenge to that idea, and the process continues until it resolves itself to a conclusion.

When you have buy-in from a team, productivity, and effectiveness is greatly enhanced.

Luis, I understand some people deploy techniques to increase their contributions and thus influence. One of those techniques is to end comments/replies with a question, hoping to draw another response, and when the reply comes in, they respond with yet another question. I have noticed you seem to do this in almost every comment or reply you make. In keeping with your topic: "Ask or Answer", it certainly appears that you prefer to ask (and ask again) than to answer.

Dear Sante
I found this comment very interesting: "some people deploy techniques to increase their contributions and thus influence"

My interest (I assure you it is genuine) is to know the opinion of reputable people in this community and in the project management profession on this topic.

What led me to create this topic?

The context we live today:
- Democratization in access to information
- Dynamics of working with students when they attend college
- Younger people with a high level of knowledge
- Younger desire to understand "why"
- Young people's desire to participate in the decision-making process (when they do not participate their performance is poor)

How can I know the opinion of people like the ones I mentioned above?
Asking or answering?

Sometimes the absence of questions reveal the best answer ;-)