7 Strategies for Identifying Hidden Challenges Through Questioning

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7 Strategies for Identifying Hidden Challenges Through Questioning

By Martin Zwilling | Inc Magazine | March 17, 2024

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Every business team has blind spots that limit their effectiveness and success, and due to ego, over-confidence, or deferential subordinates, many live totally in the dark. Some leaders are smart and humble enough to assume that they don’t know what they don’t know but lack an effective process for shining a light on their blind spots. Both are equally surprised by their every setback.

As a mentor, the author recently found some real insight on this subject in a classic book by Robert Bruce Shaw, aptly named Leadership Blindspots. Shaw specializes in organizational performance and has helped a wealth of business leaders identify and overcome their weaknesses. He provides a detailed analysis of the blind spots of many well-known business powerhouses.

From his own experience, he agrees with Shaw that the best way to do this with your team is to continually ask the right questions in the right way to identify and avoid blind spots. Here are some key guidelines that they both offer to team leaders and executives to drive this process:

1. Avoid yes-or-no questions. Closed-end questions (yes/no) are efficient but don’t surface data that may be critical to a leader’s understanding. Questions are called open-ended when they allow for a variety of responses and provoke a richer discussion. These allow a leader to know what she doesn’t know and ultimately make a better decision.
2. Don’t lead the witness. Hard-charging leaders often push to confirm their own assumptions about what is occurring in a given situation and what is needed moving forward. This can result in questions that are disguised statements, like “Doesn’t this mean that we don’t have a quality problem?” These usually prevent contrary points of view and further data from surfacing.
3. Beware of evasive answers. All too often, people will avoid giving direct answers to direct questions. They may not know the answers but want to appear smart, or they may not want to provide the answers if their response might highlight incriminating data. Leaders need to keep coming back with directed questions until they get either a straightforward answer or “We don’t know.”
4. Ask for supporting data or examples. Leaders need to ask questions that surface points of view and, at the appropriate time, also clarify which answers are based on fact and which are based on speculation. They should encourage people to say what they know from data versus what they think they know, and make sure they clarify the difference.
5. Paraphrase to surface next-level details. One technique to push people to provide more information is to paraphrase what you are hearing. While this may result in a yes or no response, proceeding to next-level questions opens up the dialogue. Smart leaders sometimes mis-paraphrase what they are hearing in order to provoke a richer dialogue.
6. Ask for alternatives. Another approach to surfacing non-confirming data is to overtly ask for an opposing point of view. A related line of questioning is to ask the respondent to alter his or her fundamental position, for example, “You are asking for $10 million to grow this brand. What more could you do if we gave you $25 million?”
7. Give an opening for additional input. Leaders also need to provide an opportunity for others to offer additional input and, in particular, dissenting views. Often, the final moments of discussions are the richest, as people will wait until that time to surface what is really important to them. Ask if there is anything left unsaid that should be heard.

3 key takeaways from the article

1. Every business team has blind spots that limit their effectiveness and success, and due to ego, over-confidence, or deferential subordinates, many live totally in the dark. Some leaders are smart and humble enough to assume that they don’t know what they don’t know but lack an effective process for shining a light on their blind spots. Both are equally surprised by their every setback.
2. The best way to  identify and avoid blind spots is to continually ask the right questions from your team. Here are some key guidelines that they both offer to team leaders and executives to drive this process: avoid yes-or-no questions, Don’t lead the witness, Beware of evasive answers, Ask for supporting data or examples, Paraphrase to surface next-level details, Ask for alternatives, and Give an opening for additional input.
3. Blind spots are automatic behaviors, not flaws, but they do need to be identified and mitigated by continually asking the right questions. 

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Topics:  Growth, Entrepreneurship, Teams