The Power of Ask, Don’t Tell

During the era of cool-looking ‘70s muscle cars, there was something about holding power in a steering wheel and accelerator pedal that triggered an adrenaline rush. Sustained engine output, defined as horsepower, gave bragging rights to the car owner with the biggest number. Just knowing the horsepower of a given engine was worn as a badge of honor.

Some leaders feel that same rush to exert power as they direct people at work. An executive once told me that when he was a young manager and needed a crew leader, he would pick the meanest, ugliest crew member he could find and make him the leader because nobody would question him and he would be able to keep everyone in line. Getting work done was all about having enough power to move people to action.

This executive explained that early in his career a leader only felt licensed to “tell.” A good leader was somebody who could issue orders and get results. Asking team members questions was unheard of and considered weak. But more recent research has shown that nurturing trusting relationships by asking questions enables greater team communication, collaboration, and productivity, and some leaders are now discovering for themselves that greater power is created in the team by asking instead of telling.

We define it as Ask, Don’t Tell.

Here are a few ways a leader’s practice of Ask, Don’t Tell helps get better team results.

1. Asking questions builds trust and commitment. The tendency for most leaders is to direct people or tell them what to do. Telling conveys a message of power as in “Do it, or else” and doing what you’re told may allow you to keep your job. The downside is, that dynamic suggests people can’t be trusted to act productively on their own. However, when leaders “ask,” instead, they communicate trust, like entrusting team members to be good stewards over an important responsibility. There is no implied threat. The question removes the element of power and places team members in a position to experience being trusted and to choose stewardship and accountability for what needs to be done.

2. Asking questions builds mutual capacity. Asking team members to share opinions and expertise enables a leader to ask for help and shifts control of the conversation to them—another demonstration of trust. Questions like “What do you see as the problem?” and, “What do you think we need to do?” enable team members to learn and grow, particularly when the team members decide on and execute the solution. Likewise, the leader can learn from the expertise shared by team members who have built their own valuable cache of work-life experiences.

3. Asking questions prevents costly mistakes. How often could poor quality, excess scrap, slow cycle times, and poor customer service be prevented simply by asking the opinions of those closest to the customer or those doing the core work? So much work is performed in silos that it’s easy for mistakes to make it all the way to the front lines of the business without anyone questioning them. Often, all it takes is to ask team members working on the front lines what they think about a decision before executing it to stifle the “I could have told them that” comments lurking in every private co-worker conversation when a crisis erupts.

Ask, Don’t Tell may seem to some to be a sign of a weak leader. In reality, it has the ability to unleash a greater power that enables team member commitment, capacity, and impact not available in compliance cultures where people are just told. But to take full advantage of the power of Ask, Don’t Tell, leaders need to know from the top that it really is okay to “ask.”

Kevin Herring is co-author of Practical Guide for Internal Consultants, and President of Ascent Management Consulting. Kevin can be contacted at kevinh@ascentmgt.com.

Ascent Management Consulting is found at www.ascentmgt.com and specializes in performance turnarounds, leadership coaching, and appraisal-less performance management.