In the 2011 film Margin Call, we witness an iconic board meeting. In this negotiation-driven movie, set on the eve of perhaps the biggest economic crisis of the 21st century, a conversation between the CEO and senior executives reveals that the apocalypse has arrived, not just for the company but for the financial market too. One of the legendary moments of this intense and illuminating sequence of a few minutes is when the number one man in the situation asks a series of questions, without frills, briefly and to the point that impacts the entire outcome. The character, played sensationally by Jeremy Irons, is a lesson for managers today, because although the situation in a company may be different from the one in the movie, similar questions and answers can and should be asked anywhere.

In this context, this article aims to give a taste of the art of questioning, which can lead to good answers and business decisions based on them. 

Don't answer, ask questions

There are many traditions, many customs, and many different approaches to what is considered good, smart, and effective questioning. How do we navigate amongst the abundant amount of guidance on the art of questioning? It is worth listening to those who have proven themselves and whose careers and life paths have made their opinions mature, thoughtful, and worthy of consideration by all leaders.

In the case of John Hagel III, for example, it is not just the Roman numerals at the end of his name that show that he is the scion of a dynasty. Hagel is a veteran of Silicon Valley, and a founder of start-ups, who spent 16 years at McKinsey, where he founded the Deloitte Center for the Edge. It's easy to believe that he knows exactly what he's talking about - or more precisely, what he's asking about and how he's asking it. A two-time award-winning author of articles in the prestigious Harvard Business Review magazine, he says that most managers have it the wrong way: managers assume that their employees expect them to give them the answers. They should therefore adopt the image of the all-knowing person in an ever more uncertain and complex world. Rather than this dead-end thinking, Hagel argues that learning to ask good questions can help you build effective relationships with your colleagues. Later, listening and thinking together can lead to solving difficult problems and triggering innovative thinking.

All right, but how do we do it? What are the main findings of Hagel's questioning technique?

Big answers require big questions

John Hagel III believes that leaders should ask questions that encourage people to collectively explore significant new opportunities that the organisation has not yet thought of. Here are some of Hagel's sample questions:

• What is a game-changer opportunity that could create much more value than we have been providing?
• What are the emerging, unmet needs of our customers that could form the basis of an entirely new line of business?
• How can we leverage third-party resources to meet a wider range of our customers' needs?

In the interpretation of the former Deloitte professional, the role of the questions is to help the organisation invent new activities rather than existing ones. This approach reinforces the image of the ambitious, authentic leader in others. In addition, credibility is built by knowing the long-term trends that underpin the question and weaving them into the questions. This is another lesson in the art of questioning: being prepared and up-to-date is essential for success.

Hagel's latest lesson concerns the target of the question. The Silicon Valley founder cites the example of the iconic US fast food chain, present in more than 80 countries. Domino's Pizza faced a lot of negative reviews in the early 2010s. Their focus question was: why don't people like our pizzas? 

But instead of discussing this in a narrow management meeting, they published the feedback they had received and asked for suggestions on how to improve quality. This open questioning resulted in an avalanche of suggestions that proved very useful in improving products and ultimately the image of the company. This is not always possible, but the idea is clear - sometimes we need to ask several people the same question.

According to John Hagel III, leaders who ask powerful questions build the future resilience of their companies - because they will be successful both in seizing new opportunities and in dealing with unexpected challenges.

Tips from the master of questioning

Frank Sesno has an impressive list of credentials. The Emmy Award-winning journalist has interviewed five US presidents and honed his interviewing skills on international heads of state, business leaders and major figures in global politics. That's why we can believe him when he sums up the blessings of effective questioning in his book Ask More: ‘Smarter questions make people smarter. We learn, we build relationships, we observe, we use our questions to invent, we push our boundaries, we discover secrets, we solve mysteries, and we imagine new paths.’

What else would a company want to achieve?

The path to get there, in Sesno's experience, can be narrowed down to 11 sets of questions, each with a different approach. Two examples:

• diagnostic questions are the first: before we can fix something, we need to know what the cause of the problem is. To do this, you should ask open-ended questions, such as: What is happening in the company? Where did things go wrong?
• strategic questions are important when the organisation is facing life-changing, game-changing issues. Questions that might be relevant here include: What do you want to achieve and why? What change will it make if you achieve it?

Abel in the (question) forest

Sesno has already brought into the picture a word that is in itself a full-fledged training course, one of the foundations of business communication. It's well-known to the average Hungarian advertising consumer. In 2016, Abel, the little kid who drives his parents and others crazy with his ‘but why?’ questions, became nationally known in a commercial for the non-prescription drug Fluimucil.

Poor Abel was only unwittingly demonstrating children's interest in the world around them with a basic version of the Five Whys questioning technique developed at Toyota. (Fun fact: this commercial was later tested with neurological tools and found to work well with the target audience.)

The Five Whys technique is all about exploring the cause and effect behind the problem - the root of the problem - by asking the ‘why?’ question again, reflecting on the previous answer, and going deeper and deeper. This method has been criticised for its simplicity, but sometimes simple things work best.

The taboo questions

In contrast, it's worth taking a detour into the realm of ‘never ask’ leadership questions. Expert Devin Gage says this includes, for example, the aforementioned ‘Why?’ (a good example of how business is full of conflicting opinions), and he says to avoid questions that are a conglomeration of several questions (because they complicate our steps towards a solution), but also cautions leaders against using phrases to reinforce their position - such as ‘Don't you agree?’ or ‘See what I mean?’

These examples prove that questioning is both an art and a rational act.

The role of the right questions in the work of interim managers 

The right question, the right questioning technique, plays a key role in interim managerment. From the first meeting, through the agreement, to the joint work, they help to uncover the important problems and challenges. By asking the right questions, the interim manager could gain a deeper understanding of the company's situation, needs, and objectives.  

This knowledge is essential to develop the most appropriate strategies and offer effective solutions. Well-guided questions not only get to the root of the problem but also build trust between the manager and the company. The power of questions can be used to unravel the most complex situations, revealing root problems that are often not even obvious to the client organisation. This is what happened in a previous case, for example, the details of which you can read on our website! 

By asking the right questions, the interim manager can uncover the problems and find the most effective solutions, while becoming not just an outside consultant but an integrated member of the team, who understands and is an active part of the company's growth processes.  

Interim Ltd. offers comprehensive management services for progressive-minded, high-quality clients who want to dig deep into the surface problems and untangle the tangled web of threads that have been tangled over the years. Contact us and we'll add value to your business, just when you need it!