The Value of "Stupid" Questions

Source: Hyatt Hotels

David Gelles interviewed Mark Hoplamazian, CEO of  Hyatt Hotels, recently for the New York Times Corner Office column.   In the interview, Hoplamazian describes his early days as CEO of Hyatt, when he was quite unfamiliar with the business.  He explains why "stupid" questions proved quite powerful.  

It was pretty intimidating in some ways. I came into the business, and I was pretty ignorant. I knew a lot about the financial and tax structure of Hyatt because I had helped put the company together in the whole family reorganization. But I didn’t really know the business; I didn’t grow up in the business. That level of ignorance was super powerful because it just let me ask a whole bunch of stupid questions, which served me extremely well. Those simple questions often led to interesting discussions about why we do certain things the way we do, and that led to changes. But it was organic as opposed to me coming in thinking that I knew better. It was actually the result of inquiry.

Hoplamazian's comments about the value of "stupid" questions speak to the importance of bringing some non-experts into the decision-making process on your team from time to time.  Experts may be wedded to the past, to the way things have always been done.  They can be trapped by the conventional wisdom.  Smart people with a broad range of other experiences can bring fresh perspective. They can ask, "Why are we doing it this way?"   Done effectively, these questions don't have to be threatening.  They don't have to disparage the existing ways of working.  They can simply inquire, seeking to understand, rather than being critical.   The right quesiton might not be "Why do you do it THAT way?" Instead, it might be, "Help me understand the rationale for that approach or that process." 

Avoiding Leading Questions

In yesterday's blog post, I discussed the way you frame a question has a significant influence on whether others will reveal problems, risks, and bad news to you as a leader.   In this blog post, I would like to expand on the topic of asking the leading question.   

We often find ourselves asking leading questions without even being fully aware of our behavior.  We do not recognize how our mental models and assumptions have shaped our inquiries in ways that may influence the way people respond to us.   

Years ago, psychologist Elizabeth Loftus studied the issue of leading questions.  She found that small changes in the way that we phrase a question can matter a great deal (similar to the research cited in yesterday's blog post).   For instance, she showed research subjects the video of a car accident in one study.   For some individuals, she asked them how fast the car was traveling when it drove through a stop sign.  Fo others, she simply asked them about the car's speed when turning right, without mentioning the stop sign.   Later, not surprisingly, when asked if they had seen the stop sign, more people responded affirmatively if the question referred to the road sign.   Loftus describes the inclusion of the stop sign as a "presupposition" - “a condition that must hold in order for the question to be contextually appropriate.”

In a later experiment, Loftus examined the impact of including false presuppositions in our questions.  After showing research subjects a video of another car accident, she asked some of them, “How fast was the white sports car going when it passed the barn while traveling along the country road?” She posed others a similar question, but without mentioning the barn at all.   The barn actually never appears in the video.  Later, she asked all the research subjects if they had seen the barn in the video.  Sure enough, many individuals in the first group reported spotting the barn - they were led to believe it existed by the phrasing of the question posed to them.  

Do managers include presuppositions in their questions?  Sure, we all do at times.   Consider the question, “How much will market share rise if we increase our advertising spending?” This question presumes that more advertising spending will increase sales, and more so for the manager's firm than for competitors.  What if the advertising drives primary demand, increasing sales for the entire prodcut category (but therefore, not improving market share)?  What if competitors respond/match the spending hike, and therefore, it has no effect on market share at all?   The words "how much" at the start of the question may distort the responses that one receives.   

[This post summarizes the discussion of leading questions in my book, Know What You Don't Know.]  

The Value of Naive Questions

Fortune magazine published an article recently that was titled, "The brilliance of asking incredibly naive questions." The article focuses on the work of Warren Berger, author of A More Beautiful Question: The Power of Inquiry to Spark Breakthrough Ideas.   Berger explains:

"In most meetings -- and in most everything we do in business -- we are usually trying to keep things moving forward and just 'get things done.' This is a natural impulse, and of course it's important to get things done and stay on schedule. The problem is, this leaves little time to question assumptions, as in, Why are we doing this particular thing? Have we really thought it through, and considered other possibilities?"

I think Berger is right about the "getting things done" mentality.   I would put it this way.  We often fixate on the "how" question - as in, how are we going to do this?   We often overlook at the more fundamental question:  Why are we doing this?  

The problem, of course, is that people are often afraid to ask the naive questions.  That's why leaders need to make sure they are asking these types of questions from time to time.  They accomplish two things when they pose such questions.  First, they might uncover some key assumptions and alternatives.  Second, they set a tone and an example.  They make it easier for others to ask such questions. 

One final thought - timing is everything.   You do have to consider the timing of your question.  You don't want to embarrass folks or become disruptive when you ask such questions.  You want to think about the audience, and consider how you may impact a colleague.   You certainly don't want to unintentionally undermine a peer or make them look bad.