The Surprising Power of Questions

Alison Wood  Brooks; Leslie K. John

Article | Harvard Business Review | May–June 2018

The Surprising Power of Questions

by Alison Wood Brooks and Leslie K. John

Abstract

Much of an executive’s workday is spent asking others for information—requesting status updates from a team leader, for example, or questioning a counterpart in a tense negotiation. Yet unlike professionals such as litigators, journalists, and doctors, who are taught how to ask questions as an essential part of their training, few executives think of questioning as a skill that can be honed—or consider how their own answers to questions could make conversations more productive.
That’s a missed opportunity. Questioning is a powerful tool for unlocking value in companies: It spurs learning and the exchange of ideas, it fuels innovation and better performance, and it builds trust among team members. And it can mitigate business risk by uncovering unforeseen pitfalls and hazards.
Several techniques can enhance the power and efficacy of queries: Favor follow-up questions, know when to keep questions open ended, get the sequence right, use the right tone, and pay attention to group dynamics.

Keywords: Interpersonal Communication; Communication Strategy; Information; Knowledge Sharing; Performance Effectiveness;

Format: Print

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Citation:

Brooks, Alison Wood, and Leslie K. John. "The Surprising Power of Questions." Harvard Business Review 96, no. 3 (May–June 2018): 60–67.

Prior advice research has focused on why people rely on (or ignore) advice and its impact on judgment accuracy. We expand the consideration of advice-seeking outcomes by investigating the interpersonal consequences of advice seekers’ decisions. Across nine studies, we show that advisors interpersonally penalize seekers who disregard their advice, and that these reactions are especially strong among expert advisors. This penalty also drives advisor reactions to a widely-recommended advice-seeking strategy: soliciting multiple advisors to leverage the wisdom of crowds. Advisors denigrate and distance themselves from seekers who they learn consulted others, an effect mediated by perceptions that their own advice will be disregarded. Underlying these effects is an asymmetry between advisors’ and seekers’ beliefs about the purpose of the advice exchange: whereas advisors believe giving advice is more about narrowing the option set by providing direction, seekers believe soliciting advice is more about widening the option set by gathering information.

Article | Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes

Seeker Beware: The Interpersonal Costs of Ignoring Advice

Hayley Blunden, Jennifer M. Logg, Alison Wood Brooks, Leslie John, Francesca Gino, Hayley Blunden, Jennifer M. Logg, Alison Wood Brooks, Leslie John and Francesca Gino

Keywords: advice; advice seeking; expertise; impression management; wisdom of crowds; Interpersonal Communication; Relationships; Behavior; Experience and Expertise; Perception; Judgments; Outcome or Result;

Citation:

Blunden, Hayley, Jennifer M. Logg, Alison Wood Brooks, Leslie John, and Francesca Gino. "Seeker Beware: The Interpersonal Costs of Ignoring Advice." Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 150 (January 2019): 83–100. View Details

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Fishbowl is a social media app that allows professionals to connect with other relevant professionals both within their company and across industry. Unlike many other social media apps, on which users typically present idealized portraits of themselves, on Fishbowl, people get real. Fishbowl prides itself in being a “safe space” that allows users to feel comfortable interacting with candor – whether to ask difficult questions in order to give and get advice, or just to vent or crack jokes. A key part of the user experience is the ability to post anonymously. But to ensure relevance of posts, when a user signs up, Fishbowl verifies their identity by requiring them to provide their full name, employer email address, LinkedIn account and contact list. Fishbowl has several hundred thousand users and is now looking for ways to monetize the platform. As such, founders Loren Appin and Matt Sunbulli face a mission-critical decision: should they integrate employers into the platform? Although formally integrating employers would provide a much-needed revenue stream, at the same time Appin and Sunbulli worry that doing so could destroy the user experience. Is formalizing employer relationships antithetical to the safe space they have created?

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The Surprising Power of Questions

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