Two Chaps - Many Cultures

Artful Inquiry: The Power of the Right Questions in the Right Context for Global Leadership

• Christian Höferle and Brett Parry • Season 2 • Episode 18

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Ever wondered how the best leaders foster innovative problem-solving within diverse teams? Discover the secret sauce of curiosity and self-awareness in our latest episode of "Two Chaps, Many Cultures." Hosts Christian Höferle and Brett Parry take you on an illuminating journey into the heart of effective questioning. By categorizing questions into investigative, speculative, productive, and interpretive types, they reveal how asking the right questions can unlock deeper inquiry and enhance cross-cultural collaboration. Tune in to find out how you can harness these insights to become a more impactful leader and drive success in a global work environment.

Effective communication isn't just about what you say, but how, when, and where you say it. In this episode, Christian and Brett delve into the nuances of intercultural communication, offering practical tips on choosing the appropriate context for your questions—be it one-on-one, in groups, verbally, or through written formats like email or Slack. They stress the importance of cultural adaptability and the often-overlooked skill set required to ask the right questions. Learn how to leverage cultural insights from your diverse team and remain engaged as a leader, ensuring your questions are not only culturally appropriate but also impactful. Don't miss these invaluable insights that can transform your leadership approach and foster a more inclusive, innovative work environment.

𝙏𝙬𝙤 𝘾𝙝𝙖𝙥𝙨 – 𝙈𝙖𝙣𝙮 𝘾𝙪𝙡𝙩𝙪𝙧𝙚𝙨 is the world’s #1 show on the business of culture and the culture of business. Christian Höferle and Brett Parry ponder culture in short bursts and deep dives, featuring your questions and comments related to culture, business, and personal growth.

Be sure to check out and subscribe to our YouTube channel for even more great content: https://www.youtube.com/@TwoChapsManyCultures

Visit https://theculturemastery.com/ for more information about the skills for working in a global context.

The music on this episode is provided courtesy of Sepalot.
“Duum Diip” - Artist: Sepalot - Label: Eskapaden - Copyright control



Speaker 1:

In our work, we promote the importance of self-awareness and curiosity, and there are always different levels of curiosity, especially when it comes to working across cultures, so leaders may or may not be tripped up by the questions that they should have asked or didn't ask yet, and those who ask the best questions will be arguably the most successful in a global work environment.

Speaker 1:

Let's find out what this is all about intelligence. Listen along as we present the topics, tips and strategies you can use to develop the power of cultural understanding in your personal and professional life.

Speaker 2:

Here are your hosts, christian Huffala and Brett Parry. Welcome back to Two Chaps, many Cultures, the number one show on the planet for culture, the business of culture and the culture of business, where too much culture is never enough. Welcome back, mate. How are you any good questions for me today?

Speaker 1:

I just got the best quality questions for you. And what makes a question a quality question, I might ask and do business professionals really know how to ask the really smart questions, those questions that elicit the answers that they are looking for to be more successful? And do business professionals in a global context, those of you that work internationally, who work across cultures are we really formally trained in the art of asking those good questions? Are we?

Speaker 2:

Well, curiosity is the key. We did an episode a few weeks back, actually, about curiosity maybe having a particular effect on a particular animal and question that. But curiosity is really fundamental, as Christian said. You know, it's really the two main tenets self-awareness and curiosity. And asking questions.

Speaker 2:

Asking the right questions starts with, obviously, a leader's intention. They like to get their people together, the idea being that you get a bunch of people in a room with multiple ideas, multiple points of view, multiple ways to interpret a problem. Then you're going to it's just by osmosis get a very creative outcome. But of course, um, they just recently read an article. We're prompted that we might want to talk about just what are those questions and what are the most effective questions that you can bring to the table as a leader and in a brainstorming session like I've just described. Obviously people are coming with new ideas and maybe you're trying to just be reflective or responsive in terms of your questions. But really planning out these things is. You know, from our experience in the business world working with clients, we've really observed the best leaders are the ones that ask the best questions.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I think what makes it a bit tricky for, let's say, global professionals or for their well, their factual knowledge of the thing that they do really well, often stands in the way of asking good questions, right? So their approach to collaboration or to leadership is often twisted towards problem solving rather than investigating, or rather than inquiry, right? So one could argue, the questions that they don't ask are the ones that can get them into trouble.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely, and so this article kind of suggested five different areas or five different types of questions, or families of questions, if you wish. They kind of generally agreed with them, although obviously we're putting it into a cultural lens. So there's the way that we approach these conversations. So we'll start with. The first one was investigative, and this is obviously where you're trying to tease out. You know what's known, what do we know now? What can we investigate? Like a detective does, right, they investigate the current evidence that's before them and that kind of allows you to clarify the purpose.

Speaker 2:

It's the why behind what you're doing. It's the things that we want to kind of sit back and say what's the purpose for us to do this as a group, as individuals? What are we trying to achieve, group, as individuals? What are we trying to achieve? And that investigative approach often sparks different questions or prompts different thoughts when you ask the right questions and many people don't tend to go deep enough with these questions they tend to kind of graze over them and throw maybe a big picture, a big goal in front of people, thinking that every person is going to be motivated by the big picture. But culturally that's not always the same. Some people are very organic. They just want to know great well, when are we going to do it and how are we going to do it. Other folks want the big dream. They want the big picture, and that can sometimes be a cultural thing.

Speaker 1:

Another category of questions would fall into the category of speculative questions, the what-if questions that can broaden the scope, that helps us reframe or explore more creative solutions, questions like what other scenarios might exist? Or could we do this differently, perhaps? What else could we propose here as a solution? How can we, or what could we potentially simplify or modify or eliminate in the course of our process here? What are potential solutions that we haven't considered so far? What-if questions that keep people on their toes, that light a spark of investigation, so to say, and again, a question framework that triggers the detectiveness.

Speaker 2:

And, of course, at one point when the rubber needs to hit the road. So the third one is like the productive questions. So the third one is like the productive questions what are the talents and the resources we have around us that can actually take action on answering these questions? And so that really establishes how fast are we going to go. How are we going to approach this? What can we use in our past learnings to make our processes easier? And, of course, what are the next steps? What decisions, what decisive action steps are we going to take to be able to implement this project, this action, this outcome?

Speaker 1:

Next category category that was a different word. Category are interpretive questions. So what do I make this mean? So what does all this mean to me and this is particularly a question set that global professionals will run into for themselves, for their own self-awareness and also to help them understand the work that they do with their global counterparts? What did I learn from this? What does this information tell me? What does this mean for our work that we do right now? How does that fit within the scope of goals that we define for ourselves, and what are we trying to accomplish here? These are Questions that help us interpret what the experience is and help us find solutions that work for us individually and for the teams in which we operate.

Speaker 2:

And that's a really important one. It kind of ties into the last one and that's the subjective nature. And in the article we read there was kind of one way of thinking about subjectivity. But the way we look at subject was kind of one way of thinking about subjectivity. But the way we look at subjectivity is an aspect of culture.

Speaker 2:

Different cultures look at different problems in a different way. They might identify an aspect of a culture or a project through the lens of the time. What time do we need to do this? What time constraints do we have? How much time are we going to take to do it? All of those things might be a consideration. So that might be through the lens of, say, high-risk culture that might want to take action very quickly. Other cultures are looking at it through their subjective lens, through the sense of what data do we need, what information, what are the things we need to prepare for? Which, from a more certainty-orientated culture, makes sense for them, because they're not willing to take the decision in a very fast way. And both of these people are looking at the same problem. Remember, we're not just looking at different things, we're looking at exactly the same problem. But their subjectivity kicks in and of course that can go back to the one that's above, as Christian said. That may inform how they interpret the things of the questions that we're asking.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and now let's be clear. I mean as a leader. There will be a point where you stop asking questions, where you have to give instructions. You want to find a balance between the I'm in inquiry mode or I'm in elicitation mode with my team and I go into decisiveness and leading mode. Right, there is often that balance that you have to strike and ideally leaders aren't required to have all the answers, right? That's why we need those question frames.

Speaker 1:

In a perfect world, your team has the answers. Your job is to elicit it, get it out of your team's heads. They may not be aware of the fact that they have the answers. So if you ask the right questions, you get the best out of your people. Right and efficient leaders do this by being curious we talked about it earlier by being listeners, leaning in listeners, listeners who don't just collect information but who follow up on the information and dig deeper into the meaning and interpret it with those question frameworks we shared earlier. And I think being humble, displaying humility in asking questions is, especially when we work across cultures is of huge importance in my mind, because very often asking questions can, if not done properly, can come across as being judgmental or being predisposed to a certain line of thought, right. So inquiring or asking questions in a humble way, in a genuinely curious way, sounds different than asking questions like why did you do it that way, which would most likely bring up the defenses of the person that's being asked that question.

Speaker 2:

There was one thing that I disagree in that article about that they were promoting the use of why questions and, as you just said, right, that the why question can intimidate people. It's kind of like you're interrogating them and so they have this response that they have to go into defense mode. And what we're encouraging is a curiosity and the self-awareness and, again through our work, the humility to look at yourself, look at your own leadership style, and the higher you go up the corporate ladder, the more risk you're going to be asked to take, the more responsibility you're going to be asked to take on. So you want to be engaged with the right type of questions and if you train your team around you that you are going to ask these very good questions at the right time, with the right intention, you're going to motivate people just by Natural osmosis.

Speaker 1:

I completely agree with you. I wouldn't necessarily say that any why question is bad. I think it totally depends on the context. Let's say you've built a team that has great rapport with one another and there's a robust level of trust among the people in the team. You certainly can ask, hey, why is that not working the way we planned it to work right? So that could be the investigative part of the question framework. It's being mindful of when to use which questioning framework.

Speaker 1:

And this is where I would say cultural intelligence and emotional intelligence are hugely important. The more developed you have these essential skills cultural intelligence, emotional intelligence the more you will be equipped to know which question to ask, at what time and how to ask these questions and whom to ask these questions. Do I ask them one-on-one? Do I ask them in a forum, in a group? Do I ask them verbally? Do I ask them in a written text message, email, slack, whatever tool you use right? So knowing with whom, how, when, in which tonality and which framework to use our leadership skills, they are very often not taught in your subject matter track of education. You might be a fantastic engineer. You might be a fantastic business MBA, you might be a doctor, a lawyer, you might be, a technician, you might be. I don't care what it is you do. You're fantastic in what you're doing. That's why you are in that role. I would venture a guess that nobody ever systematically taught you how to ask these questions the right way.

Speaker 2:

Right, and don't assume you're the one that always has to answer questions, especially I'm just thinking across borders if you've got responsibility for leading other countries. There may be somebody and a colleague or a subordinate in that country that might actually be able to inform you about the right questions to ask, suitable for that culture, and perhaps even having them ask the question might be even more suitable because they are matching the style with the colleagues around them in a cultural sense. But also be very engaged and be willing to learn those so that, when that person is not there, that you already have the tools to be able to ask those questions yourselves. So that's what we are asking today.

Speaker 1:

That's what we're asking A very important question.

Speaker 2:

That's what we're asking, a very important question. That's what we're asking to think about the questions you ask and, just in a cultural sense, bring in. You know, be prepared to sit back, observe, learn from others, learn from your own experience. See what works. You know life's a box of candy. You're never gonna go. What're going to get. They should put that in a movie.

Speaker 1:

Maybe they should. Let's ask somebody if they're willing to do that and, as Brett said, trust your cultural advisor, trust your culture coach, trust your liaison in the host culture. If you're not certain how to go about this most elegantly and effortlessly, there are people who can help with this. Trust that person. Just ask us.

Speaker 2:

Just ask us, and we're going to ask you to also subscribe. Hit that bell and join the club right. Be a part of the conversation, ask good questions, ask questions of us or just tell us that we're wrong. If of the conversation, ask good questions, ask questions of us or just tell us that we're wrong. If you want, that's good too. We'll ask why. We may ask why we're wrong, and we're quite happy to take the answers. So again, good to see you again, mate. Another good week of work across cultures. We wish everybody all the best. This has been Two Chaps, many Cultures, the show where too much culture is barely enough. Just any final thoughts? Any final questions, my friend?

Speaker 1:

I ran out of questions. Is that appropriate for this episode? I'm, I'm, I've asked it all.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, One question is are there any other questions? If not, we'll see you later. Bye now.