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Enquiry Based Leadership – a conversation with Amber Johnson
0 Playsin 9 hours
It’s the questions you ask – not the answers you give
Amber Johnson is the founder of the Bright Threads Leadership Group, based in Chicago Illinois.
In this episode of the Abeceder podcast The Independent Minds Amber helps host Michael Millward explore how the ideas of Appreciative Enquiry can be applied by leaders to improve the outcomes they achieve.
Amber starts by defining Appreciative Enquiry and explaining how this approach helps to bring different perspectives to a discussion.
As their conversation develops Michael and Amber discuss
- The origins of workplace power structures that make it difficult for people to ask questions
- The role of a leader as a provider
- How questions can decrease competition and increase collaboration
- How social culture impacts question asking
- The Power Distance concept
- Different ways of asking questions
Discover more about Amber and Michael at Abeceder.co.uk
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Transcript
Introduction to Zencastr and The Independent Minds
00:00:05
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Made on Zencastr is the all-in-one podcasting platform that really does make every stage of the podcast production process so easy. Visit Zencastr.com. All the details are in the description.
00:00:19
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Hello and welcome to The Independent Minds, a series of conversations between Abbasida and people who think outside the box about how work works with the aim of creating better workplace experiences for everyone.
00:00:35
Speaker
I'm your host, Michael Millward, the Managing Director of Abbasida.
Spotlight on Dr. Amber Johnson
00:00:40
Speaker
Today, I'm going to be learning about inquiry-based leadership from Dr. Amber Johnson, the Chicago-based leadership consultant and communications expert. Her passion is helping leaders and teams strengthen relationships and work with more meaning and productivity through better questions and communication.
00:01:00
Speaker
Amber is also an author, you can find her work at Forbes.com, Psychology Today, Smart Brief, and in her free weekly newsletter at Substack. And now to top all of that, Amber is on the independent minds as well.
00:01:17
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Thank you, Michael. Like I could say, Amber is based in Chicago.
Ultimate Travel Club Discussion
00:01:21
Speaker
It's a city that I have visited. If I do get to go to Chicago again, it will be because I've made my travel arrangements at the Ultimate Travel Club.
00:01:30
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I do that because the Ultimate Travel Club gives me access to trade prices on flights, hotels, trains, holidays, and so many other travel-related purchases. You can also access those trade prices by joining the Ultimate Travel
Podcast's Thought-Provoking Aim
00:01:43
Speaker
Club. There is a link in the description.
00:01:46
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Now that I've paid the rent, it is time to make an episode of The Independent Minds. That will be well worth listening to, liking, downloading and subscribing to. As with every episode of The Independent Minds, we won't be telling you what to think, but we are hoping to make you think.
00:02:03
Speaker
Hello Amber. So good to be here with you. It's always interesting to meet someone who's talking about something that I haven't heard very much about before. Absolutely my pleasure. Please, Bo, can we start by you telling me a little bit more about your history, how you ended up becoming someone that Forbes is prepared to publish, and what
Amber Johnson's Career and Appreciative Inquiry
00:02:23
Speaker
it is that you do? There are some people who know exactly what they want to be and go after it, and that is not my story. i have evolved into who I am. but what has been consistent throughout is the idea that my purpose here is to make the world a little better in its own way. And I had an idea as a very young person that I wanted to... make the world better by helping organizations communicate better.
00:02:46
Speaker
And so I went to get a master's degree in communications thinking that I would learn how to help organizations succeed. And what I discovered is that we are very good at describing what happened, but not very good at making it happen again with any sort of clarity and certainty.
00:03:04
Speaker
Early in my career, I stumbled across a methodology called appreciative inquiry. It was new. It was only maybe a decade old when I first discovered it. It came out of Case Western Reserve University, which is in Cleveland, Ohio.
00:03:19
Speaker
The point of a appreciative inquiry is to bring voices together, as many people and perspectives together as possible, to build on what's working and what is going well, and then to ask questions about when it's going well, what's happening, and what do we most want from the future, and then to design the future
Leadership Dynamics and Inquiry-Based Approaches
00:03:39
Speaker
together. And as I saw appreciative inquiry in action inside organizations, I saw how it transformed teams that were not getting along, teams that were unclear on what they really wanted or how they should act, And it brought them into alignment and it made them work together and it found a new source of energy. And then putting the ideas into action became so much easier. This is like magic. It it it was really transformative. And the point of transformation wasn't and the consultant's idea. It was the questions that were asked. and that idea that questions change everything, that our questions are faithful. has really shaped my career ever since. Sounds really very interesting. I'm thinking about all sorts of different situations that have been in the past. But one of the things that you mentioned there was people know what should happen, but they don't know how to make it happen. And then the way in which people make things happen is by this appreciative inquiry, the yeah the inquiry-based leadership. You make it sound very simple, but what you're actually really asking people to do, well, you're asking people to question the people that they're not supposed to question, the people in authority.
00:04:52
Speaker
You do what your manager tells you to do. That's such an old school model of leadership, and yet it is still so prevalent in our organizations, right? Very much. Yeah, a global manufacturing company I've worked with both in the United States and with some of their European team.
00:05:06
Speaker
For decades, their CEO told people, even their general managers, even people that were C-suite leaders, that their job was to be a doer and not a thinker. The executive team and the board wonder, why haven't we had any new products in a decade? Why does everything sort of seem status quo instead of growth? It's exactly that sense of silence saying that I'm not allowed to raise ideas. I'm not allowed to ask questions. I'm not allowed to express an opinion. i can't work to better my circumstances. I'm only to take orders and execute on orders.
00:05:38
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When we lead with that way, we leave so much capacity on the table. We leave so much opportunity on the table. We use a quarter of the mindshare we have available to us, and then we wonder why our results are lacking.
00:05:51
Speaker
What I'm encouraging people to do is to change that on on their heads, to come at leadership, not from the perspective that it's your job as the leader to have all the answers, but to believe instead it's your job to facilitate in an environment where answers can emerge because you've asked the right question, because you've asked the right people, because you've engaged the minds of the people around you The style of leadership, well it's not leadership is it, the style of management that exists in many organisations as you've just described, both in the United States and elsewhere, is based upon the so the master and servant relationship.
00:06:29
Speaker
And the master and servant terminology comes from an act of parliament in Great Britain, pre-Victoria, the Master and Servant Act, which detailed the relationship between a manager, a master, and their servant. It was legislation which was prepared to equip organisations for the Industrial Revolution, although it wasn't called the Industrial Revolution at the time. It was just where people were moving from farming into factories and it needed to be controlled. So the Master and Servant Act was created. One of the clauses, if a manager gave an instruction to a worker, their servant, and the the order wasn't followed, they could bring criminal charges against the servant, the worker, and they'd end up in court. I believe that piece of legislation still influences the way in which many managers manage their people. They may not actually use the terminology, but the the sheer power of that piece of legislation and the way which is implemented is really embedded in the way in which organizations are managed around the world.
00:07:33
Speaker
Yes, and and we can look back even further into our history and see that we believed that our rulers had a divine right to rule, that they were actually imbued by God or whatever the concept of deity was to rule, and therefore they couldn't be questioned. And they had to have the answers because to lack the answers would have been to say that God had not provided them to the rulers.
00:07:57
Speaker
what ah What a burden that placed on leaders and what a silencing effect that had on people. And then you see it in that bit of history you just shared and we see it still in our organizations today. So if someone is working in an organization and is aware of their own master servant type leadership style and the people that work for them, report to them, are used to that style, how would someone go about changing the style to then result in a more inquiry-led leadership style that was accepted by the people they are aiming to lead? yeah How do you break the mold? That's a great question. It always, whenever you're changing culture, you need to think about what are the big overarching levers I can pull?
00:08:44
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And then how can I do this at the interpersonal level? So people feel that they are safe to raise their questions and their opinions. At that interpersonal level, that one-on-one level, I think it starts by not giving the answer.
00:08:58
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When someone brings you a question on how to do something, don't immediately give your advice. Don't immediately give what you would do. Say instead, I don't know. What do you think? Or what have you already tried? And let them talk through their expectations, their attempts, their efforts at work. Let them talk through their ideas.
00:09:20
Speaker
And then slowly encourage them, next time, bring me your idea along with your question. Sometimes I say, don't tell me it's raining. Show me your umbrella. Don't just tell me we have a problem. Show me a potential solution. And then we can debate it in that context.
00:09:34
Speaker
So that's ah one thing you can do in a bigger in an individual context to slowly ease people into making them willing to talk. At the overall organizational scale, you've got to think, what are the organizational values? How can we set up contexts that enable listening at a wider scale? And how am I going to receive that listening so people know that it's been heard and received well?
00:09:57
Speaker
Yes, you're reminding me of a manager that I had.
Empowering Leadership and Teamwork through Inquiry-Based Models
00:10:01
Speaker
One year, he told me that all he needed to do was to tell me what the objectives were for the department and then ask me how I was going to achieve them from the part of the department that I was running and then let me get on with it.
00:10:17
Speaker
And you reminded me of that because when he talked about his role, it wasn't necessarily for him to make a decision because a manager makes the decision. A manager tells you what you're going to do, when you're going to do it, how you're going to do it, when you're going to finish it by.
00:10:34
Speaker
That's management. But as the leader, his role was to provide me with the opportunity to succeed and the safety net if things went wrong, that he would protect me from any fallout.
00:10:48
Speaker
We'd have ah a stern conversation about it, I am sure. But that was his role as a leader was to allow me the opportunity to put my ideas forward.
00:10:58
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And I don't think I ever asked him for permission ever in the five years that I worked with him. It was always a case of this is the situation that we need to resolve.
00:11:10
Speaker
I go away, come back with solutions and present them in a way that was, this is where we are. This is where we need to get to. There is this route we can take. There is this other route that we can take. And then there's this other route, which I really like. And I think we can do a lot quicker and a lot cheaper. You showed him the umbrella. Yes, absolutely. And then it's not that the leader has to withhold their opinion completely or have no ideas of their own. But your your leader then needs to take that solution you presented and take the knowledge that they have from their role and help you see, okay, but how would other teams respond to it? How does this fit into our broader organizational goals?
00:11:50
Speaker
Ask questions about things that you maybe from your perspective might not have access to or privy to. That's the leader's role is to help you advance your thinking, not to give you the ideas in the first place.
00:12:02
Speaker
Yes, ask you questions about the things that you have not shown that you understand or have considered to then rethink your idea based upon the thinking that is prompted by the question that you've been asked. Exactly. And not even necessarily to tell you, well, marketing is going to react this way, but perhaps even just to prompt with a question, how will marketing react to this? and let you think through your answer, give a response. Because what that does over time is it sharpens your brain and it it tells you, it makes a mental checklist in your head of these are all the factors I need to consider. You slowly begin to think like that leader a little more or like the next level of leadership a little more. And you grow and develop as a person as well as executing on your responsibilities.
00:12:47
Speaker
So what this ultimately does is it doesn't just accomplish the organizational and media goals. It actually creates bench strength in the team as individuals develop their capacity to think at deeper levels. The feeling that I get is that the non-inquiry based leadership situation means that you have lots of people thinking about everything from their perspective. What do I need? This is what I am going to do.
00:13:14
Speaker
And almost everybody else can take it or leave it. And we get out of alignment. Yes. Yeah. And then when you start asking questions like, this is what I want to do. How is it going to help you fulfill your job? How is it going to impact this part of the organization?
00:13:30
Speaker
You're getting teamwork, not because we've decided we're going to be on a team, but because you're building the softer side of the integrations between different people's roles, right?
00:13:42
Speaker
Because we're asking the question about, if I do this, how will it impact you? Because if you do that, it will impact me in this way. And that isn't going to make my life easier.
00:13:54
Speaker
How can we work this through to make it work so it works for both of us? play that out, just think for a second. If you are in an organization that has lots of cross-departmental teams, and it it could be easy to feel like you're in competition with your peers in other departments, but instead when we take this approach of real curiosity, of seeking to understand their perspective, of engaging their opinions and insights, of trying to keep it all aligned, we actually help everyone succeed a little more, and we We deplete that sense of competition in the organization in order to push us all ahead. I can see that because in a traditionally managed organization, it is very often about who is better than someone else. And we forget that we're all there for the same purpose. We're all trying to make the organization successful.
00:14:44
Speaker
And it won't be successful unless everyone in the organization is successful as well. it safe well but That's the definition of teamwork is like, we all have to be successful for us all to be successful.
00:14:59
Speaker
Absolutely. And questions are such a tremendous way to do that. They have so many benefits. I mean, research shows they help us learn better. People actually, research shows that when you ask a question, others actually view you as smarter, which I just love that fact that we sometimes we're hesitant to ask a question because we don't want to see be seen as ignorant of something. And instead, the research would say, no, when you ask a question, people appreciate it. They sometimes see you as smarter just because you thought to ask that question. So there's so much it can accomplish in an organization to help us uncover those places that where um that where risk might lie or where we might be unaware of something that's lurking there. And the questions help us get to those thoughts faster, too, and then help us learn better as a result.
00:15:47
Speaker
I suppose some in some ways, the fact that you ask the question makes you appear more intelligent, smarter, might actually be that you've asked the question that other people wanted to ask but couldn't, so you appear more confident, and confident people are perceived to be smarter, more intelligent, as a result of being having the confidence to ask the question. But there is very rarely anything like a daft question.
00:16:16
Speaker
Absolutely. I so completely agree. And really, we're just saying go for more questions. I don't know about you, but there have been many meetings where I've walked into and the highest ranking executive in the room has used that 50 minute meeting to soliloquy on whatever...
00:16:36
Speaker
issue is about to approach us or to um catch us up on everything from the executive team or whatever it might be. And I just think, what a waste of time, not because we didn't need that information, but because if that information could have been delivered more succinctly or in a different platform, then we could have used that time in the room together, which is very expensive time in the room together,
00:16:57
Speaker
we could have used that time together to address things, to ask questions of each other, to let ideas emerge and then to develop those ideas and figure out how to deliver on them. And instead, we spent all the time downloading information.
00:17:11
Speaker
And then we walk out of there with no next steps, no clarity, no alignment, no certainty of what we should go do as a result. I have had experiences where I've thought, You know, i've I'm the the most senior person around the table. And um I went into the meeting wanting to share some information and get other people's perspectives. And I shared the information, but I haven't got other people's perspectives.
00:17:40
Speaker
And the reason why i haven't had other people's perspectives is because from what you're saying, I didn't present the information that I wanted their perspective on in a way that asked a question.
00:17:53
Speaker
Exactly. I downloaded the information. and but hadn't created the environment where people could take the information and then ask me questions about it. I needed to be more specific about my request for questions, for information to move the story forward.
00:18:13
Speaker
Absolutely. And that is so often, especially if you've grown up in one of those organizations that we were talking about earlier, the master-servant relationship or the command and control relationship,
00:18:25
Speaker
you have to be asked a few times to know it's safe to give your opinion, to know that it is actually truly welcomed. and And so as a leader, if you're failing to ask, if you're just assuming, well, people speak up when they have something to say, again, you're leaving ideas on the table.
00:18:43
Speaker
um You've got to ask people to speak up. And then when they speak up, you have to reward the thinking. Even if you don't fully agree with what they say, you have to ah show appreciation for their thoughts, interrogate the ideas with a kindness and gentleness to your approach, you have to show appreciation for their willingness to share their perspective.
00:19:03
Speaker
Because if you respond poorly, when you do finally get someone to speak up, it will likely silence further conversation. it knocks You've moved forward one step and then gone back to when that happens. I get the feeling that when you say you have to appreciate these sort of contributions, that you're talking about something other than saying thank you or something more than saying thank you.
00:19:28
Speaker
Absolutely. Yeah, there's a tremendous growing body of research that shows that individual relationships and teams that are flourishing tend to have a ratio of positive comments that is significantly greater than the negative comments.
00:19:44
Speaker
So, you know, five times, for example, the positive comments to one another than the negative comments. And when I say that, I'm not saying all fluff and nonsense stuff like telling you, that's a lovely shirt you're wearing, Michael, or a new haircut looks great. That's that's not the kind of positive comment I mean. I mean comments that share appreciation. So already you and I have been talking for half an hour or so now, and I could say, Michael, you are very good at pulling the threads of history and bringing it into the current context. Well, that's me recognizing a strength in you and naming it.
00:20:20
Speaker
It might be saying, Michael, you have a deep, resonant voice. It's really clear to understand. And I can tell when something feels passionate to you. Again, that's me naming a strength, a positive that I recognize. And so if I've had enough of exchanges like that, then if I needed to say something that is a critique to you, you would receive it well because you know I see your capacity. You know I see your strengths and your contributions. how you're valued in the organization, i see your potential and your future. And so you'll receive that one critique I offer because I'm someone who sees the best in you, sees what you're capable of in the best ways.
00:20:58
Speaker
Thank you very much. And that's the kind of appreciation i think we need to show more of. And you're you're quite welcome and all true. Thank you very much. i appreciate that.
Cross-Cultural Inquiry-Based Leadership
00:21:08
Speaker
And i know before we started, just before I pressed the record button, you said that you had a question that you wanted to ask me.
00:21:14
Speaker
I do, yes, yes. So we've already established that I am and an American from the United States. You are from the UK, have worked in Hong Kong and traveled the world. I have as well, and so i'll have some idea of cultural differences. And when I talk about using questions to bring leadership out in in the wider group, um and even using questions that get at people's feelings, their motivations, their priorities,
00:21:42
Speaker
That can work in an American context. I am certain of it. And I'm curious, does it feel very American to you to be told to ask more questions and to engage your team more fully? Or do you feel like that's a sort of leadership that might work in other cultural contexts?
00:21:58
Speaker
That is an intriguing question. And I am thinking about even my experience in the United States where I'm thinking, well, I don't think it's an automatic shoe-in in the United States to assume that this will work in every organization.
00:22:19
Speaker
There's an awful lot of groundwork, I think, that needs to be put in place to prepare people for that type of management situation. i would agree. Around the world, managers tend to forget, for example, that the first experience that people have of management can really be at school.
00:22:38
Speaker
And you can almost track back the way in which someone behaves at work to the way in which they were educated. or if someone went to a school where they had an inquiry-based learning model. So this is what we're going to learn about today.
00:22:56
Speaker
Let's go and find all the information that we can about it or sit there, I'll tell you about it, you make some notes, repeat it back in an examination. You're going to get a different type of approach to work when that person eventually leaves education because of the way in which they were educated.
00:23:14
Speaker
And I think that is an indication, more so than national culture in some ways, of the way in which people behave at work. and I used to say that you running a training department that covered Europe, Middle East, Africa, and then was delivering training courses into North America as well. If we produced a manual for the course and said in North America, please read pages seven to nine.
00:23:41
Speaker
People would read pages seven to nine because that's what they've been told to read and there was no point in reading anything else at that time. If you would talk to people in the night in the UK, give them the book on day one, some people would go away and would read the whole sort of thing and then not turn up again. But I've read the book, thank you very much.
00:24:00
Speaker
But how would this appear in different cultures? I've worked in some organizations that have been entrepreneur-led, where you would think that this type of approach to leadership would be a complete automatic, whereas the entrepreneur believes themselves to be the person who has all the answers because they're the person who created the business.
00:24:23
Speaker
So therefore, you you are there to do, not to create. That's their job. worked in large corporations know where there's a huge hierarchy and all sorts of various different rules and regulations where the the situation has been the opposite.
00:24:42
Speaker
Senior managers have said, you know if there is an issue, i want no more than two sides of A4. You tell me what the issue is. You tell me what the options are. You tell me which which decision that you would like to make. And then I will ask you questions about that if I need to. Otherwise, I trust you to get on with it. It's very complex.
00:25:04
Speaker
When I started answering this, I thought I knew the answer. But just being asked the question highlights all of the various different ins and outs and possibles before you can actually reach the conclusion.
00:25:17
Speaker
Individual managers, their history, what they're used to can override a national culture. Some places in Africa, they're very deferential to senior people in Asia as well. But again, part of being the senior person Part of being the cultural norm within those cultures is that your role is to develop the younger, inexperienced person. So you're much more of a coach and a mentor than a manager.
00:25:49
Speaker
So in essence, you know, Amber, there isn't a straightforward answer to your question. There isn't. I'm sorry. No, I think that's my conclusion as well. And, you know, that that idea of deference to power, we sometimes call that power distance in in cultural studies. um And like you said, Americans tend to have a lower power distance. We believe we should be able to speak truth to power and approach them directly. And ah some Asian countries and other countries around the world might have higher power distance. It might be much harder, much high harder or barrier to ask a question or to believe that your opinion would be valued by someone. I think there is a difference in the way in which you can ask questions and which impacts that power distance. is that yeah If you believe that you have access to people in authority and that you are able to question them, and then you ask a question, why are you asking me to do this or why are you telling me to do this?
00:26:48
Speaker
If you are from a culture that is much more deferential towards authority figures, to seniority in rank, age, wealth, whatever it is, then you turn the question around to, yes, I'm going to do this, but could you please explain to me this aspect of it in more detail?
00:27:08
Speaker
And asking it in that way still means that someone has to think about what it is that they've asked you to do, but they're providing you with the information, but you're still getting them to provide you with more information and in so doing question what it is.
00:27:26
Speaker
that they're doing. But the first situation, which is say America, the United States is a little, perhaps a little bit more aggressive than what might happen in some other countries where people are asking for help rather than questioning their senior person.
00:27:48
Speaker
That's an excellent practical point of application that questions can be framed differently. And you can still frame a question with deference, with respect to power, or with a more open invitation, whatever it might be. So the the challenge is learning how to frame the question.
00:28:04
Speaker
not The first challenge is remembering to ask it and and building the courage to ask it. And the second then is framing and it it in a way that it can be received. Yes.
Closing Remarks and Future Engagement
00:28:15
Speaker
I have the feeling that we have only scratched the surface of this subject. There is an awful lot to be learnt and an awful lot of value to be added. But for today, Amber, I really have to say thank you very much. It's been very interesting. And I hope that we can come back and continue our discussion another time. I would enjoy that. Thank you, Michael.
00:28:36
Speaker
Thank you. I am Michael Millward, the Managing Director of Abucida, and I have been having a conversation with the independent mind, Amber Johnson, a Chicago-based leadership consultant and communications expert.
00:28:50
Speaker
You can find out more information about both of us at abucida.co.uk.
00:28:56
Speaker
The Zencastr system has, as always, been very efficient today. But if you're listening to the independent minds on your smartphone and experienced technical issues, you may like to know that 3.0 has the UK's fastest 5G network with unlimited data. So listening on 3.0 means you can wave goodbye to buffering.
00:29:15
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There is a link and in the description that will take you to more information about business and personal telecom solutions from 3 and the special offers available when you quote my referral code.
00:29:26
Speaker
The description is well worth reading. I'm sure that you will have enjoyed this episode of The Independent Minds as much as Amber and I have enjoyed making it.
00:29:37
Speaker
Please give it a like and download it. And to make sure you don't miss out on future episodes, please subscribe. Remember, the aim of all the podcasts produced by Abbasida is not to tell you what to think, but we do hope to have made you think.
00:29:52
Speaker
Until the next episode of The Independent Minds, thank you for listening and goodbye.