🎄🗓 – Dec 8: How do questions empower responsibility?

Nerd alert! Today’s door is not created by Pia-the-leadership-advisor or Pia-the-tech-founder. It’s created by Pia-the-question-nerd 🤓

Last week a team lead in a multinational company asked me how he can use questions to encourage internal and external stakeholders to take responsibility.

I immediately thought of my observational studies of Russian, Chinese and Danish school classes, and how they displayed three basic ways we humans use questions.

We either use questions to:

☝️ Assume responsibility: “I ask this question, because I want you to know that I know the answer”

👉 Impose responsibility on others: “I ask this question, because I want you to provide the answer“

🤝 Encourage shared responsibility: “I ask this question because I want us to co-create the answer”

When I do keynotes and presentations for multinational teams, I ask them how they would describe the question culture in their department.

And now I ask you to do the same 💛

To contribute to today’s door in The Curious Christmas Calendar, please write a comment on LinkedIn where you share whether you have a work culture where you primarily☝️ assume, 👉 impose, or 🤝 encourage shared responsibility.