What question, if asked, would shift the thinking of your team?

Studies show that the members of high-performing teams make statements and ask questions in roughly equal proportion. Almost all teams seeking to improve their performance do not ask enough questions, or the right kind of questions. There are often pressures to be decisive, to act, and – as they say – ask questions later. David Cooperrider of Case Western University observed: “Human systems grow in the direction of what they persistently ask questions about.” If I had only one piece of information by which understand an individual, team or organization, it would be the questions that are being asked. Questions are the central nervous system of a group’s culture.

What questions are you asking? What questions is your organization asking? What questions need to be asked? How are questions regarded?

Team culture is a key part of the foundation for sustainable results: quality of service, innovation, clarity of strategy, commitment and energy, productive resolution of conflict, economy of effort, and so on.

I find that when a team or organization starts asking the right questions (and there is an art to it), lots of enthusiasm and productivity is unleashed.

In fact, it is surprising how quickly groups can shift patterns of communication. One meeting I facilitated recently was among Jewish, Muslim, Arab and Palestinian students. Of course there is a conflict which has a long history, and to which many of these students are closely connected. And here in Halifax, there is no shortage of antagonism and fear on the campuses around Mideast issues. That antagonism and fear has a polarizing effect upon those who are relatively moderate. In the midst of all that, with the right questions, people started speaking and listening with genuine attention and respect. Stories were told and appreciated. Of course, in two-and-a-half hours, these students didn’t resolve one of the world’s most intractable conflicts, but I would venture to say they made several steps in the right direction! Read the notes from that meeting here.

Many of our organizations are knowledge based, and nearly all are knowledge intensive. In a factory, machines are the productive units, and the layout of the factory floor, i.e. the assembly line, embodies the manufacturing systems. In a knowledge-based organization (or team), people are the productive units, and our methods and styles of communication are our manufacturing systems. So it is especially important for managers to pay close attention to the aspects of culture that underlie performance: individual and collective values, mental models, and communication.

At the same time let’s remember the old Chinese saying: words don’t cook rice. Any time I co-create with my clients a “new operating system” for their team, or work with an individual to redefine her relationship to the team, we always work with specific, observable objectives in mind.

So the rice gets cooked, and the team discovers higher levels of appreciation and engagement in being the cooks!

return to TEAM CULTURE