037: Asking Great Questions with Dr. Michael Marquardt

By July 18, 2016Podcasts

 

Dr. Michael Marquardt says: "Any time is an opportunity for questions. Any time you make a statement, you may be losing an opportunity to be a leader, solve a problem, or develop a relationship."

Professor Michael Marquardt explains how great questions make for great leadership.

You’ll learn:

  1. How to use questions to solve problems and build relationships
  2. What makes a question great
  3. How to avoid disempowering questions

About Mike

Dr. Michael Marquardt is a senior consultant with Aspire Consulting, Professor of Human Resource Development and International Affairs, and Program Director of Overseas Programs at George Washington University. Mike also serves as President of the World Institute for Action Learning.

He has held a number of senior management, training, and marketing positions in major organizations. Dr. Marquardt has trained more than 100,000 managers in nearly 150 countries. He’s consulted many major organizations such as Microsoft, United Nations Development Program, Samsung, Singapore Airlines, and the governments of Indonesia, Zambia, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Honduras, Swaziland, and many others.

Mike is the author of 24 books and over 100 professional articles in the fields of leadership, learning, globalization, and organizational change. He has received the International Practitioner of the Year Award from the American Society for Training and Development.

Items Mentioned in the Show:

Dr. Michael Marquardt Transcript

Pete Mockaitis

Mike, thanks so much for joining us here on the “How to Be Awesome at Your Job” podcast.

Mike Marquardt

Good to be with you all.

Pete Mockaitis

Oh boy. I was getting a real kick out of reading your extensive bio with all of the travels and organizations that you’ve worked and helped out with. I’d like to know the back-story. How’d you get so fascinated by the notions of learning and questions in the first place?

Mike Marquardt

I think it came from my mother. My mother always encouraged us to ask questions, so I started there. I became a professor at George Washington University about twenty years ago. When you become a professor, they ask for a research agenda or area you’re interested in. I said I’m very interested in questions, so I did research for many years going to whom I thought were the best leaders from around the world, who worked for the top organizations. I asked them what were the kind of questions they ask, and when they ask them, and why they ask them. I also did a lot of reading and research, what political leaders, religious leaders, and so forth – what types of questions they’d ask.

It’s a fascinating topic that I think all of us should be intrigued with and do more of. That’s how I got interested. It started at a very early age when my mother encouraged me to ask questions.

Pete Mockaitis

That’s super, and it’s so funny. Here I am asking you a series of questions. I guess you can critique me afterwards about how they were sub-optimal or could be improved, and I love that. I love feedback. Questions are fascinating, but could you also tell us: Why are they important for the typical professional? What difference do questions make, and asking the right questions make?

Mike Marquardt

I think the first premise to be aware of is that most leaders – most people think that they can be effective in their communications if they are articulate. They can be more persuasive with statements and so forth. In the actual research and practice in great leaders, they realized that you can do many thing with questions that you cannot do with statements. Questions enable people to be motivated more. It helps people to listen better, to show respect to each other. People tend to hear questions, and when you ask questions you hear what they’re saying. Deep down, all of us love to be asked a question which gives us an opportunity of showing some capability, of shining in front of another person. It builds friendships and relationships.

Questions not only help you to solve problems in a creative way that you could not do through statements, but it also increases the quality of your relationships. It helps you in solving problems. It helps you be more of a systems-thinker. It energizes the people around you. I discovered early in life – and it’s been proven ever since – that great people, great leaders ask great questions. If you ask great questions, you’ll be perceived and seen by others as a wonderful person and a great leader.

Pete Mockaitis

I’m intrigued, in particular – in your book, you cite The Center for Creative Leadership’s study on the most successful executives, and that was one of the top findings, is that they were asking some great questions and made that a part of their regular communications. What are some of the big take-aways from that research?

Mike Marquardt

When I did my research in the building of The Center for Creative Leadership, I went to the best leaders in the top organizations. I went to these people and I said, “What are the questions you ask? And when do you ask them? And how do you ask them? And for what purposes?” And so forth. It reconfirmed what The Center of Creative Leadership and many other folks have stated over the years. One of the quotes I like to use frequently is one by Peter Drucker, who is considered one of the top management theorists over the past fifty years. He passed away a couple of years ago. He said, “The leader of the past was someone who made statements, who had the answers. The leader of the future is the one who has the questions.” You cannot be a great leader – or even a good leader in today’s environment – if you do not know how to ask great questions.

Pete Mockaitis

Now I’m chomping at the bits. Tell us. What are the questions? How do they ask them? When do they ask them?

Mike Marquardt

A great question oftentimes depends upon the situation and the person. To ask a great question, it requires being aware of where that person is. Oftentimes, a great question is built upon a response to some earlier questions that provide information for the questioner to ask a greater and greater question.

I like to give the example of the power of a question. My wife, who is a medical doctor – an OB/GYN. After we had four children, we decided she’d go back to college. She wanted to be a teacher. She went to a course at a community college, and it had a career day. At the career day, they had questions they would ask the people who attended that event. The first question was, “What do you think your career will be?” She wrote down, “I want to be a teacher.” Then they said, “If you could be anything you wanted to be, what would you like to be?” She said, “I’d like to be a Biology Researcher.” Then the third question, “What if you had no restrictions, no money worries, time, children were taken care of, whatever. You could be anything you wanted to be.” She wrote down, “I would like to be a doctor, a medical doctor.”

She came home all excited by that question and what she wanted to do in life. Of course, this is thirty years ago. I was not the liberated male I needed to be. She said, “I would like to be a medical doctor.” I said, “Eveline, we’ve got four little kids. Being a doctor, and going to medical school, is going to be very difficult. I’m making enough money. We don’t need to have the money,” but she said, “No, I want to be a medical doctor.” She had to overcome my resistance, in a sense. She was a woman, married with four children in 1980. Medical schools rarely accepted women – much less a woman with four young children, but she overcame all those obstacles with that great question that she was asked.

Pete Mockaitis

That is an exciting example. Can you tell us, also, in work places – can you give us some additional examples of times in which the questions are transformational?

Mike Marquardt

Often, the great questions need to come when an organization is working on a complex, difficult problem/challenge that they have to solve in order to achieve success. While they are problem-solving, great questions can emerge. Many questions might be, “Why do we always do it this way?” “Why don’t we consider some other option?” “What would be the most ethical thing we could do in this situation?” Oftentimes, when you have these problem-solving groups, you try to get people with fresh perspectives because they ask new and different kinds of questions.

Often, I refer to one of the great questioners of all time – Albert Einstein. He had this one question, “What is the relationship between energy, mass, and speed?” That was a great question. Once you have a great question, it’s only a matter of time. Either you, or people around you, will be able to answer that question. If you look at the history of inventions – all the great inventions in the history of the world – was because the inventor asked a question that no one had asked before, or had heard a question that no one had asked before. When you’re solving a problem, oftentimes it’s a question that you’ve merged as a group that’s understanding the problem. They ask something that connects things that they’d never connected before. “How can we connect point-A with point-B?” Where normally you never even look at those two divergent perspectives.

Pete Mockaitis

Can you share with us some additional examples inside the workplace? Folks are looking at something. So, one way it happens is through innovation. Like, “Hey, let’s ask a new question that hasn’t been asked before. How can we connect that?” What are some additional categories of great questions?

Mike Marquardt

If you’ve got a marketing question, for example, with Sony Music – they were working on how they could maintain revenue in a changing environment. You used to make a lot of money selling records, and albums, and so-forth. The environment changed, and they had to find ways of getting income from other sources. They had a group of six or seven different managers from different parts of the organization, and they had to come up with a new way of increasing revenues. They asked a number of questions, such as “What are the other sources of income we might get from a recording artist, rather than just selling his/her records?” They came up with other areas, like the tours, the merchandise, getting them on television or movies. They found a way; they developed what they call a full-services agreement.

When you sign an agreement with Sony, as an artist, you signed a full-services. Not only sell records, but they guide your tours. They sell your merchandise for you, so instead of having a high school buddy help you, you’ve got a professional organization. You have a global company, rather than a local Five and Ten store. They’re able to get you into movies and TV and so-forth.

Some of the questions they asked, they were able to take advantage of the various resources of Sony Music, but also owes a crises that they turned a situation in which they were losing perhaps tens of millions of dollars, to making tens of millions of billions of dollars with the questions they asked that got them to think of totally new ways of increasing revenue for the organization.

One of the organizations I worked with recently was a National Bank of Dominica in the Caribbean. They had a problem with customer service – how to improve customer service. They had to come up with questions that not only changed the attitude of the workers – the people who were clerks at the bank, but they came up with ideas that resulted in some Reggae music, some uniforms, new ways of decorating the office. The reward system was very different.

In general response to your question, you have to have the situation where a great question will get people to either be creative – Sometimes when you do a performance appraisal or you’re working with your staff, sometimes a great question helps you get to the target. “How can we achieve this target within this time period, and this resource?” The power of questions is that once you have the right question, the great question, then the subconscious as well as the consciousness of the body comes into play. Your subconscious works much more with questions, and really works with statements. You get much more creativity in your subconscious, than your conscious.

If you’re asked the right question at the right time – and sometimes the question is, “Why? or Why not?” It will cause the group to develop these ideas. They say it builds relationships. It builds teams. It helps energize people in a way that statements cannot do.

Pete Mockaitis

That’s lovely. I’m thinking about times that are sort of “Day-in, day-out. We’re just taking care of business, getting things done, and collaborating with one another.” Within those contexts, what are some of the very best, and very worst questions that you see launched?

Mike Marquardt

You may have someone come in to your office and say, “I don’t know what to do. I’ve got this problem or challenge and I need your help, Mr. Supervisor or Boss.” Oftentimes, what the supervisor does, is say, “Here’s how you handle that situation.” When really, he/she should respond with a question, such as, “What would you do?” Or “What are some of the challenges you are having?” “What are some things you’ve never tried before?” “Is there something in your previous work at another industry that you could apply to this situation?” You have to challenge people. When you’re working on day-to-day activities, if you can ask a question, you get much more return – not only in terms of the ideas, but the energy or the commitment of the person.

There are all kinds of questions that would be based upon the situation that you are in. Some people don’t have the resources, so you say, “What are some resources that are currently in the organization, that you are not using, that you could use?” In marketing, “What are some clients, or projects, or groups we’ve never worked with? Are there some other partners inside the organization that could help us?” Typically problems are trying to help us do more things with less time and less resources, which is part of organizational life.

Even when you’re planning a trip with three or four friends, if you ask questions – oftentimes, when we work on something together with another person, we make assumptions that we all understand the situation the same way, and in fact we don’t. We make statements that don’t make sense to each other because each of us see the situation differently. The only way a group of people can get some understanding of the situation and develop a strategy they can agree with, is if they ask a question, “What’s your feeling? What are you touching? What would you like to do?”

Pete Mockaitis

Lovely. It sounds like one of the worst practices is just not asking questions at all. It’s like, “Oh, you have a question? Here’s your answer.” Done, you kind of shut it down. Is there other mistakes. or watch-outs, or “don’ts” when it comes to applying the question-approach?

Mike Marquardt

As you mentioned, most people do not ask questions at all. They make statements. If they do have a question, it is a closed question which is forcing the person getting the questions to make a choice that he/she does not want to make – or there are other choices than what you’ve had. There are questions we call dis-empowering questions, “What’s wrong with you?” “Why are you always late?” “Why can’t you get that to me?” Those are questions, but they’re dis-empowering questions, or judging questions which make the other person feel like they’re being judged. They don’t have much worth. It takes away their energy, their commitment, their relationship, and so-forth. Those kinds of questions – which are closed questions, dis-empowering questions, or judgmental questions – are bad questions.

We have to convert those questions to what we call learning questions, or empowering questions. Instead of, “What’s wrong with you?” – “What are some ways in which you could do this in a more successful way?” “What are some other options?” “What have we learned from this that would allow us to do it better next time?” “How could you get the work done on time?” “What are some resources, or ideas, that would enable you to do that?” Many of us don’t know how to ask questions, and if we do ask questions, they’re negative questions that lose energy, rather than create energy.

Pete Mockaitis

That’s a great distinction and a guiding light, there. I’m also imagining these conversations, how they unfold – do they ever seem patronizing? How do you avoid that? I can imagine, part of it is just your tone of voice. If you say, “Now, how could we get you to appear at work on time?” It’s a little bit like, “Okay, I don’t like you.” Are there any particular practices, or things to bear in mind, as you’re doing this question approach?

Mike Marquardt

For example, we took someone who’s always late. That’s a good example. It may happen frequently. Why don’t they get the work done on time, the quality of their work is not very good, or they’re not a very valuable member of the team. There’s a number of things. If you ask the right question, where they see the benefit for them – you have to help them understand what your needs are, or the organization’s needs are. You ask the question – if they’re late, say, “What are some of the challenges we have if you, or other people, are late?” “What are some of the ways in which your colleagues suffer because you’re not there?” You ask open-ended questions that get them to be aware of the result or the consequences of their current situation. Then you ask the question, “What would be the benefit if you were to be on time, or if you had prepared for our meetings, or whatever?”

You have to always get questions to help them be aware of the consequences because sometimes we assume that they know what they’re doing, that they’re always belittling other people, or people see them as being patronizing or dominating. They’re not aware that they turn-off people in some way, or they think the quality of their work is okay. If you can help them, through your questions, be aware of what is happening, and the consequences of what is happening. Then ask questions that they can see the benefit of changing. That is when you see change occurring.

Pete Mockaitis

Okay, that’s fun. I’m thinking about these open-ended question points. I don’t remember where I read this. It was some business book or maybe Harvard Business Review, but the executive posed a question, and the question was, “What question do we need to ask next?” I thought that was an eye-opener for me because this executive not only did not have or state the answer, she didn’t even state the question. I thought that’s kind of meta, but also pretty powerful. It’s like, we’re all thinking hard collectively about what the question should be, to focus our needs. Have you seen that one in action? Do you have any comments on it?

Mike Marquardt

Yes. When I did my research for the book, there were several – five or six different leaders, who when I asked, “What questions do you ask?” One of their final questions, they say, “When we work on something, I ask this final question: Are there any questions we have not asked?” Oftentimes, people are afraid to ask what might be a very important question. It goes to the story of the Titanic. As we all know, the Titanic was called, “The Unsinkable Titanic,” and it sank on its maiden voyage. They had a person go to these engineers who built the ship, and ask them, “Did you think this ship was unsinkable? Because that’s what was marketed and the captain of the ship did not worry about going through the icebergs – right through the middle – and the passengers were not concerned about having insufficient number of lifeboats. Yet, 1,400 people died because none of you engineers – you all thought the ship was unsinkable.” So he said, “Did you really think the ship was unsinkable?” Every single engineer said, “No, I did not think it was unsinkable. You get a big enough iceberg at a certain angle, every ship will sink.”

This commissioner, then said, “Why didn’t you say something, or ask a question to the other members of the group – what happens if the ship hits this big of an iceberg at this angle?” No one asked that question, and the reason is one of the great fears we have in life, is the fear of asking a dumb question because we’ll lose respect of the people around us. They’ll say, “Who let Mike into our group? We thought he was a pretty bright person, a pretty skilled engineer or whatever.” It’s safer not to ask a difficult or risky question, so we don’t. That’s why this question, “Does anyone have a question that we’ve not yet asked?” That might be the question that might save the organization or save 1,400 lives.

It’s very common. It happens in organizations every day, everywhere in the world where people have some doubt, but they’re afraid to ask a question to see if that doubt is held by others, or only by themselves.

Pete Mockaitis

That’s nice. I can really see that situation. It’s really coming to life there. We talked about the content of the questions themselves. Can you also share a little bit about some of the framing of the questions, or the timing of the questions. You mentioned, in organizations that have to innovate in certain times. That’s one scenario. What are some other fantastic times to focus in and ask lots of questions?

Mike Marquardt

Any time is an opportunity for questions. Any time you make a statement, you may be losing an opportunity to be a leader, solve a problem, or develop a relationship. There’s different types of questions depending upon the situation. There are some questions which are exploratory, you have to get more information. There are some questions which you are making some connections to, among them there are some which are affective, trying to get people’s energy or feeling about something. There are some that are analytical. Some are systems questions, trying to get a big picture. Open-questions are necessary, particularly at the creative stage. You’re trying to be sure you’re getting the big picture, you’re understanding everybody’s perspective, when you want to get a wide choice of strategies. Then there will be points at which you’ve got to make some choices, and you have to have closed-questions that help the group make some decisions, make specific strategies, and so-forth.

It’s not so much having the right words, because some question might be a “How, what, who, when, where, and so-forth,” but it really depends upon being fully present, listening to what is being said by the other person – or what the environment is telling you, knowing where you’re trying to go as an individual or an organization, asking the question that gets you information, then carefully listening to that response, and build a question from that response.

I do an activity when I do this “Leading With Questions” workshop which we call Seven Questions. I put groups into twos or threes, and I give them the first question. I ask each person who’s the questioner, “Ask the other person, what is something that he/she is most proud of in their life, what is their greatest success?” Then based upon that response, they have to ask six more questions, each which is build on the response to the question that they ask. I tell them that you have the ability to change that person for the rest of their life, if you can build seven questions based upon what that person said. I’ve seen it happen hundreds of times. If you have the ability to listen carefully and dig deep, by the time you get to your fifth or sixth question, you’re going to ask a great question. We know great questions are those that change a person for the rest of their life.

Pete Mockaitis

I would just love to see a Seven Question dialogue sequence back-and-forth. Can I find that somewhere on your website or book excerpt? I’d like to see that come to life.

Mike Marquardt

Yeah, certainly. When I do the workshops and Leading With Questions, it’s one of the slides that we use. I don’t have examples of the seven. I do it and it works marvelously every time you do it. Some of it, you have to keep confidential and so-forth. You bring up a good idea. I should ask someone – first, you’d have to be recording it because it’s difficult for the questioner to remember his/her seven questions. You’d have to have either an observer or a recorder to write them down while they are occurring and then get the approval of the person. That is a good idea, and I will get a few of those onto the website.

Pete Mockaitis

Oh yes, and please let us know when that’s handy because we’ll certainly link to it. It sounds powerful. You tell me, is there anything else that you want to make sure that we cover-off before we switch gears and talk about some of your favorite things, here?

Mike Marquardt

One of the things – when I do my workshop, I like to give the story of Einstein. They say he was a great questioner. We are all born great questioners. Einstein was a great questioner. He also played the violin, and he taught children how to play the violin. The folks around Einstein said, “Albert, you’re a genius. Why are you wasting your time teaching children how to play the violin? You should be in your laboratory coming up with some great theories.” Albert Einstein said, “It’s not a waste of time. The reason why I like to teach children how to play the violin, is because they ask such great questions.” Einstein said that the main difference between him and other scientists and physicists and so-forth, is that he could still ask questions like a child.

His great question, which I mentioned earlier, about E=mc2. He got the idea for the question when he was riding on a train in Bern, Switzerland. The train passed another train coming the opposite direction, so he asked the question, “What would it be like if you were at the front end of a light beam, and you crossed another light beam going at the speed of light? What would that be like?” That’s the question a child would think of, not a scientist.

All of us, from the time we are born, we ask questions. Initially, the questions are in our mind. All children have two major challenges, or problems, when they are born. That is, to learn how to walk and learn how to talk. They don’t learn that by someone teaching them. Parents teaching them, “Now you say this word or this grammar. Move this leg first, or whatever.” They learn it through what we call an action learning process of taking an action and asking a question about it. Every child, every movement they make, their subconscious says, “How can I improve this movement?” They make a sound and their subconscious says, “How can I improve this sound so I can eventually talk to these people around me, or get the candy I want to reach?”

When they reach the age of 18 months or 20 months, they are now able to verbalize what was going on in their subconscious. They start to continually ask questions, because they love to ask questions. They ask great questions. Then their parents tell them, “Stop asking so many questions. You’re driving me crazy. I don’t have time.” The teachers tell them to stop asking questions. Most children – and this is a global phenomena – they all love to ask questions as soon as they can start speaking. Within three to six months, they stop asking questions because parents say they don’t have time for them. They’re stupid questions. You’re embarrassing our Uncle Joe, or whatever.

I’m a grandfather now, and I have eight grandchildren. One of the most important things in my life, as a grandfather, is to undo the damage that my children do to my grandchildren. I tell my grandchildren, “Grandpa loves questions. You can ask Grandpa anything.” They come up to Grandpa and say, “Why is your beard white?” Or “Why don’t the clouds fall?” Because they love to ask questions and I don’t want my children to destroy or limit that great love of questions. In my belief, the most important skill of life, that will make you a great person and a great success, is asking questions.

When I sign my book – when people come up and ask for an autograph in my book, I always sign it with the following, “May your life be filled with great questions.”

Pete Mockaitis

Lovely. That is a great re-frame right there. I’m glad I asked the question about anything else we should discuss.

Mike Marquardt

You’ve got great questions.

Pete Mockaitis

Now, could we hear about a few of your favorite things, maybe starting off by hearing about a favorite quote – something you find inspiring.

Mike Marquardt

Some of those quotes I’ve given you. I’ve found over life, the quotes about questions – I’ve given you the Einstein one, or Drucker. I read one just recently. Eric Schmidt, who was the CEO and now a chairman on the board of Google. He said, “We run this company through questions, not through answers.” You find all these people who said the power of questions. I like those kinds of quotes. You had another great management theorist who said that the main difference between a leader and a manager – a leader is the one who asks the right questions. The manager is the one who gets those questions answered. There have been a lot of great questions. The reason we’ve got McDonald’s is because Ray Kroc asked the question, “Where can I get a good hamburger on the road?”

Pete Mockaitis

Fun. How about a favorite study, or piece of research?

Mike Marquardt

I enjoyed doing the research for this book and I continue to do it. I continue to ask people how they ask questions and what kind of questions they ask. As I mentioned earlier, one of my interests is in this field of action-learning. How a team of people can quickly become an effective team and solve difficult, complex problems that may have never been solved before, and still work well together. They enjoy being a member of the group. The group gets smarter and they achieve their purpose. I continue to do research on how we can improve problem-solving groups, and how those problem-solving groups can develop people while they are in the act of solving the problem. There has been some great research coming out over the past few years. There’s one I read just last week about some professor in Canada who looked at how – through questions – you develop people to become authentic leaders, become more mindful, and did a fairly powerful quantitative pre-post mixed method methodology to prove the power of questions.

Pete Mockaitis

Lovely. How about a favorite habit, or personal practice of yours that you’ve found has been effective in boosting your effectiveness?

Mike Marquardt

As I tell people, the power of questions is not having the answer but asking the question. If you would like to be more effective in any part of your life, you just ask yourself the question. You would say, “I’m going to be having a business meeting this afternoon.” You ask the question, “How could I make this a great business meeting?” Or you’re going to be working with your wife on some project and you say, “How can I make this a good conversation with my wife?” Or you’re working on some project or another, and if you ask yourself a question, it goes into your subconscious and your behavior can change without you even being aware of how or why you do this.

The way to demonstrate how that works – if, for example Pete, say we were at a cocktail party two weeks ago and we met this morning, and I said, “Pete, can you think of the name of that person that we met at that cocktail party two weeks ago?” Neither of us can think of it. You can’t think of the person’s name, and we continue our conversation. Ten minutes later, you say, “Oh yes! I remember! That was Joe Smith! Or Ernie Ernesto, or whatever.” I say, “How could you – ?” We were busy talking, but your subconscious was searching for the answer, so if you ask yourself – you prep yourself with questions, your subconscious will help your body, your skills, and so-forth emerge. That’s a very powerful technique, and it’s very simple to do.

Pete Mockaitis

Great, thanks. How about a favorite nugget you share that fans really resonate with in terms of – they re-Tweet it, or they start taking a lot of notes, or it gets a lot of highlights in the Kindle version of your book?

Mike Marquardt

People like to know that there are a variety of questions, but what most excites people is the point I mentioned earlier, converting the dis-empowering, or judging, question to an empowering, or learning, question. When I ask them to come up with examples of dis-empowering questions in their organization, they have no trouble. It goes on all the time. Then, when I said, “Here’s some examples of taking a dis-empowering question into an empowering, learning question.” I give them some examples and I say, “Can you take some of those questions you’ve just given me that were judging or dis-empowering, and convert them?” They do that, and they’re just amazed. “This is a simple thing, and I can see now what would happen if I asked the question in this way, rather than the way in which I’ve done it.”

When I talk about the book, or do a workshop, that’s the point where people – their lights go on, and they find it as a very valuable skill they can easily take to the rest of their lives.

Pete Mockaitis

Cool. How about a best way to find you if folks want to learn more about you and your stuff. Where would you point them?

Mike Marquardt

I’m the founder and president of an organization called The World Institute for Action Learning. That’s where a lot of my writings, research, and work around the world is. That’s very simple – www.wial.org. WIAL stands for World Institute for Action Learning.org. You go there and you get many different articles, books, resources, and training programs. These training programs are related to action learning, but action learning is the single best way to develop the skill of asking questions. It’s the way in which all organizations solve problems, at least when they solve problems effectively. They naturally use this element of asking each other questions.

That would probably be the best source. Certainly, anyone at any time could send me, to my e-mail address which is mjmq@aol.com. I’m more than happy to answer any questions people may have about questions, or about action learning as a methodology to develop the skill of questions.

Pete Mockaitis

Thank you for that. How about a favorite challenge, parting word, or call-to-action that you’d put forth to folks seeking to be more awesome at their jobs?

Mike Marquardt

As we’ve discussed over the past forty minutes or so, try to come up with great questions because if you can ask a great question, it will not only change the lives of people around you, but it will change your own life. Questions have that power of changing anyone you ask the question, particularly if it’s a great question, but it changes you. When I work with teachers, I say, “Great questions will make you a great teacher.” I work with a social worker, I say, “Great questions will make you a great social worker.” I work with parents, I say, “Great questions will make you a great parent or a great teacher.” That’s my call-to-action. Spend time, think of, practice, work on coming up with great questions.

Pete Mockaitis

Lovely. We’ll do that. Mike, this has been so fun. Thank you for this. I wish you tons of luck in all of your travels, consulting, and helping people come up with better questions.

Mike Marquardt

Okay. Thank you very much, and may your life be filled with great questions.

Pete Mockaitis

Oh, it’s like I got the book. Thank you.

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