December 2013 Newsletter - The Art of Asking Instead of Telling

Good communication is a hallmark of healthy organizations, but it's often founded on the belief that employees thrive when given clear directions. In today's increasingly complex organizations, it's not enough to tell people what to do.

Leaders who ask evocative questions instead of giving instructions set the stage for better communication, employee engagement and high performance, especially when they're charged with supervising knowledge workers.

Effective communication encourages two-way conversations that traverse hierarchies and power differentials. Without this, leaders create high-risk environments.

After airplane crashes, chemical and nuclear accidents, oil spills, hospital errors and cruise-ship disasters, expert reviewers have frequently found that lower-ranking employees had information that could have prevented these events or lessened their consequences. Senior managers were guilty of ignoring their subordinates and being consistently resistant to hearing bad news.

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