Having all the answers is one of the pressures so many experience as they lead or manage their staff and team.
You got promoted because you were seen as someone with the right answer or having the solutions and ideas. Your staff come to you because the organisational chart, by design, suggests that you are the decision maker with all the answers. Overtime, with that kind of pressure, it can lead to a lot of stress.
In his book, A More Beautiful Question, Warren Berger suggests, answering less and questioning more as a very deliberate strategy. In his research, he’s uncovered that most successful people and creative people tend to be expert questioners rather than answerers. I’m passionate about questions and it’s one of the reasons why I created the coaching question cards, the Management Success Cards. Reading Warren’s book has simply and I must say delightfully, inspired me to continue to develop my questioning skills.
He’s a long term journalist with the New York Times, Wired and Fast Company, and the bestselling author of six books including the international bestseller, A More Beautiful Question, The Power of Inquiry to Spark Breakthrough Ideas. He shows how innovators and dynamic companies harness the power of inquiry, one of the most effective forces for igniting change in business and life. He has studied hundreds of the world’s leading innovators, red hot startups, designers, and creative thinkers to analyse how they ask game changing questions, solve problems and and create new possibilities.
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