Humble Inquiry: The Gentle Art of Asking Instead of Telling

Now stop and think about how you feel when someone asks for more information, or asks you what you know. This makes you feel empowered, and it draws you into the conversation. Asking also puts the other person into a more vulnerable position. And this vulnerability opens the door for a trusting relationship.

In "Humble Inquiry," you learn why it's so important to ask instead of tell, in your conversations and relationships. And, you learn how to ask the right questions at the right time. Knowing how to inquire humbly and intelligently can help you build better relationships, avoid costly mistakes, solve problems more effectively, and brainstorm better ideas.

"Humble Inquiry" is the type of book that has lessons for everyone, but it's going to be most useful for people in a management or leadership role, or in a coaching or mentoring relationship. Even if you're not filling any of these roles right now, the lessons in this book will help you create better relationships and solve problems with your boss, colleagues, friends, and family members.

Edgar Schein is the Society of Sloan Fellows Professor of Management Emeritus at the MIT Sloan School of Management. He's the author of several books.

So, keep listening to find out how you can use three types of humility to better understand your work relationships, how to identify four types of inquiry, and how recognizing your thinking cycle can help you ask better questions.

There are only seven chapters in "Humble Inquiry," so it's not going to take you long to finish the book. It's free of jargon and endless case studies, so it's an easy read.

So, what does Humble Inquiry actually mean? According to the author, Humble Inquiry is "the fine art of drawing someone out, of asking questions to which you do not already know the answer, and of building a relationship based on curiosity and interest in the other person."

Most of us have a bias towards telling in our conversations. And, don't worry, it's not necessarily a character flaw. The author says that our society values telling over asking, especially in leaders.

One reason for this is that many people see asking questions as a sign of ignorance, and therefore weakness. Many organizations want leaders who will tell their subordinates what to do. Asking questions can be subtly frowned upon.

Even when we do ask questions, we often don't ask the right ones. The author says that all too often, our questions are just another form of telling. We might ask a question we already know the answer to, or ask to test what we think is right. These types of questions don't build relationships, and they can even hurt them.

To ask the right questions, you need to be humble. Humility is when you grant another person a status higher than the one you claim for yourself. The author says there are three types of humility, based on three types of status.

The first type is basic humility. This is the minimum amount of respect required in social situations, and the expected politeness and civility that adults owe each other.

The second type is optional humility. This is what you feel in the presence of someone who has achieved more than you. It's called optional humility because you have the choice to put yourself in the presence of others who humble you with their achievements.

The last type of humility is the most important in understanding the concept of Humble Inquiry. It's called here-and-now humility. This what you feel when you're depending on someone else. Your status is inferior to the other person’s, because they know something, or can do something, you need to accomplish a task or goal.

The author says he categorized humility into these three types to help readers better understand the subtle forms that humility can take. This can strengthen your self-awareness.

Here's a good example of how a leader can use Humble Inquiry to show trust and build relationships with a team. This story comes from the author's own experiences at MIT.

One day, the author got a letter from the dean telling him that the department's phone costs were way too high. He was given a list of every faculty member's calls, and instructed to find out what the problem was and fix it.

The author says he had three options in this situation.

The first option was to sit down with each professor and go over his or her calls to find out which ones were legitimate and which were not. The problem with this was that it involved telling people, face to face, that they’d made too many calls. This might offend them, and lower the chance that he'd find out what was going on.

The second option was to go over every call himself and make a list of the ones that looked out of line. He would then go to each faculty member individually and ask for an explanation.

This second option wasn't ideal because it was time consuming, and there was a strong chance his faculty members would feel defensive about his interference. This would damage his relationships.

The author's last option was to use Humble Inquiry. He knew the goal was to reduce telephone costs without destroying his relationships. So, he sent each faculty member a list of his or her calls along with a memo explaining that the dean wanted to cut costs. The memo then asked each person to look at their calls to determine which were legitimate, and to monitor this in the future.

The author made sure he communicated that he had no interest in looking at each list, and that he trusted each faculty member to examine and adjust their phone use.

The author's Humble Inquiry approach was the best because it showed he trusted his faculty members to examine and correct their behavior. This strengthened his relationships and solved the problem at the same time.

In the end, it turned out that it wasn't faculty inflating the phone bill at all. It was the graduate students. If the author hadn't used Humble Inquiry, and had taken a more confrontational approach, he could have badly damaged his relationships in the department.

Now, it's not just important that you ask instead of tell. You need to know how to ask the right questions.

Part of understanding Humble Inquiry is to know how it's different from other forms of inquiry – and the author says there are four different types.

Not surprisingly, he puts Humble Inquiry first. Although we've already defined it, here's another short example of what this looks like.

Ken Olsen, the founder of Digital Equipment Corporation, used to wander around his company, stop randomly at someone's desk, and ask, "What are you working on?" Ken was genuinely interested, and he'd usually wind up in a long conversation with the other person. Even when his company grew to over 100,000 people strong, he was loved and respected, because so many people had experienced him as a humble inquirer.

Was he a perfect boss? No. The author says that Olsen frequently fell into telling mode, and could be quite harsh with team members. But he practiced Humble Inquiry with his team all the time. And, they respected him for asking.

One way to get a conversation started with Humble Inquiry is to ask, "What's happening?" "What brings you here?" or, "What's going on?" You can also say, "Go on…" or, "Give me an example."

The second type of inquiry is called Diagnostic Inquiry. With Diagnostic Inquiry, you steer the conversation towards something specific. For example, questions like "What caused you to feel that way?" or "How did you get here?" are examples of Diagnostic Inquiry.

We should point out that the author isn't suggesting Diagnostic Inquiry is bad. It does have its place. But it shouldn't be confused with Humble Inquiry, because this type of inquiry, like the other two we'll discuss next, takes control of the situation, and influences the other person's mental process. You're steering the other person into thinking along specific lines.

The third type of inquiry is Confrontational Inquiry. This is where you start inserting your own ideas into the conversation using questions. This can take the form of rhetorical questions or leading questions. Confrontational Inquiry can still be based on curiosity or interest, but the difference is that it's in connection to your own interests.

Confrontational Inquiry sounds like this:

"Didn’t that make you feel angry?" or "Why don't we go to the movies tonight?"

In those two examples you can really hear how the other person is interjecting their own wants or opinions into the question.

Instead, you could have said: "How did that make you feel?" and "What would you like to do tonight?"

The last type of inquiry is Process-oriented Inquiry. With this, you shift the topic of the conversation onto the conversation itself. This can count as Humble Inquiry if your motives are to better understand what's happening right now, or to strengthen the relationship.

Process-oriented Inquiry sounds like this. "Is this too personal?" or "Have I upset you?" or "What do you think is happening between us right now?"

Process-oriented Inquiry can be very powerful because it focuses on the relationship itself. If you've inadvertently offended someone, or if you think a conversation has gone too far, this is a good way to stop and examine what's happening.

The biggest difference between Humble Inquiry and these other forms of inquiry is that Humble Inquiry doesn't influence the content of what the other person has to say, or the way it's said.

We thought chapter six was a valuable addition to the book, because the author talks about why we don't engage in Humble Inquiry more often. Being aware of this can help us get past unhelpful barriers.

One of the reasons is that, at times, we might not want to build strong relationships with other people. Unfortunately, sometimes we’re more interested in getting the better of another person than becoming friends with them. Or, we might not want to work on building a relationship with someone we're interacting with only briefly.

Another reason is that different cultural norms dictate what's OK to talk about, and what's not. So, how can we overcome the barriers that stop us from engaging in Humble Inquiry?

The author has a simple model called O.R.J.I. O.R.J.I. is the mental cycle we go through when we gather and process data within a conversation. When you better understand this cycle, you can take steps to slow the process down and ask better questions.

In the O.R.J.I. cycle, the "O" stands for observation. This is what we can see, hear, smell, taste, and touch about the situation. It's important that you try to spot any filters in your observation process. These can come in the forms of denial or projection.

"R" stands for reaction. This is the emotional reaction you experience once you observe something. Analyze how you're feeling before you jump to the next step in the process. This is especially important when you're in a situation or conversation that makes you feel tense, stressed, angry, anxious, or threatened.

"J" stands for judgment. Your ability to judge a situation rationally is limited by the quality of your data. This is one reason why Humble Inquiry is so effective. It's a good way to gather unbiased data from other people, so you can make a sound, unbiased judgment.

"I" stands for intervention. Once you've made a judgment you have to act. But, when you use Humble Inquiry, you minimize the chance that you'll make a bad judgment or act impulsively.

By taking time to reflect on your O.R.J.I. cycle, you might find that sometimes your judgment is logical, but it's based on facts that may not be accurate. Slowing down in situations or conversations will also help you be more aware of what you’re thinking and feeling, so you can ask better questions.

So, what's our last word on "Humble Inquiry"?

This is a valuable book, because it addresses an issue that isn't talked about enough. No matter what industry or organization you work in, the ability to ask humble, intelligent questions can transform your relationships, and the way you solve problems.

By the time you're finished with this book, you'll have a better understanding of why humble questioning is so important, and how to do it.

Our only criticism is that the book is a bit dry in places. It's a short read, but you might find yourself dragging through some chapters. It would have benefited from some light humor, or even some workbook-style questions to keep readers engaged.

In spite of the dry tone, we think the book does address an important topic, and it's still well worth your time to check it out.

"Humble Inquiry" by Edgar Schein, is published by Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

That's the end of this episode of Book Insights. Thanks for listening.