Lean Communication for Leaders: Ask at Least Three Questions

It’s funny how things sometimes come full circle. When I first met Chip Bell many years ago, he was teaching a class on leadership, but he has since become one of the world’s top experts on customer service. He recently wrote a fascinating article for Forbes about using questions to improve the customer’s experience, but I believe the lessons also translate perfectly to leadership communication.

The article is titled QAQ: The Path to Insight. Chip tells us that if you want to gain insight about a customer’s experience with your product or service, you can’t just ask them, “How is everything?” Most times, the answer will be “Fine.”

That’s because the first question is seen as a greeting and not as a direct request for information. I’m reminded of the old beer commercial where the Midwesterner visits New York and every time someone says “Howyadoin?”, he replies with an enthusiastic recitation of what’s going on in his life. It’s funny because it doesn’t happen that way in real life.

There’s nothing wrong with starting off the discussion with that type of question. People actually expect it; it’s part of the standard conversational ritual, and leaving it out can be a bit awkward and abrupt, like starting a phone call without at least saying hello. But, as Chip tells us, “The real test of the intent of the enquirer is the second question—the QAQ, or question after the question.” Are you asking just to be friendly, or do you sincerely want to learn from the other person?

It’s a good lesson for customer service, but I believe it applies even more so for leaders. That’s because subordinates may be even more reluctant to speak what’s truly on their minds than consumers of someone’s product. When you ask them how things are going, you can almost guarantee that their response will be, “Fine.” If you let it go at that, you’ve squandered a chance to do two things: learn something useful, and demonstrate that you truly care. In lean terms, that’s pure waste.

What you should do, after hearing their first ritualistic answer, is follow up with a more specific question; get them to open up about a specific issue or complaint. That would be progress. But don’t stop there, because the first thing that comes out of their mouths is a test: they want to see if you truly want to hear about a problem or a different point of view.

To pass that test, you have to show you care by asking at least one more question, to probe deeper into that issue or to uncover others. It takes at least three questions to demonstrate that you care and to give you a shot at learning something useful. The first question is a greeting, the second is a door opener, and the ones after that at least give you a shot at producing a real insight.

Chip calls them insight-seeking questions, and he says the goal is not to produce “more words in the answer, but more depth in the thinking need to produce that answer.”

It’s hard to find a better description of lean communication than that phrase: not more words, but greater depth of thinking. It’s a reminder that the first goal of lean communication is not to be efficient—it’s to produce value. If you want efficiency, stop at the first question. If you want value, ask at least three questions.