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dislike of women wearing the colour red. He went on to explain that the MD felt that it looked unprofessional and wanted to warn me of this, rather than having me embarrassed by being called into the MD’s office and advised personally if caught wearing the ‘offending’ colour. Again, I noted his comments with interest and thanked him for taking the time to share this information with me.

      Shortly after, another team member visited my office, sat down and let me know that they had something important they wanted to share with me. They went on to advise me that they weren’t sure if I already knew, but wanted to make sure that I did know, that the MD really disliked people who smoked. Although they knew that I was a non-smoker, they did want to make sure that I was aware that there were a few smokers in my team and that it was well known that if anyone was caught by the MD having an unofficial smoke break, the admin manager would be called into his office for a ‘chat’. They were concerned that I might get into trouble if I was unaware of this and suggested that I have a quiet word with the smokers in my team so that they would be very discreet about their smoking. Again, I thanked the person for taking the time to update me and noted their comments with interest.

      Having had these interesting pieces of ‘advice’ provided to me, I had a choice about what I was to do with them. The questions I asked myself really came down to whether I accepted the way things were and acted accordingly, or whether I challenged the situations. Asking myself some challenging questions really helped me to work out that I was dealing with people’s perceptions and not necessarily the truth, and so on this basis I decided to work out how I was going to respond to the advice I’d been given.

      As the months passed in my new role, I have to say it was an interesting time for me. Yes, it was apparent that the MD didn’t particularly like to be challenged or indeed change his mind; however, this didn’t stop me challenging things on a regular basis and managing to get him to change his mind on many occasions. Yes, it was apparent that he didn’t like people taking time out of their paid day to smoke. That didn’t stop me sitting down with him to work out an official smoke-break policy that he could tolerate without anyone having to be called into his office. As for wearing red, I was the proud owner of two red jackets at that time and wore them regularly, always with the expectation that I would be called in to see him. Interestingly this never happened, and one day he did ask me whether I had ever been told a ‘story’ that he didn’t like women who wore red. I advised him that indeed I had, but that I had chosen to ignore it. He smiled and told me that he had heard a rumour that this was what was being said, but had decided to do nothing about it to test out how people reacted!

      My time at that company was, as I said, an interesting one, and I learnt lots about myself as well as how to manage some challenging relationships. I will always be grateful for my ability to ask myself Better Questions at that time, so that I could create my own version of reality rather than buy into one that others had bought into and that had created a culture based on resentment and fear.

      I came across an expression a few years ago that I really related to at the time: sometimes we fall into the trap of having an ‘integrity gap’. What I understood by this term was that there are times and situations in our lives when the person we are does not match up with the way we would ideally like to be. During my experiences in the corporate world, there have been times when I have felt compelled (based on my perceived expectations) to act in a certain way, which would not ordinarily be the way I would choose to be. For example, there have been times where I perceived it would be expected within my role to be ‘tough’, and whilst I never valued or liked being like this, I did it because it was expected of me.

      What happens, of course, is that when we are operating out of integrity, we not only use a lot more energy in doing what we do, but also we do not feel good about what we are doing. There is a nagging voice within us that tells us that something isn’t sitting comfortably, but frequently we push it aside and hope it will go away. In the long term this cannot be a good thing for our mental, emotional or physical health.

      What is great about aligning your actions with your values is that there is no ‘integrity gap’ – you do things in the way that you feel good about. Whilst I am realistic enough to recognise that when one works in an organisation, there has to be some compliance with the norms and values of that organisation, it is also really important for individual leaders to stamp their ways on their role, and I believe that any organisation worth its salt will value and, in fact, encourage this.

      To conclude this chapter, I’d like to suggest that leaders who have a desire to ask Better Questions will highly value:

      •empowerment

      •engagement

      •valuing staff

      •fulfilling potential.

      There will be more on the skills and qualities required to be a great questioner in a later chapter, but I hope this is a starting point for you to candidly consider your own workplace culture and the ‘way you do things around here’.

CHAPTER SUMMARY

Most of us unconsciously ‘tell’ because we believe that is the role of a manager. If we don’t choose to do something different, we will keep doing what we always do. Consciously choosing can be very powerful because it helps us to act with integrity and really think about the sort of leader we want to be.

      Chapter 3

      What else drives ‘telling’?

      The previous chapter provided some valuable insight into helping us think about our role as a leader and the way we go about getting things done. I am sure that most of us will relate to that sense of conformity and ‘fitting in’, and also of unconsciously conforming to the way things are done in certain workplace cultures rather than by a way of our choosing.

      I’d now like to take some time to highlight what other factors are at play in our role definition that need to be given further consideration to help us deal with the challenge of being less of a ‘teller’ and more of an ‘asker’. I always find that when we consider the prospect of asking more questions of someone instead of telling them what to do, there is some internal resistance that comes from both the person who is doing the asking and the person being asked. In this chapter, I will attempt to deal with some of the actual and perceived issues that arise for a manager or leader as they assume the role of an ‘asker’, and later we will deal with issues involving the person who is being asked.

      I am going to work through a practical example that you will be able to relate to and that will help to demonstrate the points I’d like to make. Let’s imagine that a manager has a staff member who has worked with them for some time. They have a good working relationship and the staff member is a valued team member. Historically, mainly due to a lack of awareness, the manager has been more of a ‘teller’ than an ‘asker’ and so they have created an habitual way of responding to people in their team.

      The example we will use is where a team member presents to their manager with a problem and the manager simply responds by advising the team member what to do. Indeed, the manager identifies with the ‘telling’ space because they consider themselves to be an expert in their field and have always believed that dealing with problems in this way was best. However, fortunately the manager has recently attended a workshop where they learnt the skill of asking Better Questions. Whilst at the workshop, the manager realises that they had been too much of a ‘teller’ in the past and decides that when they return to work they will start to ask some of those Better Questions.

      The manager returns to work after the workshop, and they have not been back at work long when a staff member approaches them with a problem, again with the expectation that the manager will provide a solution

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