What is stopping you from reaching decisions collaboratively with teammates? What are you losing in the way of fresh thinking, innovation and lost human capital by not ensuring that all teammates become part of important decisions? And how can you facilitate decision making so that the most innovative, comprehensive and diverse ideas are available to ensure a solution that will support everyone’s needs?
Decision-making is an incomplete science. Decisions are affected by the type and presentation of material to be decided upon and based on information as it is understood by both questioner and responder.
Typically, we ask questions based on either what has been decided already (How are you doing Z? Why is X happening?), or plans for new decisions (When will you do Y? What are you planning around Q?). These questions are biased by the questioner’s motives (for example, ammunition or clarification) or by the responder who answers the question without thinking about why it is being asked. They lack vital context - like decision criteria, values, feelings, history or relationships.
People do not make decisions based on information alone. They actually make decisions based on their own set of internal criteria that are unique and idiosyncratic. We need questioning techniques that identify those internal criteria and use them as true tools for collaboration.
Facilitative Questions
Facilitative Questions differ from conventional questions. They actually teach people how to recognize and manage their own internal criteria and approach a decision in a way that supports their values. Consider these examples:
Situation: selecting a vendor
Old way: How are you currently choosing vendors?
Pulls information on a decision already made and does nothing more than give the questioner old data.
Facilitative Question: What would you and your decision team need to understand about your outcomes and your team process to be able to choose the vendor that would support your objectives?
Supports new decision making that would incorporate team beliefs, needs, values, criteria and make it possible to take action immediately.
Situation: project kick-off
Old way:How should we go forward with this new initiative? Does anyone have thoughts about first steps in moving forward?
Gathers information on everyone’s current thinking including biases and partial understanding of full range of options to be considered.
Facilitative Question: What do we need to consider to move forward in a way that supports the entire group working together, based on shared buy-in?
Adds personal criteria and demands action that includes the entire team.
Since decisions are belief-based and teams include several juxtaposed, and unspoken objectives, this approach helps teammates recognize their unspoken criteria and make more reliable decisions. Facilitative Questions start with either ‘What’ or ‘How’ and engage the brain in a way that allows change to happen. Facilitative Questions can help teammates, customers, and suppliers collaborate with you. Questions such as:
- What would we need to know or do differently in order to enable us all to participate in this project?
- How would we be working together so that all of our values could be encouraged and ensure that no one gets left behind?
- What needs to happen first to ensure that we all get heard and feel safe? And what would that look like?
- Collaboration occurs when everyone is heard and individual ideas and values become part of the process. Because if we’re not working together, we’re working alone.