CHAPTER 2

A Challenge Accepted

What got you here won’t get you there.

Marshall Goldsmith

My appointment with Joseph S. Edwards was at ten the next morning. I didn’t tell Grace about this meeting or about my conversation with Alexa. And I certainly didn’t tell her about writing my resignation. Admitting I was in trouble had never come easily. I preferred working things out on my own. For some time now I’d been stonewalling Grace and feeling more and more resentful about her constant questions about what was going on with me. Until I found the right answers and solutions I was determined to tough it out and keep my problems to myself. But as usually happened with Grace, I wasn’t so good at hiding my problems.

I should have realized that she knew something more than the usual job stress was bothering me. That morning, on our way to the airport, where Grace was catching a plane for a lunch meeting in another city, she brought things to a head. As I pulled up to the curb at the terminal, she told me, “I’ve been feeling like a widow lately. You’ve been so distant and moody. Ben, if you want a real partnership with me, you’re going to have to make some changes.”

God knows I love Grace but I wasn’t in the best of moods.

“I don’t need this right now,” I told her, more harshly than I intended.

Grace looked stunned. I got out of the car to get her briefcase from the trunk. As I handed it to her our eyes met, and for a moment I was afraid she was going to cry. I knew it wasn’t right leaving her like that, but I was feeling pushed. Besides, if I got dragged into a long discussion, I’d be late for my appointment with Joseph. Our little problem would have to wait. Grace forced a smile, told me she’d be back that night but not to worry about picking her up. She’d get a taxi home. She turned and quickly disappeared into the crowd.

I was angry. Why did she have to choose this particular morning to pick a fight? I hit the accelerator and pulled out into traffic. Horns blasted. I slammed on my brakes as some maniac raced by, barely missing me. I was fuming. Between that near collision, the conflict with Grace, and having to attend a meeting I dreaded, my morning was off to a very bad start.

Joseph’s office was in the Pearl Building downtown, a 14-story edifice constructed in the 1930s and recently restored. Old Town, as we called the area, was a bustling shopping center with great places to eat and drink, and unusual little stores. Grace and I often had dinner there, at a small place called the Metropol. Grace is an art lover, and she’d opened up a whole new world I’d hardly known existed. Thanks to her, we’d spent many happy hours together, browsing through bookstores and art galleries. Passing our familiar haunts that morning, I worried about what the future held for us.

I pushed open the polished brass-framed doors at the Pearl Building, crossed the marble floors, and caught an elevator to Joseph’s penthouse office. I stepped into a large foyer that looked like someone’s private residence. Several tall ficus trees reached up toward a large skylight.

Beyond this private anteroom, a double set of doors opened invitingly to a long hallway. On the walls hung some kind of artwork. I remember thinking that Grace would enjoy seeing this.

“You must be Ben Knight!” Joseph Edwards strode toward me enthusiastically. I judged him to be in his early 60s, though he moved like an agile sprinter a quarter that age. No more than 5 feet 9, he was dressed casually, wearing an outrageous knit sweater with a myriad of striped patterns that dazzled the eye. He was not at all like I’d expected.

Joseph’s smooth-shaven face glowed with good humor. His brown eyes sparkled with almost childlike excitement. Atop his head, a wild array of woolly white curls reminded me of photos I’d seen of Albert Einstein in his later years.

Joseph’s warm welcome dissolved some of my reservations about spending time with him. He led me down the hallway to his office, explaining as we went that the walls displayed “some artifacts I call my Question Thinking Hall of Fame.” What I had at first mistaken for pictures were actually framed magazine articles and letters. I didn’t get a good look at them. We turned left into a large room bathed in the morning sunlight.

The room contained comfortable seating, a well-used brick fireplace, and a walnut conference table with matching chairs. One wall displayed certificates and a few dozen autographed photos, many with their subjects shaking hands with Joseph. In the pictures I recognized faces I’d seen in the news over the years. Alexa hadn’t quite prepared me for this. Joseph was obviously very well connected in the business world and beyond.

I also saw covers of three different books displayed in elegant frames. They were all written by Joseph. Each had the words Question Thinking in the title. One in particular caught my eye. It was coauthored with a Sarah Edwards and was about inquiring marriages.

I was impressed but also intimidated. We entered a less formal room, where I felt slightly more comfortable. Windows on three sides afforded a spectacular view of the city. In the distance, wispy clouds were lifting from the woods. The views seemed to stretch on forever.

I eased myself into a large leather armchair while Joseph took his place near me in a matching one. He dangled a pair of rimless reading glasses from his left hand.

After some brief get-acquainted conversation, he asked, “Tell me, what do you suppose is your greatest asset?”

“I’m the Answer Man, the Go-To guy,” I told him with pride. “I’ve built my whole career around being the person people go to for answers. The bottom line for me is answers and results. That’s what business is all about.”

“True. But how can you get the best answers without asking the best questions first?” Joseph paused, placing his glasses on his nose and peering over the top of them at me: “Is there a single question you would say characterizes the way you operate?”

“Sure,” I said. “Get the right answers and be ready to back them up, that’s my motto.”

Joseph asked me to restate that as a question, one I would ask myself. I couldn’t see the point, but I did as he asked, “Okay. Sure. The question I operate with is, How can I prove I’m right?

“That’s great,” Joseph said. “Then we might have your problem nailed already.”

“My problem?”

“Being the answer man. Having to prove you’re right,” Joseph said. “I must say, Ben, we’re getting down to business faster than I expected.”

I wasn’t sure if I’d heard him correctly. Was he kidding? No, he was dead serious. “I beg your pardon?”

“Finding proof that our answers are correct can be important,” he said. “But would you allow that there are times when too much of a good thing can get you in trouble? For example, how do you think your having to be right all the time goes over with your team?”

“I’m not sure what you mean,” I said, and I really meant it. I wanted my team to find answers, the correct answers. “Everyone’s looking for answers.” That’s what we all get paid to do, isn’t it?

“Let me get personal for a moment,” Joseph said. “Do your efforts to prove you’re right work with your wife?”

That one hit home. “Not really,” I admitted. Grace had told me how my habit of insisting on being right often frustrated her.

“It doesn’t work so well with my wife either,” Joseph said smiling. “With that in mind, let’s look a little deeper into what questions really do. Certainly we recognize that questions are a vital part of communication. But the role they play in thinking is not always obvious, and that’s where Question Thinking skills can be invaluable.

“If you’re willing to grab onto the real power of questions, they can change your whole life. It comes down to increasing the quantity and quality of the questions we ask ourselves and one another. It also matters enormously what our intentions are when we ask those questions. As the Romanian playwright Eugène Ionesco famously said, ‘It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question.’”

I must have looked puzzled, because Joseph paused and said, “You’ve never heard the term Question Thinking before, have you?”

I shook my head, no.

“Question Thinking is a system of skills and tools using questions to expand how you approach virtually any situation. You develop the skills to refine your questions for vastly better results in anything you do. That begins with asking questions of ourselves and only then asking them of others. The QT system, that is, Question Thinking, can literally put action into your thinking—action that’s focused, creative, and effective. It’s a great way to create a foundation for making wiser choices.”

“Go on,” I said, skeptically.

“Much of the time we’re barely conscious of asking questions, especially the ones we ask ourselves. But questions are a part of our thought process nearly every moment of our lives. Thinking actually occurs as an internal question-and-answer process. Not only that, we often answer our own questions by taking some action, by doing something.

“Here’s an example. When you got dressed this morning, I’ll bet you went to your closet, or dresser—or maybe even the floor—and asked yourself questions like: Where am I going? What’s the weather? What’s comfortable? Or even, What’s clean? You answered your questions by making a quick decision and then doing something. You selected some clothing and put it on. You are, in effect, wearing your answers.”

“I guess I can’t argue with that. As you say, though, if I did ask those questions, I hardly noticed it at the time. Actually, my biggest question was whether Grace picked up my clothes at the cleaners, like she promised.”

We both laughed.

Joseph was on a roll. It seemed like a good idea to just sit back and hear him out. Besides, I was actually getting interested.

“When we get stuck,” Joseph continued, “it’s natural to go on a hunt for answers and solutions. But in doing so we often unintentionally put up blocks instead of creating openings. I always remember that wonderful quote of Albert Einstein’s: ‘We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.’ To solve our problems, we first need to change our questions; otherwise we’ll probably just keep getting the same old answers, over and over again.

“New questions can totally shift our perspectives, moving us into fresh ways of looking at problems. Questions have even changed the course of events. Let me give you a dramatic example. Think about this. Long ago, nomadic societies were driven by the implicit question How do we get ourselves to water?”

I nodded. “Which is what kept them nomadic . . .”

“Yet look what happened when their implicit question changed to How do we get water to come to us? That new question initiated one of humanity’s most significant paradigm shifts. It ushered in agriculture, including the invention of irrigation, the storage of water, digging wells, and eventually the creation of cities, often many miles from water. Just think of Las Vegas. That new question changed peoples’ behavior, changed the course of history, and we can never go back.”

“I guess I can see how questions apply to getting dressed and even to that paradigm shift for nomads. But how does this apply to business? And more to the point, how can it help me with my problems?”

“The point is that questions drive results,” Joseph responded. “They virtually program how we think and behave and what kinds of outcomes are possible. Consider three companies, each one driven by one of the following questions: What’s the best way to satisfy shareholders? What’s the best way to satisfy customers? What’s the best way to satisfy employees? In terms of a business, each question takes our mind in a different direction. Each question will have a different influence on priorities, everyday behavior, and strategies for achieving goals. Remember: Questions drive results. That’s as true in your day-to-day life at QTec as it was for nomads thousands of years ago.

“Your ideas are interesting,” I hedged. “But I’ve literally built my reputation on having answers . . . not questions.”

“Fortunately,” Joseph continued, “the route from being an answer man to becoming a question man is much shorter than you might think.”

What was he suggesting? Giving up my cherished role as the answer man was about the furthest thing from my mind. I wasn’t about to give up something that had worked so well for me for so long. One thing I was pretty certain of—if we’d stuck with only questions, we’d still be scratching our heads and hunting for our suppers with pointed sticks.

Joseph removed his glasses and paused, as if contemplating what he was going to say next. Then he spoke in a slow, even voice.

“Ben, you’ve got to face facts here—you’re in trouble. One of your greatest assets—being the answer man—has turned into a liability. That’s the bottom line.”

As Joseph spoke, I imagined Grace sitting here in his office with me. Truly, she would applaud what he was saying. A big knot tightened in my belly.

“If being the answer man was still working for you,” Joseph continued, “you wouldn’t have spent the night in your office writing your resignation. Alexa told me about that. I know where you were coming from. I’ve had my own share of all-night debates with the walls of my office.

“This is where I think I can help you,” he said. “Alexa has been watching your career for a long time. She believes you’ve got great potential, and she’s obviously invested a lot in you. But she also thinks that without some big changes you won’t make it as a leader at QTec. She knows you pretty well, Ben. Before she hired you she shared her concerns with me about bringing you into the company. She especially had questions about your readiness for a leadership position. If I’m not mistaken, she also told you what she was worried about. Alexa is not exactly a shrinking violet.”

We both laughed at that comment, and I was grateful for a moment of levity. Alexa was about the most forthright human being I’d ever met. She never beat around the bush.

With more than a little embarrassment, I remembered her exact words the day she hired me: “Ben, I’m bringing you in because you’re absolutely the best in your field. I’m completely confident about your technical acumen, which we need for the new markets we plan to open up. What I’m not as comfortable with is your people skills. That’s where you need to improve if you’re going to make it as a leader. I’m gambling on you and I’m planning on winning this bet.”

At the time, I had brushed off Alexa’s warning. Instead, I had immediately called Grace to tell her about my great coup. If I’d heard Alexa’s warning at all, it was filtered through the plans I was making for a victory celebration with my wife that evening.

“As an answer man,” Joseph said, “your dogged determination to find the right answers has led you to some brilliant breakthroughs. However, the line between having the right answers and being perceived as a know-it-all can indeed be thin. You could even come off as arrogant and uncaring. My guess is that with the added pressure and responsibility of your new position, that know-it-all style has gotten exaggerated. Once you get labeled, you’re in trouble. When others start seeing you that way, can you really expect them to like or respect you? It’s not exactly an ideal leadership profile.”

“Who’s running a popularity contest here?” I countered. In my mind, a good leader has one responsibility— get the job done and see that others follow through on their assignments. Nobody on my team was producing.

“Whenever you’re interacting with other people as a leader,” Joseph said, “you want them to take initiative, ask questions, and come up with answers that maybe you hadn’t thought of yourself. Your accomplishments come from the total efforts of the people you’re working with, not just from your own solitary work. The skills that allowed you to create such dazzling technological breakthroughs in the past are not the same skills you need to be successful as a leader. In the words of Marshall Goldsmith, ‘What got you here won’t get you there.’”

Joseph went to his desk and took something from the side drawer. As he handed it to me I read the title: Question Thinking Workbook. I began flipping through the pages.

“If it’s true that you’re coming across as a know-it-all,” he continued, “which is the downfall of the Answer Man, you don’t leave much room for anyone else. You’re great at the technical stuff, Ben, but your present job requires much more than that. You’re working with people, not objects. Where people are concerned, there’s a certain magic in getting just the right mixture between questions and answers. I can offer this suggestion: Start by asking more and telling a lot less. The most effective communication is much more about asking and much less about telling. Unless you do ask questions, how can you make room for new information or find out what people are thinking or needing? Conventional wisdom has it upside down—in fact, even most formal communication courses usually focus on telling and not nearly enough on the importance of asking questions.

“For you, Ben, it’s vital to get curious and ask more questions—not just about technical matters but especially about people. Start asking yourself questions like: What can I do to get people more engaged? What can I do to get people working collaboratively? What do others need from me? What do they have to contribute that I haven’t been noticing?”

“Seems to me you’re putting way too much emphasis on questions,” I said. “Everyone has questions. That’s a no-brainer. But in my experience it’s the guy with answers who makes things happen.”

“Face it, Ben, you’ve hit a wall. Are you going to climb over it? Alexa is convinced you will. It’s your choice, not mine, so I can’t answer that question for you. Here are some more questions you might ask yourself: Do I really listen to people’s questions and suggestions? Do people feel like I listen to their questions and suggestions? Do they feel respected by me? Do they feel invited to take risks and share their ideas?”

Joseph paused. “You look perplexed,” he said. “Want to share what’s going on with you?”

It took me a moment to collect my thoughts. The truth is, I hadn’t expected this meeting to get so personal. When I asked myself those questions about my interactions with other people, I was taken aback, though I still didn’t get the point. “All this theory might be fine,” I finally managed to say, “but these soft skills just seem, well, soft. I thought we’d be discussing something really practical, something to get actual results, to turn things around.”

Joseph laughed in a friendly way. “Don’t underestimate the power of soft skills. As a mutual friend of ours once said, ‘We ignore soft skills at our peril. Developing these skills can be the difference that makes the difference between success and failure.’”

“That sounds like Alexa,” I said.

Joseph nodded. “In today’s world it’s not enough to have top technical expertise, or to have the best training in any of the so-called hard skills. Leaders need interpersonal and relationship-building skills, skills for communicating more effectively and constructively. Think of these so-called soft skills, or people skills, as the keystone of leadership success. The good news is that these are learnable skills.”

“You and I have very different ways of thinking,” I said. “You think in questions. I think in answers. You’re going to have to prove to me that this Question Thinking stuff can be practical enough to make a difference with my problems.”

“Fair enough,” Joseph said. “Let’s start with another question: Would you agree that you’re looking for ways to change?”

I shrugged. “Isn’t the fact that I’m here proof enough that I’m looking for changes?” Truthfully, I was thinking what kind of nonsense is he promoting here? But I didn’t say it. I didn’t say anything.

“To change something, you need to first understand where you’re starting from. The better you can observe that, the more effective you’ll be with making the changes you want. And that’s where Question Thinking can help you. Really effective, intentional change begins with strengthening your observer self. The better you can see what’s going on—that’s where the observer self comes in—the better you can apply the right skills and strategies to make the changes you want.”

Joseph’s emphasis on the observer self piqued my interest. I was familiar with using this observer part of myself to solve technical problems by looking at what was working, what wasn’t working, and coming up with answers to solve a problem. But I had never looked through that observer lens when it came to how I interact with other people. I’d hardly given much thought to developing people skills much less that they were actually skills you could learn.

“There’s a tool in the workbook for honing your skills as an observer,” Joseph said. “That’s the first tool. Before we meet next time, read it over and think about it.”

I nodded absently as I searched for the place he was talking about in the workbook. Ready or not, the self-observing questions were already coming. First and foremost was, “Should I be questioning my assumption about the power of answers?” I was beginning to suspect I might miss something important if I didn’t listen carefully to Joseph. The notion that Grace might agree with him was also playing at the back of my mind. Was I doing too much telling and not enough asking with her? I suspect I already knew the answer to that question.

“Judging by the look on your face, I’m guessing you’re a little unsettled right now,” Joseph said. “But I assure you that once you understand how to use the Question Thinking principles and practices, particularly in strengthening your ability to observe yourself, all the pieces will fall into place. Think of this workbook as a guide into this world of questions. I promise that these tools provide a practical how-to that makes real change possible. You have no idea what a powerful difference this can make for your career.” Joseph flashed me an enigmatic smile and added, “To say nothing of what it can do for your personal relationships.”

Question Thinking! This was going to be a challenge. Even Joseph’s terms for his theories got to me. Wasn’t it bad enough that he wanted me to ask myself and other people more questions? I admit my reaction was a bit juvenile, but I felt like covering my ears with my hands. Almost immediately a question popped into my head: Was my resistance getting in the way of listening openly to what he had to offer? No matter. It was time to bite the bullet. I had to try what he had to offer. What choice did I have? I was desperate.

“Let’s be clear about this,” Joseph said. “This system of tools and practices is not psychotherapy, but you can think of it as learning how to coach yourself through challenges to get better results. It’s about becoming more efficient, productive, creative, and successful, and it’s about leading others toward those ends,” Joseph continued, “and I think you’ll agree there’s nothing more practical than that. In the end, I believe you’ll be able to make a quantum leap out of your present quandary. Despite any doubts you might have at the present time, I’m with Alexa on this one. I’m betting on your success.”

At this point Joseph declared a half-hour intermission, as he jokingly called it. I made a quick call back to my office. There was nothing that couldn’t wait, which was a relief. I was feeling pretty shaken up.

I decided that when I left Joseph’s office I would go to a quiet coffee shop, skim his workbook, and think about my next moves. Did Joseph understand the importance of my strengths as an answer man? Was I missing something? Was he?

Minutes later, standing in the mirrored elevator, I looked up and caught my reflection. Staring back at me was the face of a stranger filled with tension and frustration—me! Was this the face that Grace had been looking at for the past few months? Truth be told, I wasn’t sure I’d want to hang around that guy myself. Could I really change, as Alexa and Joseph seemed to believe? And did I really want to? Maybe I should accept my strengths as a guy who’s an expert on answers. Maybe I really wasn’t leadership material.