Common Errors: How to Recognize and Correct Them

5 What Are the Common Errors?

Have you considered what you do right and what you do wrong?

All people are not equally adept at asking questions. Many of us fall into a number of common traps when we ask questions, or we ignore the need to ask a crucial follow-up question. A trap is an error in questioning that we may succumb to without even noticing. As you will see in some examples later, others do notice. The most common of these so-called traps are

• Habit questions

• The question as an answer, or the answer in the question

• Asking a question without communicating the context

A number of other errors that creep into questioning might be the result of a conscious choice. We choose an approach to asking, we think of the words we will use, and we think about how to position the question in the discussion. But just thinking about them ahead of time may also incorporate errors. Some of these errors are intentional and might have nothing to do with asking questions, and everything to do with the process of asking. However, people are not blind to these practices, and although in some cases they make good theater, they might not help managers improve the business.

• Positioning. “I’m just a poor kid from Podunk, but tell me....”

• Posturing. Projecting an “I’m in charge” image.

• Avoidance. Ignoring the need to ask about the elephant in the room.

• Casual questions. There is no such thing as a casual question.

• Speaking “jargonese.”Jargon is to be avoided.

• The “no question” question. A “leave them guessing” approach to asking.

Things can go wrong even when we do not ask questions. That is because we often conclude that it isn’t the right time to ask. Or we conclude that the question and the possible answer are obvious to everyone, so we avoid looking stupid by not asking. If there is one thing that this discussion argues for, it is for asking questions whenever and wherever they seem appropriate. It is the only way to learn, to improve, and to foster a desire to do the same throughout an organization. At one time or another, at least one of these preconceived notions has occurred to all of us:

• You already know the answer, so it is unnecessary to ask.

• I will look foolish asking.

• Someone else will ask.

• I will wait for a more appropriate time.

• My question will make waves.

6 Do You Have Habit Questions?

This is the single most common trap that I have observed among all managers. I include myself in this characterization. Habits are difficult to recognize, and even harder to change. Experienced managers, particularly those who have had great success employing their favorite questions, are unlikely to change even when they are aware of the habit. To them, habit questions are not problems because the businesses they are responsible for managing continue to be successful. Consider this real-life scenario, for example.

Supervisor to his subordinates: We will be meeting with Jake tomorrow. Remember to have answers for his favorite questions: a) What does it cost? b) What is 10 percent of that number? And, c) if the budget were reduced by that number, what would not be done?

Jake had a one-track “10 percent solution” fixation. He asked his 10 percent question of every program and every person in every meeting he attended. He applied it across the board: advertising, manufacturing, research, and human resources. The business he ran definitely benefited from his habit.

However, he rarely asked any serious questions about other aspects of his business. His habits caused all internal discussions to be skewed in the direction of cost savings. In addition, funding requests were boosted by the same “10 percent solution” or even 20 percent increments because the cuts always came 10 percent at a time, and he always wanted to cut some cost.

How can you tell whether you have habit questions? Ask yourself, or better yet ask the people you work with. If people know what you are going to ask in most circumstances, you have a habit. This doesn’t mean that it’s a bad habit. It does mean that you can become more effective and your business can benefit by adding new questions to your toolkit.

I used to ask my kids the same question every day at dinner: What did you do in school today? One day, they erupted in anger. They were convinced that I didn’t care what happened at school that day or any day for that matter. I often neglected to follow up on what they had told me the day before. We fixed the problem, and I am sure that on some days they wished I had forgotten to follow up.

Sure signs of habit questions include the following:

• You can write a list of your favorite questions without hesitation.

• You suffer from lack of follow-up on previous discussions.

• You are always impressed by how well prepared people are with answers.

• Someone has put a copy of this page in your mail.

If you have a habit of asking the same questions, you can avoid this by looking for continuity with previous discussions, or by asking questions from a new point of view. Read down the list of basic questions in the preceding section and select the one interrogative word you rarely, if ever, use.

7 Does Your Question Lack Context?

The context of a question is the general environment that provides both the questioner and the respondent an understanding of the expectations that come with the question and answer.

The best lack of context story I have heard comes from the White House a few administrations ago. The president’s daughter (it is not important which president’s daughter) had come home from school and asked for help on a homework question about South America. I can imagine how the story might have happened.

First Daughter: Mom, I have this question about South America I need to answer for school. Do you know...?

First Mother: Why are you asking me, dear? Your father is president of the United States of America. He ought to know the answer. Go ask your father.

Then, just like millions of other kids, she asked her dad. Her father did what all dads (who do not know the answers to fourth grade geography homework assignments) would like to do—he called the State Department. Tens of thousands of pages in reports were delivered the next day to the White House by truck.

Do you think the president had made it clear why he was interested in whatever it was he was asking?

If people are constantly asking for an explanation of the questions you ask, it could be that you are not providing the proper context.

Questions lack context when

• The respondent asks, “What do you mean by that?”

• The respondent is uncertain just how to answer.

• People always seem to misunderstand what was meant by the question.

• Your e-mail is full of information you never (thought you) requested.

• Someone restates your question by saying, “I think this is what Harry meant to ask....” (And your name is not Harry.)

The reason you asked your question should be as clear to the person you are addressing as it is to you.

8 Do You Put the Answer in the Question?

The question can sometimes offer the answer. Occasionally, this is the intent; but putting the answer in the question is recommended only if you are asking leading questions, and then only if you want to learn nothing more in the discussion. A variation of this approach to asking questions is called “putting words into the mouth” of your respondent.

There are a variety of forms of this practice, and the following example is an illustration of a manager’s attempt to put the right answers into his questions and the appropriate words into the mouths of his staff. It happened in a business that produced and sold extremely sophisticated high-technology equipment.

The business manager had mistakenly promised the CEO, who in turn promised the board, that a new product would be released before the end of the year. This product was urgently needed to prop up sagging sales.

Overly optimistic business manager: We have maintained the product testing schedule, the customer beta testing, and no additional performance testing is included; so, we have acquired all the data we were originally planning to get? Right?

Product manager: Yes, we have all the data we were originally planning to obtain.

Overly optimistic business manager: Our suppliers have informed me that they are on schedule with all aspects of production, so raw materials inventories are at the necessary levels. Are we at proper supply levels to assemble the product?

Operations manager: Yes, inventories are at the planned levels.

Overly optimistic business manager: So, you all agree that we have all the major criteria satisfied? Right?

It is worth noting at this point that the business manager is asking questions that not only contain the answers but also questions to which only one answer can be given. He is not allowing any bit of undefined reality to creep in that could derail his plans for the promised product release to the market.

Overly optimistic business manager: So, the product is ready to be commercially released, yes?

Product manager(unmoved by this display of managerial brilliance): No.

Overly optimistic business manager: No? Did you mean no?

Product manager: Yes. I meant no.

No longer optimistic business manager: It’s December. We need the product released to stores this fiscal year. We already have orders worth millions of dollars. I have promised the CEO, and he has promised the board. Everything is completed, and there is nothing standing in the way of sales. What happened?

Product manager(looking forward to a sales assignment in Baghdad): The final production prototype fell over, caught fire, and burned to a crisp. We don’t know why this happened. So, until we finish root-cause investigation, everything is on hold.

So much for asking questions with answers, or even asking them in a way that you get only the answer you want. Reality may be different than desired.

In this particular case, the business manager did make one final attempt to influence his junior manager to start sales “...anyway, just so we can say that we did it this year...” and complete the necessary work during the first quarter.

However, the junior manager was unfazed by this ruse. He refused. To the credit of all, the product problem was resolved, the product was introduced successfully, and the managers were eventually rewarded with promotions.

Putting answers in questions, or words in the mouths of others, is best left to courtroom practice. Listen to the questions asked for these signs:

• Respondents always provide the exact answer you were looking for.

• The words in the question are repeated in the answer.

• The main question is followed by a second question: Right? Yes? No?

Unless a classroom lesson is being taught by repetition of a specific answer, it is usually a better practice to ask more open-ended questions. You might not hear what you want, but you are likely to hear what you need.

9 Positioning: “Just a Country Lawyer...”

Uttered in a casual manner, this preamble to a question is designed to be self-effacing, projecting the humility of the inquisitor. Instead, it may very well be viewed as disingenuous.

I knew a manager who used a variant of this. His preamble was a claim that he was a country kid from Tennessee. He used it so often that it became a signal that a “tough” question was coming next.

Manager: Help me out here. I am just a country kid from Tennessee. How is it that exchange rates are responsible for our decline in revenues in Japan, whether the dollar is up or down versus the yen? Can you explain this to me?

This kind of personal-positioning approach appears to have had its origins in the televised Watergate hearings. Sam Ervin was the primary investigating attorney during the televised congressional proceedings examining then-President Nixon’s part in the criminal break-in at the Democratic Party headquarters in the Watergate Hotel.

Mr. Ervin started many of his insightful, complex, and critical questions with his comfortable slight southern drawl declaring, “I’m just a country lawyer.” What was the implication?

He wanted answers to his questions put in language so simple even a “poor country lawyer” could understand them. He was also positioning the other side as his opposites—slick, big city, fast-talking people.

Some of the sharpest minds I have ever met are possessed by country lawyers. Just like country doctors, they need to know everything about everything just to be prepared for anyone who may walk into their office.

Sam Ervin was neither poor nor was he from the country any longer. He was a Harvard-educated attorney and had earned a good living in Washington, D.C. However, his comments made great theater. He can still be heard speaking on a few different websites that carry recordings of the Watergate proceedings.⁵

The regular practice of positioning is discouraged. Here are a few signs of positioning:

• Everyone knows where the questioner is from.

• Employees can repeat the opening line of a manager’s preamble, verbatim.

• A question is preceded with a remark positioning everyone else. (Okay, wise guys, let’s get started.)

• The questioner uses us versus them, another positioning trick. (Why is it those night people always leave us the tough ones?)

The day shift versus night shift was used by one customer service operations manager I knew to improve the performance of his crew—the night people. He had heard his boss’s boss extol the virtues of the day crew, even taking some credit himself for establishing higher customer-satisfaction numbers. “But you know how difficult it is to get the night crew working at that same level....” What an awful way to lower expectations while at the same time reducing the stature of the “night manager.” It also said something about the attitude of the company toward customers who called at night.

The business was considering moving the night and weekend team to another geographic location to save money and, if necessary, to “enforce” better performance through the threat of lost jobs. No customer wants to hear poor language skills on the other end of the phone when he or she calls a service operation seeking support.

So, the night manager started to use a preamble whenever he addressed his crew: “Who is the day crew for the rest of the world?”

He used this whenever he started to ask questions, thus instilling within the team, through a simple question (one that needed no verbal answer), a sense of primacy in their work. To him, there was no day or night.⁶

A preamble has the most value the first time it is used. The direct approach is often the best. Ask straightforward questions in plain language.

10 Posturing: When the Questioner Suddenly Becomes Larger

Posturing is a sister technique to positioning. When a manager postures, he or she is attempting to create a larger, more important “self” than might otherwise have been perceived by the people present. Posturing might also be a way for an individual to assert control or gain influence.

A person “postures” by figuratively puffing up. This is done as if to show off a chest full of medals (like we would see on a heavily decorated military veteran). Posturing implies intimidation. It is one way to make everyone else in the room aware of who is in charge, or taking charge. Consider this scene.

Fifteen people were in a planning meeting run by a marketing manager. The discussion was designed to focus on market strategy. The objective of this get-together was to find a way to expand the business in a slow-growth market. All levels of the business were represented, from technician to a new vice president.

This was the first meeting that this particular VP had attended in this business and the very first time any of the people in the business had met him in person. A reputation for arrogance had preceded his arrival.

One internal wall of the large conference room was floor-to-ceiling glass. Everything in the room was completely visible to all employees in a large bullpen type of office area.

For purposes of our discussion, the business produces, markets, and sells hypoallergenic milk to schools.

Marketing manager(smiling): As you can see on our first slide, we have segmented the market into small, medium, and large schools.

VP(also smiling): Do you mean to say that these schools have low-volume, medium-volume, and large-volume milk-purchasing cafeterias?

Marketing manager: There is a direct correlation between the size of the school and the amount of milk the school purchases.

VP: Are there no exceptions?

Marketing manager(no longer smiling): There are some exceptions, of course. Some schools purchase milk as if they were larger or smaller.

VP: I see. So, is it possible to have a small school with a cafeteria that purchases milk at, let’s say, a medium-volume level?

Marketing manager: Yes, I suppose it is. Now on this next slide, showing small schools....

VP(still smiling—grinning actually): Excuse me, but you said that the schools had low-, medium-, and high-volume milk consumption. You also said that some of these schools could have cafeterias that purchase higher or lower volumes of milk than would be indicated by the size of their school. Do these schools have signs out front stating “Large-volume milk-purchasing cafeteria inside?”

Marketing manager(with an expression akin to disbelief): No. That is not the point.

VP(grinning): That is the point. Why have you segmented the market by school size when you meant to do it by cafeteria volume?

Marketing manager: Because it just seemed to be logical based on what we know about the market. Now on the third slide, the needs of the medium school show that....

VP(the bastard was actually chortling at this point in the interaction): Why does this slide say medium school when you mean to say medium-volume cafeteria?

At this point, the marketing manager throws his pointer at the wall, makes a few choice remarks about some barnyard animals, how they should be segmented, and where in the market the new vice president can go to fetch them.

Much arm waving accompanied by hand signals of the marketing manager caught the attention of employees who were observing the deliberations from their cubicles just outside the glass wall. News of this performance filtered through the organization at nearly the speed of light, thanks to a new corporatewide fiber-optic network.

Through a Socratic question-and-answer technique, the vice president was able to accomplish many objectives: assert his control, demonstrate his self-perceived abilities of astute observation, and put a whole business on notice to get things right before they present anything to him. Finally, he was able to bring out the least attractive traits of an otherwise charismatic leader. This was pure posturing—and unnecessary.

The VP was smart, and he made certain to let people know that he was a member of Mensa, the organization of people smart enough to score over a certain number on a standardized IQ test. However, he was also considered poison for the business he had just joined. One person is not responsible for all performance of a business, whether good or bad, but it is hard to ignore the evidence in this case. Earnings and revenues started sinking, coincidently, shortly after the arrival of this executive and continued until he left the business.

I discuss the Socratic approach to management in a subsequent chapter. Although I am a proponent of the general method, it does have a dark side, as just noted.

Signs of posturing include the following:

• The question clearly puts the questioner in control of the discussion in a way that is unnecessary.

• Questions include qualitative measures of self-importance (for example, “When I was speaking to the president about this....”)

• Attributes of self-importance are inserted into the discussion, such as SAT scores, Mensa membership, the size of their stock portfolio, who they had dinner with last night, and so on.

• The questioner explains the answers back to the respondents (for example, “Let me tell you what you mean....”).

• Managers wear their Phi Beta Kappa keys every day on their foreheads.

Posturing is an unwarranted power trip that companies can ill afford. If it is necessary to demonstrate knowledge, reasoning ability, or a need to make corrections, ask questions that lead respondents to draw appropriate conclusions themselves. People respect managers who can bring out the best in them. Be aware, however, that although they respect them, they do not necessarily like them.

Managers must decide what is most important, but few people like a manager who is constantly posturing.

11 A “Casual” Question?

Managers can be the “manage by walking around” informal type, or they may have a more formal relationship with their organizations, or something in between. Questions, irrespective of the style, are always asked in the business context.

Whether a question is casual or not depends on how it is perceived by the person you ask. It is the respondent rather than the questioner who determines the nature of the question. Acting casual does not make the question casual.

The guidance I give anyone in business today is that there is no such thing as a casual question—especially questions put in writing or in e-mail. With the availability of e-mail records in the “forever file,” any question you have ever asked, casual or not, is retained for some future trial lawyer to resurrect.

Questions such as “Ed, do you really think this stuff will kill all the fish in the ocean?” are not casual and will return to haunt you, your business, and perhaps even mankind.

If you are a person who manages by walking around, you might get away with casual questions, as long as they are part of your routine management style. If you are not prone to relaxed interactions or conversing casually with the troops, avoid engaging in this activity.

As I was staring into my computer screen one morning early in my tenure in marketing, our VP appeared in my doorway as if beamed there by a transporter. This was trouble—big trouble!

Here was a guy who left his office only to attend meetings for which he received a formal engraved invitation nine weeks ahead of time. He was ruthless when presented with a proposal of any kind—plans, advertising campaigns, or just plain memos. He poked, prodded, and otherwise opened holes in every paper, presentation, and argument presented to him. His stated objective was to peer inside you. When I saw him in the doorway, I went blank, and all external orifices slammed shut.

VP: Hey, I need an extra hundred thousand. As I understand it, all I have to do I come to see you, right? (He was attempting to project a casual, jocular manner.)

Me(after recovering from the shock of seeing him in the door): I don’t understand.

He just stood in the doorway smiling. He would often do this in meetings: ask a question that was completely out of context and watch for the squirming to take place. Even when a person said he didn’t understand, the VP would sit there and instruct them to “Think about it. I will just sit here and wait. I have all day.” In this case, I just sat there, and he just stood there smiling and staring at me from my doorway.

Finally, after a long silence of about two years, I figured it out.

Me: Oh, do you mean the research funding committee I was just assigned to? (The job of this new committee, set up at the behest of the CEO, was to fund creative new technology development ideas that might not have gotten the attention of research management but that might still have some value for our markets.)

VP: Yes. I understand that our scientists can call you up and ask for money. Is that right?

Me: (Now I have come to the decision that he is visiting to banish me to our office in Namibia, which at that time was engulfed in a civil war.) Do you think the committee is a bad idea?

VP: I think that every person in my business should be thinking about my business all day long, all night long, on weekends, when they walk on the beach, and even when they take a dump.

Me: Do you want me to quit the committee? Just say the word and I will resign.

VP: I didn’t say that. I just thought I would drop by to see how you were doing in your new assignment.

Me: I’m doing fine.

With that, he disappeared. This is an extreme example of noncasual questions in the guise of a casual interaction. The purpose of his visit was not subtle. He was reminding me that he was in charge no matter what assignment the CEO had made. His relaxed performance was unconvincing. Asking casual questions was beyond his personal limitations. No one in the entire business would ever accept any question from him as casual for two reasons: his style and his level.

Noncasual/casual questioning occurs when

• A business question is asked in an informal setting.

• An informal question is asked in a formal setting.

• Questions that “deliver a message” are offered in any setting as an offhanded or “by the way” type of remark.

Managers at any level are denied the opportunity, by virtue of their rank, of asking truly casual questions of their employees or of anyone at lower levels in the organization. Always view your question through the eyes of the respondent.

12 Do You Speak “Jargonese”?

All businesses develop shorthand communication techniques. They become local dialects—a language peculiar to that particular business or industry. As long as everyone knows the meaning of the words, phrases, or acronyms used, there are usually few problems with internal communications. However, jargon often creates misunderstanding and mistrust and can obfuscate meaning. Jargon may also be an impediment to better business.

Straight-talking companies outperform non-straight-talking companies.⁷

Deloitte-Touche, the well-known business consulting firm, has studied the use of jargon and reached the conclusion noted here. They even produced a software product called Bullfighter that reads documents and rates the amount of “bull” they contain. Although much of the focus of this scrutiny is on public documents, it is a good idea to drop the jargon internally, too.

Some words represent jargonese types of language that are employed by many businesses. Use of words such as synergies, repurpose, and scoping strategies lack clarity. Here is one of the oddest examples of jargonese that I could find.

Senior manager(asking about a business plan): Does that make you feel warm and fuzzy?

This is a direct quote. I am not kidding. To make this more astounding, people in his business appeared to know what was meant by warm and fuzzy when it came to financial reports. This expression became so popular it was used broadly across the entire organization. It was seriously used when strategic planning and financial forecasting was done.

How would one communicate with new employees, suppliers, customers, and government officials who would have no idea what warm and fuzzy means? The expression needs to be translated, and just how many interpretations of warm and fuzzy could there be?

The business was indeed warm and fuzzy, with respectable earnings for only one more year following the comment I heard. It was not the warm-and-fuzzy jargon that did in the business, but a hard-core cold and red bottom line. The business was eventually sold. The senior manager landed on his feet, became CEO of another smaller company, and both he and that company did well. I have no idea whether he continued to use his warm-and-fuzzy expression. I assume he did. However, the lesson of his previous tenure may have also taught him that no matter how warm and fuzzy you feel, you better not be seeing red on your bottom line or you could be feeling cold and blue.

Signs of jargonese include the following:

• Does it take time for new people to understand what you are saying?

• Re appears in front of words such as purpose, strategy, resource, and think.

• Simple words require long explanations.

• Statements sound like they have been written by politicians

The use of simple, direct language is the best policy. The objective of a question is to be understood so clearly by the listener that an equally clear response can and will be given.

13 Avoidance: If I Close My Eyes, Will the Elephant in the Room Disappear?

In many circumstances, the question that needs to be asked is avoided. Signs of this behavior have been seen all over the business community.

When an obvious question goes unasked, someone is shirking responsibility. When a manager, particularly a CEO, says, “I didn’t know,” in answer to a tough question about the business, it might be the truth, but it is a truth cloaked in deceit (by accident or intent).

A manager at any level who claims to be unaware of the deliberate actions of his or her organization is not asking enough questions. Or worse, he or she is avoiding the important ones.

In some cases, the manager actually places the elephant in the room. This is, of course, jargon—meaning that there is a large problem, so large, in fact, that everyone is aware of it, but no one is willing to say or do anything about it. Some companies call this a rhinoceros on the table—same difference. Large animal, poops where it wants; you get the idea.

I knew of a business executive who refused to allow any of his subordinates to present an earnings forecast that was one dollar below the preceding year’s number. Not only would he not permit the presentation of lower numbers, he would not permit any questions that would even suggest that any current-year performance number would be lower than the preceding year.

Arrogant executive: If you are here to tell me that you are unable to meet last year’s numbers at a minimum, I will find someone else who can meet the numbers.

He meant what he said. No one ever mentioned the impossibility of meeting an earnings forecast because of his attitude. After a few years of success, he ran out of luck. The problem of earnings shortfall grew from an elephant to a woolly mammoth. The business failed in a way that no one could have anticipated.

His senior management team, without him, was snowed in at a small, homey New England hotel one stormy January evening. The warmth of the fire in the den, along with some excellent vintage wine from the cellar, relaxed the team so much so that they were willing to discuss the elephant problem: the lack of earnings. They held a meeting.

They knew that the effort to meet the preceding year’s earnings had been successful. No one had discussed how this had happened. It just did, but with an unanticipated consequence.

Marketing VP: How is it that we were able to make forecast? Did we sell that much more in December?

Sales VP: I have no idea. We booked very few new customers at the end of the year. Most of our customers buy product under long-term contracts for better pricing. Where did the revenues come from?

Finance VP: I think I can answer that. We were all under orders to meet forecast—or else we would all be looking for new jobs. I saw that December was going to be short. So, I thought I could help.

Collectively: How?

Finance manager: We invoice customers when we ship. The bill is generated as soon as a shipment is placed on the loading dock, and the revenues from this bill are immediately included in the current month as sales.

Marketing manager: Exactly how much product did you put on the loading dock?

Finance manager: We calculated that it would take about 8 weeks worth of shipments, so we put out 12 weeks, just to be on the safe side.

Sales manager: We have loading docks that big?

This meant that the business was starting the new year with three months of revenues and earnings already accounted for with the preceding year’s numbers. Although these people had worked as a team, they were forbidden, by executive order, to acknowledge the elephant—the shortfall in earnings. Yet they all knew that their substantial bonuses, as well as any raises and promotions, depended on meeting their forecasts.

You can guess what happened. Defeated by a management edict, the business went from tens of millions in earnings in one year to tens of millions of losses the next—all without a loss of a single market share point! A competitor eventually purchased the company.

Elephants are in the room when

• There are toxic topics that cannot be discussed.

• Some lines of questioning are forbidden.

• The business has a standing joke about what cannot be done.

• Winks and “you know” replace more verbal forms of conversation.

• The room starts to “smell” like an elephant.

14 No Question: Managing by “Wall”

Ever talk to the wall? It does not answer, acknowledge, or respond to anything you say to it. Some managers behave like walls. Police detectives are trained to talk to people who behave like walls, but most people in an organization do not have the luxury of such training. Behaving like a wall is a method employed by some managers to remain neutral. If you “manage by wall,” find another method.

A Midwest agricultural products business had a manager who refused to make a comment about any presentation he listened to, any report or discussion he had—no questions either. He was fearful that any acknowledgment whatsoever would commit him to a position, pro or con. He would take a position on a subject only after divining the disposition of his management. The philosophy of corporate management at that particular time was similar to the old football philosophy of Ohio State’s famous football coach, the late Woody Hayes.

Woody said that “three things can happen when the quarterback throws a pass, and two of them are bad.”⁸ Employing that philosophy, Hayes was one of the most successful coaches of all time. Although he did discover the passing game late in his career, his brand of football was affectionately referred to as “three yards and a cloud of dust.”

The corporate version of that philosophy is “three things can happen if you make a decision, and all three are bad.”⁹ When this philosophy becomes standard practice for a manager, he or she becomes evasive. They may quibble with minor points in a discussion, “beat around the bush,” or vacillate among positions without making any substantive commitments. Or, as in the case of the manager mentioned previously, remain unresponsive.

This type of equivocating behavior was adopted as the operative management style among lower-level managers of the firm. Decisions were made only at the top of the organization.

It is disheartening for people to work without feedback from their managers. Most of us want some kind of response during a discussion (and particularly when presenting information and recommendations). An acknowledgment is all that is required much of the time. Even if a manager values the attribute of inscrutability, it is wise under most circumstances to ask questions just to demonstrate interest.

One month after a friend of mine started a new job, he was asked to review his project for the boss. After days of preparation, he walked into a small meeting room where his boss was waiting—no one else. This seemed appropriate because he was going to discuss personnel, budgeting, and forecasts. The boss had a reputation of being difficult to read. He was generally unresponsive and rarely asked any question that would permit people to know what he was thinking, or whether he was thinking.

Three minutes into the 30-minute presentation, his boss fell asleep! Not knowing what to do, he continued.

As soon as he completed the presentation, his boss awoke, thanked him, and walked out. No questions, no comment. This, he learned from his peers, happened routinely. This was a “zero feedback” manager. You cannot get any more zero than this.

Some managers avoid asking questions because they do not want to tip their hand, or are uncertain how the question might be received. So, they don’t ask. Asking a question is a sign that the time spent was of value. Without questions, there is little growth or improvement in people, processes, or business.