Millions saw the apple fall, but Newton was the one who asked why.

—BERNARD BARUCH

Would you characterize yourself as a curious person? Most people think of themselves that way, considering that the opposite traits—close-mindedness, apathy, and the like—are not flattering. Curiosity pushes people to explore and learn. To be curious is a choice that humans make from the day they are born until the day they die—although you had more time to be curious as a child than you do as a harried executive. Even still, leaders are innately curious about how the world works—and that curiosity propels business, technological, and social progress.

The program manager of a billion-dollar government program proudly proclaimed that open-mindedness and innovation were core values in his program. He encouraged his staff to be open and blunt with him, with each other, and with other organizations. One day he asked his coach, “My people don’t suggest as many ideas as they once did. Sometimes I feel like they aren’t telling me the whole story. Why?”

The coach provided feedback: “Do you recall last week’s staff meeting when you said the new approach that Ian suggested was the dumbest thing you had ever heard?”

The program manager responded, “Yes, I said that—but even you thought it wasn’t a viable option.”

The coach continued. “As presented, his idea did seem unworkable. But judgments like that derail creativity. I was actually curious why an experienced engineer like Ian would think it was a good idea. If you had asked him, you might have uncovered the golden nugget behind his idea. Your more outspoken staff members aren’t affected by judgments, but mild-mannered ones like Ian become reluctant to suggest controversial ideas.”

That reluctance had turned the program manager’s conversations into one-sided rituals instead of the vigorous discussions of bold strategies that he wanted to encourage.

Great leaders are curious about curiosity itself. They wonder how they can be more curious themselves and promote curiosity in their organizations. Paradoxically, what you already know is an obstacle to curiosity. Experts make decisions instantly because unconsciously they believe they know everything they need to know. Effective leaders see the fallacy in that thinking and escape from the “knowing trap” by keeping an open mind and asking questions to learn more.

Curiosity Pushes the Boundaries

Throughout history, curious leaders have expanded horizons, accelerated economic growth, and increased living standards. The curious, risk-taking spirit of the Vikings and Marco Polo and other Renaissance explorers is common in much of today’s global workforce. To lead that workforce, you need different skills than your grandfather used in the Industrial Age. Industrial Age workers sold their skills to one employer at a time. Today’s workers market knowledge-based services around the world. A growing number of workers are free agents who contribute their knowledge to projects on an ad hoc basis and move on when the project is completed. In this dynamic environment, you will be challenged to build a workplace that attracts and retains the best and brightest decision-makers. Likewise, the high potentials you hire will be challenged to refresh their knowledge continuously because the useful life span of knowledge is shrinking. Curiosity is the key to meeting both of these challenges.

Knowledge workers are vital in identifying alternatives, solving problems, developing new products, and delivering services. Being curious and up to speed on new technologies, they contribute insights that will influence your decisions, priorities, and strategies. Because the pace of change has been quickened by social media, you need to give the knowledge workers who work for you freedom to participate in peer-to-peer networks that share new ideas across organizational and international boundaries. Those networks, in turn, will help you build strategic alliances, exchange knowledge freely, and make better decisions.

Driven by the rapid expansion of Internet-based relationships, the demand for knowledge workers has skyrocketed. Knowledge workers will contribute to your decision-making conversations by

• Creating or adapting strategies to implement new technologies
• Promoting collaborative relationships inside and outside the organization
• Analyzing massive amounts of information in order to uncover and understand trends
• Developing and deploying new products and services quickly
• Brainstorming creative solutions in their field of interest

These contributions contrast with management-mindset activities related to production work and repetitive tasks that knowledge workers rarely perform. Knowledge workers are exceedingly valuable in solving information-rich customer service tasks, such as providing technical support, resolving sticky issues, and responding to open-ended inquiries. In addition, they can increase the value of your organization by developing products and services that are patentable or copyrightable.

Curiosity Creates Opportunities

In the hands of a capable leader, curiosity converts problems into opportunities. Managers tend to focus on solving the problem at hand, whereas curious leaders explore options before deciding what to do next. Brainstorming is a technique that curious leaders use to assemble a list of possibilities that improve decision making. By being genuinely curious and asking open-ended questions, you can stimulate ideas, reduce inhibitions in your high potentials, and maximize your group’s creativity. Because the quality of your decisions ultimately depends on the quality of the solutions you consider, you may want to use one of the following techniques in your next decision-making conversation to generate better alternatives:

• Idea pyramids. Write the issue on a whiteboard and discuss its importance with the group. Next, have each group member write an approach to the issue on paper and then pass the paper to the next person. The second person adds thoughts to expand the first idea, then passes the paper to the third person. The process continues until everyone receives his original paper back. Finish the divergent portion of the conversation by having each person read his idea aloud along with the additions that others have made. This approach takes time, but you will be astonished by the in-depth thinking and collaborative solutions it produces.
• Idea linking. Initiate the process by explicitly defining the issue and giving the group a few minutes to exchange ideas. When the time limit expires, merge ideas in a fishbone-style idea map. Start by having the first person write her ideas on the map. The second person continues by connecting his ideas to the first person’s ideas on the map. Do not reject any idea and accept ones that start a stand-alone thread. During the mapping process, group members will develop a deeper understanding of the potential solutions as they consider how their ideas link with the ideas of others. It is not unusual for entirely new threads to emerge during the linking process.
• Digital collaboration. Digital technologies enable geographically disbursed groups to collaborate in decision making. Virtual brainstorming is popular these days and could be supported by your meeting software or readily available, free digital services. It also can be done via simple emails. In either case, colleagues develop ideas independently and share them over the Internet. Ideas are visible to everyone, although they can be presented anonymously to encourage openness. The ideas can be compiled with the virtual equivalent of the idea pyramid or idea linking techniques just described. This approach also permits participation over an extended period. A digital collaboration conversation lasting several weeks is not unusual if the topic is strategically important but not urgent.

The four common principles that make these brainstorming techniques effective as decision-making tools are (1) produce as many ideas as possible, (2) welcome off-the-wall ideas with enthusiasm, (3) suspend judgment during idea generation, and (4) integrate ideas to form even better ones. Techniques like these generally lead to clear decisions that everyone understands and accepts.

Stimulate curiosity in your high potentials and allow time for new ideas to emerge. How many decisions you make—or even how many decisions you get right—does not matter. Rather, it is how many of the strategic calls you get right, and how solidly your people embrace those decisions. Good leaders make better decisions; but, more important, they know which of the decisions are most important and get a higher percentage of those decisions right. They are adept at the entire decision-making process, from recognizing the need for a decision to framing the issue, developing alternatives, choosing one, and motivating people to implement it effectively.

Focus on Opportunities

If your decisions focus on fixing what is wrong in your organization and ignore things that are going well—stop. Focusing on problems is like being stuck in a rut. Even when you succeed in getting out, all you have done is get back to where you were. Instead, have conversations about opportunities—the possibilities that lie ahead. In doing so, you will channel your people’s creative energies toward pursuing tomorrow’s success rather than merely fixing old problems. Along with yielding better results, you create optimism, instill confidence, and inject a sense of accomplishment in your team.

Be especially careful how you present the need for continuous improvement. If taken to an extreme, it can imply that nothing your team does will ever be good enough and that no matter what objectives the organization achieves or how well it performs, the results will still be inadequate—and the people will feel that way as well. In the leadership mindset, problem solving is a creative activity that produces growth, better customer service, and improved quality. Avoid being one of those executives who is out of touch with people and scratches her head wondering why morale is low when the business is doing well. The key to making decisions that unleash top performance lies in asking questions that stimulate curiosity, innovation, and commitment in the pursuit of new opportunities.

Even Great Leaders Don’t Have All the Answers

Many people think that leaders simply have a knack for knowing the right answers because they were born with superior intuition, aptitude, and magnetism. Charismatic leaders are seen as being in an exclusive class of people who are immune to uncertainty and doubt and have an uncanny ability to avoid major failures. In short, they conclude that leaders are not like the rest of us. Although this image may appeal to high potentials who seek to become great leaders, the reality of leadership is more complex.

In our experience, virtually every leader undergoes periods when she is confused, discouraged, pessimistic, or unsure of the future. She feels alone searching for answers and wondering why other leaders seem to have an easier time—even as she maintains an outward façade of confidence. Your success as a leader will depend in large part on how you deal with your periods of self-doubt. The key is to acknowledge those feelings and, more important, involve trusted relationship partners and your high potentials in the decision-making process. Take time to ask questions and search for answers that define the objectives, diagnose the problems, and develop action plans for you and your organization. Being open, exhibiting curiosity, and asking questions will enable you to focus on the future rather than on an unrealistic standard for how great leaders are supposed to feel.

Have you made significant business decisions with minimal discussion with your team about alternatives and consequences? When you believe you know the answer and do not ask questions, they may think you are not listening—or worse, that you do not care about what they have to say. Unless you ask questions, you are settling for the best of what you know rather than the best of what your team collectively knows. At each higher step on the leadership ladder, you will know a smaller part of what you need to know to make decisions. Examine the questions you ask in your conversations. Do they uncover opportunities for tomorrow (leadership mindset), or do they focus on getting today’s job done as quickly as possible (management mindset)? Do they stimulate growth (leadership mindset) or put boundaries on the options (management mindset)?

Antonio’s main job as a director in an aerospace company was business development, so when the Air Force issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) to develop an enterprise computer system, he managed the proposal team. Phase I of the multiyear project was design. In total, the government estimated that all three phases would cost $350 million. The RFP’s first line read, “The government intends to award two fixed-price contracts not to exceed a total of $15 million for Phase I.” To win, Antonio and his team concluded that the Phase I bid had to be $7.5 million or less. The team worked day and night for weeks to prepare the proposal and cut costs to a bare-bones $8.1 million. Antonio flew to headquarters to present the proposal to the CEO and obtain his approval for investing $600,000 of company funds in Phase I of the project in order for them to reach the target fixed-price bid.

During Antonio’s presentation, the CEO listened carefully but did not ask questions. When it ended, the CEO said abruptly, “If the government wants us, they’ll find the extra money” and walked out. The proposal was submitted at $8.1 million and lost. Two other companies won contracts at $7.5 million each. Antonio and his proposal team were angry after working so hard on the proposal. Because the CEO did not ask questions, they felt that their proposal lost because of a capricious decision, and every one of them left the company within a year.

Possibly the most effective technique a C-suite leader can use in conversations is to ask insightful questions. Questions imply professional respect for the person to whom they are directed. Asking questions may seem weak to some; but, in reality, a leader who asks questions is directing the flow of the decision-making conversation. Asking questions is an effective way to discover what issues your people are concerned about and what resources they need to succeed. Use the third conversational perspective (“What else is possible?”) to ask great questions that lead to possibilities that no one had recognized before the questions were asked.

Managers Answer Questions—Leaders Ask Them

Remember when your mom complained, “Everything I tell you goes in one ear and out the other.” Well, in a neurological sense she was correct. If she had asked questions instead, you would have retained more of her messages. That is because the brain functions with the obstinacy of a child: tell it what to do, and it starts analyzing the implications; if instead you ask the brain a question, it will treat it as a problem to be solved—a game to be played. People like solving problems because doing so gives them a rush when the brain releases neurotransmitters that act like adrenaline.

The leadership lesson is that you need to ask your people questions and let them decide the course of action, rather than telling them what to do, how to do it, and when it should be done. Leaders use questions liberally in their conversations, whereas managers spend much of their time answering how-to questions for their people. For a leader, questions are more than a source of information. They are an efficient and effective way to gather feedback, uncover new ideas, establish priorities, and clarify goals.

If you ask your people the right questions, you generally will not have to tell them what to do—they will figure it out themselves. Asking questions in a curious manner encourages high potentials to think in new ways. Asking the right questions is more complex than it seems. For example, consider the following types of questions you might ask:

• Open-ended questions do not have a specific answer. Instead they solicit new viewpoints and open new topics. “What trends are you seeing in the market, and how can we accommodate them in our strategy?” Open-ended questions promote reflection and cause the conversation to diverge.
• Closed-ended questions seek specific information and can be answered with a yes or no response, a quantitative answer, or a brief description. They also can be used to confirm your understanding of a situation. “Do those numbers show a decline in customer satisfaction?” or “Are you asking that we allocate more resources to the product launch?” Notice that the learning from closed-ended questions is narrow. If the answer is no, you will have to follow up with an open-ended question to discover the reason for that answer. Ask closed-ended, convergent questions when you are driving for closure.
• Explorative questions elicit information about a particular person, event, or subject and are useful in assessing status. “When the new project begins next month, what staffing changes are you considering?” Explorative questions are like open-ended questions, except that they set boundaries on the topic being discussed.
• Follow-on questions are designed to obtain additional information relative to a previous question or answer, or to solicit an opinion on what was said earlier. “If we implement that plan, how will people react to the extra workload?” Follow-on questions deepen understanding of a topic, but usually keep the conversation moving in the same direction.
• Socratic questions foster critical thinking by challenging the completeness or accuracy of an idea. “What if  . . . ?” and “What haven’t we considered  . . . ?” are typical beginnings for a Socratic question. Socratic questions are effective at expanding the boundaries of a conversation when that is your objective.
• Coaching questions cause the responder to think deeply, reflect for a period of time, and respond candidly in ways that may be new and uncomfortable. “What is the biggest career mistake you have made, and what would you do differently today?” Be prepared for an unexpected answer when you ask a coaching question.

At appropriate intervals in decision-making conversations, share your viewpoints and ideas in the first perspective so that others will know what you are thinking and why. In the second conversational perspective, ask questions that are expansive and nonjudgmental. Use close-ended and follow-on questions when your objective is to drive the conversation to a conclusion—but use them carefully, as they can be seen as an attempt to take control of or dictate the outcome. Finally, use the third perspective to explore options that still may not have been identified.

Questions Go Both Ways

Decisions—even yours—get better when they are questioned by cynics. Uncontested leadership often produces mediocre results, so welcome with an open mind others’ questions about your decisions. You have no doubt participated in discussions where the ideal solution was found only after someone was skeptical about the outcome of a decision. We have also seen extraordinary results achieved because a sincere naysayer challenged a group by saying, “I think we can do better.” Political analysts say, arguably, that the most effective presidencies of the last fifty years were those of Presidents Reagan and Clinton because they dealt with an opposition party that challenged every idea before any decision was made. These presidents were forced to think more broadly and deeply about the issue. The leadership lesson for you: build a culture that welcomes questions and debate.

You might be tempted to squelch dissent and open-ended discussions because they delay action. Dissenters are often annoying. You probably have dealt with an office pest who drives people crazy by objecting to everything. But resist the temptation to ignore questions from that person—or anyone else. Whether you are leading a small team or a global enterprise, recognize and reward the best ideas no matter where they come from or the manner in which they are delivered. Make heroes out of people who are willing to offer unpopular views, and endure dissenters long enough to understand their concerns. After all, challenges to the status quo are a sign that people care about the organization and are loyal to you as its leader. When they challenge your ideas, they are helping you make better decisions.