Change starts with good questions
“The greatest gift is not being afraid to question.” – Ruby Dee
If there is one key thing we hope to instil at our strategic-design and training sessions - or through this blog, for that matter - is that no one has to wait for their leadership to care about inclusion, equality, and equity, before starting to make a change.
As history teaches us, rarely has social change come about thanks to people in power.
It wasn’t a sitting president who led the charge of the civil rights or women’s liberation movements. These social change movements were spearheaded by individuals making up a grassroots force whose demands for equality and justice were eventually (partially) accepted by those in positions of power.
At Tidal Equality, we are equal scholars of history, human nature, and organizational psychology, and we’ve learned change starts one question at a time, when these questions are asked by anyone in an organization, sector, community, or society writ large.
Good questions have the ability to challenge existing power structures in very effective ways. Once an individual or a group begin to question the status quo, they are acting like Changemakers. For example, environmental activists successfully stir large climate movements when they question systems of prevailing power. Questions such as How will we create new systems to save life on earth? and Can the world sustain capitalist societies? are posed directly to governments and corporations who would very much like to keep the status quo. They have brought about change as seen in the cases of Idle No More, 350.org and the Los Angeles Bus Riders Union.
When equipped and empowered with the right question or a set of right questions, Changemakers are positioned to make real change.
At a recent Equity Sequence™️ session we facilitated, a female participant expressed concern that she would offend her colleague if she were to question the equitable design of a product, given her colleague had built it.
Rightly so. The wrong question in that scenario could easily be perceived as a form of criticism.
The right question, however, could potentially help fix the product and make it more equitable.
As we looked at each other across the room, we knew we had to pause for a minute to help her and the rest of the participants understand the difference.
“We get wise by asking questions, and even if these are not answered, we get wise, for a well-packed question carries its answer on its back as a snail carries its shell.” – James Stephens
We have learned that the right question has a powerful potential to improve inclusion and equality in an organization, much more than any didactic training (such as bias training, which we advise against).
When a Changemaker joins an organization and tries to make positive change, usually they’re contending with a particular existing value system. And they’re trying to evolve the value system of the organization toward one that prioritizes some expression of equality. For many people, the Changemaker’s more progressive value system will resonate. However, there are always some who are quite happy under the cover of the current value system. As a Changemaker persists, and they act to make critical changes to how people are valued, the dust gets kicked up in the air. People that previously had cover are now exposed. That's one reason for human resistance to organizational change, which in its totality, according to McKinsey & Co contributes to 70% of change programs failing.
Asking questions - the right question, first - may be the most effective antidote to resistance around diversity, inclusion and equality, and its biggest aid. Here’s why.
We are used to asking questions to fill an information gap and decrease unpleasant sensations
We are curious and ask questions from early childhood. According to research, that’s partially because, when we encounter phenomena that appear to be incompatible with our previous knowledge or when we feel that there is a gap created by uncertainty, we are driven to seek new insights that will reduce the unpleasant sensation. This information-gap scenario, first suggested by economist and psychologist George Loewenstein can only be resolved by asking questions, something that even toddlers that have barely learned to speak are well able to do. In fact, our inquiring peaks at age four, when according to a British study, children ask up to 390 questions a day. Some of us carry our propensity for asking questions through school and our career (whether we’re more comfortable doing the asking or the answering), but we could learn from our 4-year-old selves!
Anyone who has a business objective is attuned to asking questions when designing a process or a product. When we set off to create marketing plans, carve out organizational structures, build products or set up departments, we always have as an objective to reach - a specific business goal. As we sit in brainstorming meetings and planning sessions, we ask many-a-question to make sure that the approach being proposed will indeed help us reach the destination.
“If you do not know how to ask the right question, you discover nothing.” – W. Edwards Deming
The best strategists take the same approach, and are some of the world’s foremost question designers. They know that the only way to develop a good strategy is first to understand what is going on. They never jump into tactics. (So, beware the consultant who tells you what you should do before they’ve asked you a good many questions, first!)
Asking questions exercises our critical thinking muscles. This shouldn't be a practice reserved only for the coaches or the strategists; instead, everyone should be a critic and start from a place of uncertainty. Or, at very least, from the assumption that maybe there is still something to be learned.
Somehow, though, when it comes to diversity, inclusion and equality interventions, we see that critical inquiry approach minimized, if not eliminated altogether. Deemed murky territory reserved for trained coaches and initiated consultants, some automatically assume that unless there is someone very “woke” in the room, the group cannot course-correct or ignite inclusivity from the get-go.
In fact, as a 2016 study revealed, the mention of pro-diversity values actually negatively impacts how white men perform at job interviews. Researchers gave recruitment materials that briefly mentioned pro-diversity values to one group of the men, while for the other group they gave materials that made no such mention. Both groups underwent a standardized job interview and their cardiovascular activity was measured throughout. Compared to the group with no mention of pro-diversity values in recruitment materials, men in the first group performed more poorly in the job interview (evaluated by independent raters), experienced more stress (as indicated by their heart rate), and expected more unfair treatment and discrimination. At minimum, this shows us that depending on how an individual situates themselves in (what they understand to be) the broader narrative of equity, diversity, and inclusion, they’re predisposed to approach it to a greater or lesser degree of warmth and alignment.
We believe that, when it comes to counteracting the potential negative predispositions toward D&I, good questions are the best starting point.
Questions can reveal inequities
Whenever we partner with an organization on their equity, diversity and inclusion journey, we always start by asking many questions through which people begin to tell us their stories. They are open-ended, they start from an assumption that we don’t know best, but that the answerer holds the keys to better understanding both the problem and the potential solution. When we set out to get ‘the brief’, question by question, we begin to understand the work people do, the challenges they come across, their goals for equity, the politics of the place, what’s holding progress back, as well as the benefits to the business of overcoming these challenges and dynamics.
"My greatest strength as a consultant is to be ignorant and ask a few questions." - Peter Drucker
The storytelling that our questions elicit is a fast route to big “AHA!” moments that allow people to identify the opportunities to redesign their work, their organization, their community...the world...for greater equity.
Our Equity Sequence™️ program is rooted in questions, too. In a training setting, we are teaching a specific set of 5 equity-focused questions that gain fascinating insights from the different perspectives around the table.
In the Equity Sequence™️ we use case studies customized to the context of our client through which a team can practice using our 5 questions to unpack bias in decision-making and design and begin to redesign for greater equity.
For example, we might tackle an opportunity in a case study to break down equity barriers in a recruitment process. In our training, at one of the tables, there may be a woman whose last recruiting experience required her to interview at a time and location that interfered with her elder-care responsibilities. She may have a lot of nuanced ideas to share about creating a less-biased - or more equitable - recruitment process. At another table, a person of colour, who has experienced or observed racial bias in recruitment, may identify the opportunity to make part of the recruitment process blind to demographic details.
These lived experiences bring richness to a design process that is about reducing future inequities and truly getting the right person into the right opportunity.
The Equity Sequence™️ questions - which we teach each time in an entirely customized educational context - reveal new opportunities for equity, because they are designed to elicit a diversity of perspectives that will help to solve relevant equity and business challenges.
Even to the most exceptional equality sceptic, the process of the asking (without ever first assuming they know the answer) can reveal opportunities to design a more equitable process.
As we often say to folks in our sessions - these questions won’t just make your work more equitable (and they will), they will make your work better. One Equity Sequence™️ trainee put it this way:
Considering the equity of our work can greatly increase the quality of our work overall, not only the accessibility for more folks. - Equity Sequence trainee
Questions elicit positive emotions in a team
If you read any relationship advice column or Dale Carnegie’s seminal book How to Win Friends and Influence Others, most suggestions can be distilled to some version of: ask more questions! Not only do most people respond favourably when asked to share their opinion, perspective, experience, feelings, etc., the process often engenders a greater sense of empathy, connection, and inclusion.
A group of Harvard Business School researchers scrutinized thousands of natural conversations among participants who were getting to know each other during speed dates. The researchers told some people to ask many questions (at least nine in 15 minutes) and others to ask very few (no more than four in 15 minutes). What the researchers found is that people who were randomly assigned to ask many questions were better liked by their conversation partners and were asked on more second dates.
It's no different in a work situation when it comes to inclusivity and equality. Creating space for people to share their experiences of work and perspectives on decisions being made around them, can tap into a wealth of lived experiences that people are happy to share. Asking questions can build trust among team members and, unlike diversity training - which may bring about fears of a hidden agenda - allow everyone in the room to see things differently. In the process of asking questions, it also becomes apparent that no one has all the information to make the right decision, and everyone's input matters.
When you start a conversation about equity, diversity and inclusion, many people get overwhelmed by what's expected of them. Are they expected to know the right pronouns and acronyms and social histories before they earn the right to contribute? Are they expected to speak on behalf of large groups of people who happen to share (one of) their dimensions of diversity? Or, are they expected to keep quiet and listen because they represent a “dominant” group? In these settings, fear of embarrassment, shame, of making mistakes can disengage many people.
Straightforward, open-ended questions centred on a process, product, service, etc. put people in a position where not only are they invited to participate, but their perspectives are of value, regardless of their particular constellation of dimensions of diversity. And when it's established that no one is out to get anybody else, but that the intention is to improve the (equity of) the process, product, service, etc. people feel more comfortable, and are inspired to be collaborative, engaged and uplifted by a newfound sense of opportunity and common cause.
A NOTE ON THIS TWO-PART SERIES:
In the second part of this series on questioning, we will look into the difference between a great question and a poorly-crafted one, and offer tips on designing really good questions. If you want to bring powerful questions to your organization, ask us how the Equity Sequence™️ can support your equity, diversity and inclusion goals, to the betterment of your business.