Ask a Better Question
Having sat through a number of external audits, I have seen my fair share of junior auditors. Now a junior auditor has a tough job. They are typically young and thrown into an environment where most everyone they work with loathes them and wants to spend as little time with them as possible.
Often times this stigma creates a self fulfilling prophetic cycle, where, because of stereotype of their position, they develop an caustic attitude and demeanor to establish protective walls around their hearts, which in turn, reenforces the stereotype. Other juniors would, in a desire to be liked, lean into their insecurities and become a door mat for every financial analyst. Neither approach helps their clients, nor their future in accounting.
During the fraud interviews or systems walk throughs, the primary role of the junior auditor is to ask questions.
With every organization, there are always “better” best practice measures that could be instituted. To help identify what these areas area, an audit firm provides a list of questions for each junior to ask their clients. However, most of these best practices can’t be identified by the initial cookie cutter question on the list. They needed a follow up inquiry. Something that goes a little deeper.
Performance evaluations can feel very similar. There are the standard lists of questions pulled from some online template, that are not always industry specific, let alone job specific. As you go through them with your direct report, you can find yourself feeling like you are only doing it out of guilt, because you know you should do this once a year or because someone else is making you.
For those of you with more of a conversational leadership style, the performance review can make you feel like you are being forced to be someone complete different.
Andy Stanley, in his July 2014 leadership podcast, suggested a number of questions that can ease the pain for a conversational leader. I’d like to focus on one of those questions, that, if we can work into our one on one conversations with our employees, will help us to better understand them and the needs of the organization.
What is bugging you right now?
This is a dangerous, but great question. It gives your direct report license to be candid, while not assuming the role of a complainer. It could provide insight into their home life, or inter-departmental concerns, or inter-personal frustrations. The question is dangerous because it can hit a deeper nerve and allow both you and your direct report to have a significant conversation.
It is similar to asking someone, “How are you and your wife doing?”
You might get a nice answer about their last date night, or some trivial tidbit of a recent argument that has since been worked out. But what if your follow up question went a little deeper.
“What is bugging you about your relationship with your wife these days?”
Whoa! No niceties about a date night or insignificant argument can substitute as an answer for that one.
My problem is that I often times act like a junior auditor. It is intimidating to ask the follow up, because you don’t know what answer you might get. It might cost me some emotional energy, or relational capital. The thing that is bugging them… might be me. That might mean that I have to change!
The funny thing is that I actually want to change and evolve as a leader and follower of Jesus, I just don’t like it when someone I am supposed to be leading is the one pointing out my growth areas. I think there is a word for that…
The ridiculousness of feeling that way is, regardless if they say it or not, IT STILL BUGS THEM! I can go around pretending that I don’t have any deficiencies, but the only person I’m fooling is me. The rest of the organization or family knows what my issues are. I think there is a word for that too…
So here is what we do… During your next one-on-one with your direct report, or at the next family dinner table… Start with the normal, “How is everything going?” Once that is answered, take a deep breath and ask a better question.