Leading with Emotional Intelligence: Hands-On ... - always yours

296 LEADING WITH EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
oped by Chris Argyris and Donald Schon. Their goal is to explore
the reasoning and attitudes that underlie human interaction. It
uncovers a person’s “mental models,” those tacit assumptions and
stories we carry in our mind about people, places, things, and every
aspect of our world. These mental models are mental maps, usually
untested and unexamined.
Balancing inquiry and advocacy is another tool to help unearth
and get a tangible handle on what people’s mental models are.
Without imposing discipline on teams engaged in a discussion,
what we generally hear are the propositions, ideas, or recommendations
that people are advocating. Often this stuff is expressed
with a great deal of passion, and so instead of inquiring about the
recommendations and specific assumptions made, there is often
passionate disagreement as well, without any resolution or clarity.
What is needed is to balance the natural emotional process of
advocating with the unnatural, more rational process of inquiry. It
is a good idea to question people about how they arrived at their
decision and then dig into their assumptions to understand more.
The best way to proceed is to improve the team’s inquiry process.
Ask the following questions:
• Tell me, how did you make this decision or recommendation?
• What things were you considering with this idea?
• What assumptions underlie this recommendation?
• Is there a time this solution wouldn’t work?
• What would you need to make this successful?
• How long do you think this process would take?
• What potential risks have you considered?
QUESTIONS AND ACTION APPLICATIONS
• In one of your meetings, introduce the concept of balancing
inquiry and advocacy.
• Have people use inquiry with the existing ideas on the table
before going on to the next idea.