Ask Instead of Order
No one likes to take orders. Resentment caused by a brash order may last a long time — even when the order was given to correct an obviously bad situation.
Beginning with questions not only makes an order more palatable; it often stimulates the creativity of the persons whom you ask. People are more likely to accept an order if they have had a part in the decision that caused the order to be issued, and less likely to bristle at being told what to do.
Owen D. Young
Ida Tarbell, while writing her biography of Owen D. Young (founder of RCA), interviewed a man who had sat in the same office with Young for three years. During all that time, he had never heard Young give a direct order to anyone. Always suggestions. Never commands.
Young never said "Do this or do that" or "Don't do this or don't do that." He would say:
- "You might consider this."
- "Do you think that would work?"
- "What do you think of this?" (after dictating a letter)
- "Maybe if we were to phrase it this way it would be better."
He always gave people the opportunity to do things themselves; he let them learn from their mistakes. A technique like that makes it easy for a person to correct errors. It saves pride and gives a feeling of importance. It makes them want to cooperate instead of rebel.
Dan Santarelli's Instructor
A student illegally parked his car at a vocational school, blocking a shop entrance. One instructor stormed in and screamed: "Whose car is blocking the driveway? Move that car and move it right now, or I'll wrap a chain around it and drag it out of there!"
The student was wrong. The car shouldn't have been there. But from that day on, not only did that student resent the instructor — all the students in the class did everything they could to give the instructor a hard time and make his job unpleasant.
How could it have been handled? "That's a nice-looking car, son, but it's going to get towed if you leave it there. We need to have clear access to the shop, so we've started cracking down on illegal parking." The student would have bolted to the lot and probably thanked the teacher for the warning.
Ian Macdonald's Impossible Order
Macdonald (Johannesburg) managed a precision machine parts plant and was offered a very large order he was convinced he couldn't fulfill. Instead of pushing his people to rush it through, he called everyone together, explained the situation, and started asking:
- "Is there anything we can do to handle this order?"
- "Can anyone think of different ways to process it through the shop?"
- "Is there any way to adjust our hours or personnel assignments that would help?"
The employees came up with many ideas and insisted he take the order. They approached it with a "We can do it" attitude. The order was accepted, produced, and delivered on time.
Connections
- let-them-feel-its-their-idea — the Part 3 principle; asking instead of ordering is the leadership version of the same mechanism: when people participate in the decision, they own the outcome
- begin-with-praise — both techniques preserve the other person's sense of agency and dignity; praise before criticism, questions before commands
- make-others-feel-important — asking for someone's opinion is one of the purest ways to make them feel important; the question says "your judgment matters here"