Author Jeff Wetzler discusses the importance of seeking knowledge and insights from others to achieve breakthroughs in leadership. He emphasizes the significance of asking for input timely, avoiding missed opportunities. The podcast explores the Ask approach, the ladder of understanding, and fostering psychological safety for open communication in organizations.
Asking questions promotes personal growth by extracting wisdom and gaining insights from others.
Barriers like concerns about impact and lack of articulation hinder open communication and sharing insights.
The 'Ask' approach focuses on curiosity, active listening, and quality questions to uncover valuable insights.
Deep dives
Importance of Asking Questions for Learning
Asking questions is highlighted as a crucial aspect of learning from others, extracting wisdom, and gaining insights that can lead to personal growth. Jeff Wetzler emphasizes how requests for information, perspectives, and feedback help individuals broaden their understanding and avoid missing significant learning opportunities.
Obstacles to Open Communication
The podcast explores the barriers that hinder open communication and sharing of valuable insights. Jeff Wetzler delves into reasons why individuals withhold information, such as concerns about impact, lack of articulation, time constraints, and underestimation of interest from others, shedding light on the complexity of human exchanges.
The 'Ask' Approach for Insights
The 'Ask' approach, comprising five key practices, is introduced to facilitate tapping into the hidden wisdom of people. Jeff Wetzler discusses choosing curiosity, creating a safe environment for communication, asking quality questions, active listening, and reflection as essential components to foster meaningful interactions and uncover valuable insights.
Understanding the Ladder of Inference
The concept of the ladder of inference is explained as a model for understanding how individuals construct stories and reach conclusions based on selected data points. Through the ladder metaphor, the podcast illustrates the impact of biases, assumptions, and interpretations on decision-making and relationships, emphasizing the importance of challenging preconceptions to promote curiosity and deeper understanding.
Practicing Curiosity and Reflective Learning
Practical strategies like embracing curiosity, active listening, and engaging in reflective practices like 'pulling the thread' and 'SIFT and TURN' are highlighted as effective tools for learning and personal growth. By actively seeking diverse perspectives, questioning assumptions, and engaging in deep reflection, individuals can enhance their learning capacity and foster deeper connections with others.
Building Psychological Safety and Empathy
The podcast underscores the significance of creating a safe and supportive environment where individuals feel comfortable sharing challenges, feedback, and ideas. By encouraging open dialogue, showcasing resilience, and displaying empathy, leaders can cultivate psychological safety, nurture trust, and enable authentic communication that drives collaboration and innovation.
We’re surrounded by people with knowledge. The manager who can provide expert feedback or the colleague who has important information. These kinds of insights can help us achieve our goals.
Yet as much as we need that knowledge, we often don’t act in ways that invite it.
It’s when the project runs behind or we can’t make our numbers that we realize, often too late, that asking sooner could have made all the difference.
These are the results Jeff Wetzler can help us avoid. His book, Ask: Tap into the Hidden Wisdom of People around You for Unexpected Breakthroughs in Leadership and Life, is a call to arms for regularly making asks that elicit the insights we need. His strategies are important for individuals, teams, and organizations.
Episode Links
How to Get the Honest Input You Need from Your Employees
What Happens When You’re Blindsided at Work?
Why We Don’t Raise Tough Issues and How to Get Better at It
Interview with Anh Dao Pham on How to Succeed as a Project Leader
The Team
Learn more about host, Gayle Allen, and producer, Rob Mancabelli, here.
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