Humble Inquiry

Charlie Brown’s teacher is everywhere. There are lots of people who claim to have answers—and who are quite eager to share them with you. The minority on the other end of the spectrum, who have far more questions and who exercise reserve in asking them, can be paradoxically powerful problem-solvers.

We assume that telling has more value than asking. In Humble Inquiry, Edgar H. Schein challenges this assumption. He writes: “We are biased towards telling instead of asking because we live in a pragmatic, problem-solving culture in which knowing things and telling others what we know is valued. We also live in a structured society in which building relationships is not as important as task accomplishment.” While these cultural forces are significant, there are still more powerful forces of human nature at work. “Having to ask is a sign of weakness or ignorance, so we avoid it as much as possible,” Schein writes. After all, who wants to project weakness or ignorance? A saber-toothed tiger in the next cubicle might see it and pounce over the partition. 

Sadly, there is a high price to pay when leaders, managers, or others in positions of authority value telling over asking. Schein reports that “in many accidents and disasters, a common finding is that lower ranking employees had information that would have prevented or lessened the consequences of the accident, but either it was not passed up to higher levels, or it was ignored, or it was overridden.” Why does this happen? Although most senior managers assert that they are receptive to input from their subordinates, those same subordinates often report that they don’t feel safe bringing troublesome news to their supervisors or that lack of response or acknowledgement from those bosses led them to conclude that their contribution wasn’t valued.

Although it is not always easy to develop or maintain, a habit of humble inquiry is a simple and effective solution to this problem. Schein writes, “Asking temporarily empowers the other person in the conversation and temporarily makes me vulnerable.” At the core of humble inquiry is a paradoxical dynamic of power: in that moment in a relationship when we let go of our own power (or the power we think we have), and empower the other person for that moment, the relationship receives power and strength that lasts beyond that moment. 

If you want to build a habit of humble inquiry, here are three practices inspired by Schein’s work—three “A”s, if that helps you remember them—that can help:

1. Assume nothing. Telling, as opposed to asking, puts the other person down, implying that he or she does not already know what I’m about to tell him or her.
2. Allow curiosity to lead you. Here’s a link to a reflection by one of my mentors on the importance of curiosity.
3. Access your ignorance. This may sound a bit harsh, but it’s a reality that we don’t know everything. And as the knowledge-producing capacity and speed of technology increases, accessing our ignorance will become more and more necessary.

The result of humble inquiry are relationships with a higher level of trust and interdependency. These relationships develop when we are willing to invest respectful attention in others, which goes beyond the functionality of a task-oriented relationship to the place of a vulnerability inspired by true courage. 

And if we go beyond the intellectual virtue of humble inquiry, we arrive at the spiritual virtues of silence and listening, traits that bring to mind an altogether different sort of teacher than Charlie Brown’s:

It is reported that in the early days of his move to the desert, Evagrius visited an old desert father, perhaps Macarius of Egypt, and asked him, “Tell me some piece of advice by which I might be able to save my soul.” The reply was, “If you wish to save your soul, do not speak before you are asked a question.”