"Ask and Ye Shall Receive"

“Can I ask you a question?”

It makes you pause, doesn’t it? If someone approached you—say, someone internal, an employee of your company—and the first words they said to you consisted of, “Can I ask you a question?,” how would you respond? Say yes, and some strange version of authoritarian permission has been bestowed. Or imagine saying no, and watching whatever conversation may have been produced wither away.

This is the question I get asked most often, and it drives me nuts. I certainly don’t want to dismiss people that hesitantly ask me this question—I know that they’re coming from a place of curiosity and need a framework to kick off their real question. But it’s not just the question’s complete objectivity, total anonymity, or absolute un-answerability that bothers me most. When someone asks, “Can I ask you question?” it vocalizes those messy, hierarchical power structures that I, and the company at large, try so hard to nip right in the bud.

In those circumstances, I always want to respond back with my own set of questions: “Why are you asking, in this transparent, open, flat, sharing company, if your question is okay to be asked? Do you feel that you work in a place where the answer for your question would, in fact, be ‘no’? If your answer to the second question is ‘yes,’ then we have much bigger fish to fry than whatever question you were wanting to ask in the first place.” The moment that employees feel uncomfortable or unsure about asking me a question is the moment when the culture of my company is deeply at stake.

I consider it my top priority to keep an open, creative, collegial culture going strong. That is my true job, and I work long hours and odd jobs to make athenahealth’s environment as honest and welcoming as possible. I often play the class clown, for better and worse; desperately trying to shirk that air of CEO. The feeling of hesitation in approaching me may be understandable, but it tells me that there needs to be more confidence to speak truth unto power—a more equivalent exchange of thoughts.

Instead of asking, “Can I ask you a question?,” I want to hear more questions like, “How can I make this happen?” or “How can I achieve this goal?” This is ideal because it’s direct. It shows that ideas are flowing and that there is entrepreneurial intent. My company should be a place where people’s usefulness is realized and actualized, where we invent suggestions instead of requesting permission. When I see that someone has a thought in their eye, I want to hear it. Bypass asking to ask and instead move boldly, widely, and laterally. Our company, like most others, is growing and changing hand-over-fist every year—I want to hear questions from employees and work together to navigate new or difficult terrain.

In the end, this can’t only be about the questions I want. It’s almost a new year, and, thinking about resolutions and promises, I have to think about what I can do and give as well. All good solutions don’t cure the symptoms—they aim for the source. Moving forward, I’m working on asking more questions and provoking more conversations to happen on equal ground. In a company prided on its employees being both teachers and learners, I want to commit more to this atmosphere in the new year and tenaciously contribute to and gain from all those who work around me.

My question for you is: What’s your #OneQuestion, and how do you want to address it in 2017?