Questions can be Powerful!

In one of my coaching sessions with a CXO, a few years back, he brought in the context of hiring top talent. He brought into the conversation the challenge of ensuring that “hot talent” hired aligns with values and culture.

Seemingly, he had gone through some experiences that were not happy ones.

So, as per his desire, we spent some time conversing about this aspect. I initiated the conversation with a question. After a series of questions & responses, he took a cue from the manner our conversation progressed.

He then established a link with his ambiguities about interviewing, and shared some questions for the interviews. For example,

“What has been the contribution of values and culture in your performance today at your current organization?”

Or

“What business processes have a huge impact on your ability to achieve top line and bottom line?”

Which value or values have been helpful in being a leader & how ?

Which value or values tested him and why ?

When asked, what purpose would be served with these questions, he told me that the candidate’s response to the question would reveal his thinking about the crucial connect and importance of living the values.

He interestingly mentioned that responses would help understand if the business processes similar to those mentioned by candidate were in his organization, it could, later on, impact his ability to deliver results.

He was quite pleased with next 2 questions too.

In subsequent sessions, he told me his questions did, in fact, get him the desired results. He was able to analyse, understand and evaluate each candidate according to the answers s/he gave to the formulated questions.

Questions / the art of asking Questions can be a very powerful tool in the working and build the culture of an organisation. Not only does it lead to reflections and generating new thinking but it also assists in understanding the situation and building a higher degree of awareness of existing state of affairs in the organisation.