Just Ask: The Surprising Key to Better Relationships with Jeff Wetzler
Dr Jeff Wetzler - Author, Entrepreneur and sought-after Speaker
Dr Jeff Wetzler is an expert on adult learning and leadership development. He brings over 25 years of experience as a successful entrepreneur, operating executive, and advisor to top corporate and NGO leaders around world.
In this episode we’re joined by Dr. Jeff Wetzler to discuss his brilliant new book, Ask: Tap Into the Hidden Wisdom of People Around You for Unexpected Breakthroughs in Leadership and Life.
We Asked Dr. Wetzler to help us unpack the Ask Approach™, his five-step method designed to help leaders uncover the untapped wisdom within their teams. By fostering curiosity, creating safe spaces, posing quality questions, listening to learn, and reflecting and reconnecting, leaders can make smarter decisions, find more creative solutions, and build deeper connections.
Dr. Wetzler is an author, entrepreneur, and sought-after keynote speaker. His book, Ask, was named an Amazon Editor’s Pick for Best Books of 2024 and a Next Big Idea Club "Must Read," quickly becoming a #1 new release in multiple categories. He has advised leaders worldwide and spoken at major companies such as Microsoft, Google, and Nestlé. With a Doctorate in Adult Learning and Leadership from Columbia University and a Bachelor's in Psychology from Brown University, Dr. Wetzler brings a wealth of knowledge to our conversation today.
Learn more about Dr Jeff Wetzler:
Jeff’s recent book Ask: Tap Into the Hidden Wisdom of People Around You for Unexpected Breakthroughs In Leadership and Life, was named an Amazon Editor’s Pick for Best Books of 2024, a Next Big Idea Club Top Leadership Book of 2024, and a ‘Must Read’, and immediately become a #1 new release in multiple categories.
Jeff is co-founder and board member of Transcend, former Chief Learning Officer of Teach For America, and a two-time author. Jeff’s career is dedicated to unlocking human potential by helping people learn more deeply and transform their mindsets to realise bold new posisibility for themselves, their organistions and communities.
Episode Transcript:
[00:00:00] Alexis Zahner: Welcome to We Are Human Leaders, where we explore how to bring more human into the intersection of work, career, and leadership. I'm Alexa Sarna, and together with Sally Clark, today we're honored to have Dr. Jeff Wetzler join us to discuss his brilliant new book, Ask. Tap into the hidden wisdom of people around you for unexpected breakthroughs in leadership and life.
[00:00:32] Alexis Zahner: We asked Dr. Wetzler to help us unpack the Ask approach. His five step method designed to help leaders uncover the untapped wisdom within their teams by fostering curiosity, creating safe spaces, and building trust. posing quality questions, listening to learn, and reflecting and reconnecting, leaders can make smarter decisions, find more creative solutions, and build deeper connections.
[00:00:59] Alexis Zahner: Dr. Wetzler is an author, entrepreneur, and sought after keynote speaker. His book, Ask, was named an Amazon Editor's Pick for Best Books in 2024. And a next big idea club must read. It quickly became a number one new release in multiple categories. He has advised leaders worldwide and spoken at major companies such as Microsoft, Google, and Nestle.
[00:01:27] Alexis Zahner: With a doctorate in adult learning and leadership from Columbia University and a bachelor's in psychology from Brown University, Dr. Wetzler brings a wealth of knowledge to our conversation today. Join us as we delve into these concepts and discover how to transform your leadership approach by simply asking.
[00:01:48] Alexis Zahner: Now let's dive in.
Meet Dr. Jeff Wetzler
[00:01:53] Alexis Zahner: Welcome to We Are Human Leaders, Jeff. It's such a pleasure to have you with us today. We'd love to get started by getting to know you a little bit better and understanding the journey that has brought you to the incredibly important work that you're doing today. Oh, thank you. It's great to be with you.
[00:02:08] Alexis Zahner: And there are many strands of the journey, but I will share a couple of experiences.
The Journey to the Ask Approach
[00:02:15] Dr Jeff Wetzler: One is the very first job I had in my career. I guess 25, 30 years ago was at a management consulting company called Monitor Group. And I joined Monitor Group out of college in part because their recruitment slogan at the time was A place for optimists to change the world.
[00:02:35] Dr Jeff Wetzler: And that certainly spoke to me, but I was also drawn to monitor because they had someone there named Chris Argyris, who was known as one of the pioneers of the field of organizational learning. And for even well, before I started in the professional world, I was passionate about learning and teaching.
[00:02:53] Dr Jeff Wetzler: And so going to a place that valued learning was just really drew me in. And Chris studied this question. He was a Harvard professor and he studied this question. How is it that sometimes the smartest, most successful people are the worst at learning from one another, that they communicate in ways that actually block learning?
[00:03:17] Dr Jeff Wetzler: And I was fascinated by that question. And he was not one to just study or admire a problem. He was one to try to solve it as well. And so he developed a set of methodologies that I had the opportunity to start to take in and ultimately teach to many people at Monitor and clients around the world.
Understanding the Left-Hand Column
[00:03:37] Dr Jeff Wetzler: One of his methodologies involved creating what he called a two column case.
[00:03:42] Dr Jeff Wetzler: And so what that was is he asked people to think about a challenging interaction that was representative of the kinds of things that they wanted to get better at handling. for listening. And to capture it on a piece of paper, but he had a special format for capturing it. He said, draw a line down the sheet of paper and on the right hand side of the paper, I want you to capture the words of the interaction, almost like you were writing a snippet of a play.
[00:04:08] Dr Jeff Wetzler: I said this, she said this, I said this, she said this. And in the left hand column, I want you to write down all of the things that you were thinking and feeling during those moments, but that you didn't say. So essentially capture your unspoken, your private thoughts and feelings. It was almost as if it was giving an x ray vision into your brain.
[00:04:27] Dr Jeff Wetzler: And I had the opportunity to work with Chris and others and to read hundreds and hundreds of these left hand right hand cases around the world. And I was fascinated because once I kind of removed all of the garbage and all the kind of, you know, venting and whatever else there was essential and vital information.
[00:04:46] Dr Jeff Wetzler: That was stuck in people's left hand columns that they were not telling people that they were talking with things like, you know, I can see why your plan is about to fail, even though you can't see it, or I can see a really powerful pivot that we could make that would really change our outcomes, or I can see why you're totally demoralizing your team in ways that you don't even realize, or all those different things.
[00:05:09] Dr Jeff Wetzler: And I thought to myself, this is a treasure trove of insight and information. That's never getting across to the other person. And then as a leader, I began to also suffer from this problem when I started to take operating roles, where I would not find out things from my own team that if only I knew I could have helped.
[00:05:28] Dr Jeff Wetzler: We've done better together and I was stuck with this too. And so this entire kind of phenomenon of people not finding out the things that they most need to know, to me is a breakdown in learning. It's a breakdown in communication. It's a breakdown in relationships. And I also had the good fortune to learn from Chris and others, what we can do about this.
[00:05:46] Dr Jeff Wetzler: And so when I had the chance to actually start teaching these methods for what to do about it, I heard people say things like, this is the most powerful stuff I've ever gone through. And you know, I didn't invent it. I just inherited it and over time refined it. But wanted to pay it forward and bring it to the world so that more and more people can benefit from it.
[00:06:04] Dr Jeff Wetzler: So that's kind of a round, a long answer to your short question, but I'll leave it there for now. No, it's an incredible one, Jeff. I think I was leaning in waiting for you to sort of unpack what was on the left column. And I'm so excited for the rest of this conversation now where we can delve into what the insights that you had and how you've been able to refine it in the incredible work that you've done since and are doing now.
[00:06:24] Dr Jeff Wetzler: And I think it, there's a breakdown that you described in a multitude of ways, but including in leadership. And I think this is something that, you know, we think about and speak to every day in our work too, and it's just such an interesting, it seems like the elephant in the room that there is this, so much is lost in this way.
[00:06:40] Dr Jeff Wetzler: The upside of that is so much is to be gained when we start to rectify that. 100 percent agree. 100 percent agree. And in the course of the research for the book, I started to look for what are the patterns of things that leaders are not finding out when there is that leadership breakdown. And it was things like leaders are not finding out what the people around them are really struggling with, the challenges and struggles that they have.
[00:07:01] Dr Jeff Wetzler: They're not finding out the impact that they have on other people. They're not finding out people's suggestions for what they could do better. They're not finding out people's real opinions on issues, especially controversial issues. They're not finding out people's best ideas for what would make things.
[00:07:15] Dr Jeff Wetzler: And so, you know, you add that together. It's like there is genius that surrounds every leader, every one of us that is so often suppressed because leaders don't find this out. Couldn't agree more, Jeff. And it's really that left hand column that we need to tap into those things that are being said unspoken, where there's the real richness in people's experience and ideas that we're missing out on.
Barriers to Sharing Insights
[00:07:35] Alexis Zahner: And I'd love to know, Jeff, what are some of the barriers to these unspoken things? Why are people not sharing this side of the column?
[00:07:44] Dr Jeff Wetzler: Yeah. So there's a few common barriers that come up. One of them, that's the biggest one. Is fear and I was literally today was doing a 360 degree kind of assessment for a leader and somebody was saying to me all of the complaints and bad stuff about this leader and I said have you said any of this to this person and they said no and I said how come and they said I'm afraid of retribution.
[00:08:08] Dr Jeff Wetzler: I'm afraid they're going to punish me for it. They're going to take it out on me. And so fear is the biggest barrier. Sometimes it's fear of looking stupid. Sometimes it's fear of the punishment, retribution fear. Sometimes it's, you know, they really care about the leader and they don't want to burden them with this extra, you know, it's all different varieties of fear about the impact of what's happening.
[00:08:29] Dr Jeff Wetzler: So. That's the number one. A second one is people are exhausted. They're tired, you know, they're burned out and they just feel like they don't have the time and energy. They think to themselves, if I raise this, then they're going to ask me follow up questions. Then we're going to have to have a conversation.
[00:08:45] Dr Jeff Wetzler: Then we're gonna have to debrief it. It would just be a lot faster if I just don't say anything at all. And so, especially when people are exhausted and tired. It's just faster to stay quiet. A third reason, a third barrier is that sometimes people do want to raise it, but they don't have the words to say it.
[00:09:01] Dr Jeff Wetzler: They know that what's in their left hand column is toxic and it's going to make it worse. So if that's their only alternative, they're not going to say it, but they wish they had some better words to say it. And then the final one, which I think is particularly interesting because it's so actionable is, They don't raise it because they don't think the leader wants to know.
[00:09:19] Dr Jeff Wetzler: They don't realize that the leader actually might be interested to find out if they thought that. And I think that's particularly actionable because the leader can do something about that. It's so interesting, Jeff, to hear you speak so deeply there about this entire internal dialogue that happens inside someone's brain.
[00:09:36] Dr Jeff Wetzler: Before anything gets said, and there are so many things you mentioned then that I totally relate to firstly, as a people pleaser in remission, let's say the needs not set the apple cart and to make sure everyone around me has what they need. And there is things are tracking as they should. The amount of things you withhold just to keep the peace is something I'm sure many listeners can relate to.
[00:09:58] Alexis Zahner: And I guess it speaks to this idea that the fear piece really speaks to this need for psychological safety within the team as well, and most likely stemming from the leader. Would you say that that's the case largely?
[00:10:10] Dr Jeff Wetzler: Absolutely. And making it safe is one of the core ingredients of the ask approach itself.
[00:10:16] Dr Jeff Wetzler: And I think that the leader. plays a very special role in influencing the level of safety. I don't think they're the only one that plays that role, but it's absolutely critical for the leader to set that tone of safety. Amazing, Jeff.
The Five Components of the Ask Approach
[00:10:29] Sally Clarke: This is such a perfect segue into our next question, which is to really start to unpack the ask approach because You know, when you first hear it, you might think this is just about asking great questions, but there's much more to it.
[00:10:40] Sally Clarke: Can you walk us through the five components of the approach?
[00:10:45] Dr Jeff Wetzler: Yes. So this is, the ASK approach is essentially a research based practice tested set of moves or steps or practices that you can take that when combined together, gives you the greatest chance of really tapping into this collective genius that other people hold, but may not be telling you.
[00:11:04] Dr Jeff Wetzler: So the first step.
Choosing Curiosity
[00:11:06] Dr Jeff Wetzler: Is what I call choose curiosity, and I believe it all comes down to how curious we are if you're not curious and you're trying to force yourself to ask a question, it's not authentic. People will see right through it. It will not work and you won't even really hear the good answer. And on the flip side, if you are curious and you're genuinely wanting to know really what is the other person think and feel and what's their experience and all that kind of thing.
[00:11:28] Dr Jeff Wetzler: I think you radiate a certain energy that leads people to just want to share. They can't help, but sharing. I have a mentor, Diana Smith, who taught me this phrase, the desire to know cultivates the willingness to tell. And so if I truly show you that I truly have the desire to learn from you, you're going to want to tell me more.
[00:11:47] Dr Jeff Wetzler: And I believe that curiosity is not just a trait that some people possess and other people lack. And I don't think it's just a mood that we're in or a state of mind. Like I'm curious, I'm not curious. I really believe it's a choice that it's a decision that is always available to us. And when we make that decision, we are essentially centering one question in our minds when we're engaging with someone.
[00:12:10] Dr Jeff Wetzler: And that question is just, what can I learn from this person? And when we center that question, what can I learn from this person? I think it starts to push away other questions. Like, how do I prove my point? Or why are they so stupid? Or how do I get out of here? Or any of those kinds of things. And instead it brings up other questions in our minds, like, what might I be missing?
[00:12:28] Dr Jeff Wetzler: How else might they see the situation? What do they know that I don't? How am I impacting them? And so that intention to learn from the other person is a big part of choosing curiosity. That's such a powerful one, Jeff. And I just wanted to pause on that for a moment, because Sally and I recently interviewed a A gentleman by the name of Justin Jones Fosu, who said to us, you should aim to be more interested than you are interesting.
[00:12:54] Dr Jeff Wetzler: And for me, I just thought, wow, that is really speaks to the curiosity piece that you're mentioning here. Totally. Instead of being the most interesting person in the room, be the most interested and you're really exhibiting that curiosity. So that's number one.
Making It Safe
[00:13:08] Dr Jeff Wetzler: Number two is called make it safe. So this picks up on what we were talking about earlier.
[00:13:12] Dr Jeff Wetzler: And it's a recognition that even if I am truly curious to learn from you, if you don't feel safe or comfortable telling me your truth, especially if it's a hard truth, I'm not going to find out. And so make it safe is really trying to apply. psychological safety to the interpersonal or team level. And it's really trying to lower the barriers that people feel so that it's easier, more comfortable, safer for them to share.
[00:13:39] Dr Jeff Wetzler: Some of that is about creating a level of connection with people before you need to have the conversation. So like the expression, dig your well before you're thirsty, build that level of trust and connection before you need to have an important conversation with someone else. But some of it's also about where and when and how do you have the conversation so that they're feeling safe even in the setting of the conversation.
[00:14:00] Dr Jeff Wetzler: It's also about opening up before we ask them to open up. And it's about kind of what I call radiating resilience, letting them know I can handle your truth. I'm resilient enough for it that I'm not going to crumble and I'm not going to punish you as well. So all of that goes into making it safe. Third is, and jump in anytime if you want to stop me.
[00:14:21] Dr Jeff Wetzler: I would just love to. Double click on that first thing, because I do think that the term psychological safety is used a lot and it's such an important and powerful premise. But I think sometimes there can be a little bit of a disconnect for leaders in terms of, yes, but how do I. Make that magically happen.
[00:14:36] Dr Jeff Wetzler: How do I wave my wand? And you've spoken to a couple of ideas of sort of like digging the, well first I'm wondering if you could give us perhaps a little bit more granular examples of what leaders can do to be sewing that environment, as it were. Absolutely. So in the research for the book, I interviewed CEOs and I chose CEOs in part because people often don't feel safe around CEOs and as a consequence, they don't always tell the truth to the CEOs or the full truth.
[00:15:03] Dr Jeff Wetzler: Instead, they say things that will make the CEO feel happy or comfortable or like them or make themselves look good. And so I said to the CEOs, how did you get the truth out of people? How did you make it safe enough for them to actually tell the truth? And one of the common patterns that I saw was that they said, if I want someone to feel safe telling me the truth, I'm not going to drag them into my office.
[00:15:27] Dr Jeff Wetzler: Make them sit across the big, intimidating CEO desk and assume they're going to feel safe. Instead, I'm going to go on a ride along with them. We're going to have lunch together. We're going to sit on a sofa. We're going to take a walk. And there was no single answer to what the right place or time to do it is, other than whatever is making the other person most comfortable and safe.
[00:15:49] Dr Jeff Wetzler: And so part of creating that kind of safety at a tactical level is actually thinking about that. Or perhaps even asking the other person, where and when and how would you be most comfortable having this conversation? And for some people it might be on video, for some people it might be on phone, for some people it might be taking a walk, and so on.
[00:16:05] Dr Jeff Wetzler: I have also found that this applies in my personal life as well. With my teenage daughter, who's 15 years old, and when she comes home from school, and I ask her how her day was, she does not want to talk about it. Even at dinner, she usually does not want to talk about it. But if I go where she wants to do it, and when she wants to do it, which is usually 11pm, when she's done talking with her friends, and she's done her homework, my body wants to be in bed, but that's when she is most comfortable, and so then it all comes out.
[00:16:34] Dr Jeff Wetzler: And so if I really want to learn from my daughter, what's going on in her life, I've got to go where, to where she's going to be most comfortable. Hmm. I think it seems like such a simplistic thing, Jeff, but meeting people where they are is so fundamental to this. So I'm so glad that we could dive into that more.
[00:16:50] Dr Jeff Wetzler: Good. Yeah. And now tell us what is number three on this?
Posing Quality Questions
[00:16:56] Dr Jeff Wetzler: Number three is the heart of the ask approach. It's called pose quality questions. I distinguish between what I call quality questions versus crummy questions. Crummy questions just recognizes that we ask questions all the time, and we say all kinds of things that have technically a question mark at the end, but they're not really high quality questions.
[00:17:16] Dr Jeff Wetzler: I define quality questions very simply as questions that help us learn something important from someone else. That's the mark of a quality question. And I think very few of us are actually taught what makes for a quality question. We think, Oh, we live, we have interactions. We ask questions all the time, but it's not something that we typically teach in schools.
[00:17:37] Dr Jeff Wetzler: What is a good question? A quality question. How do you ask them? So in the book, I introduce a taxonomy of different question strategies. Depending on what you're trying to learn, there are certain strategies that you can use. Just the same way. I think a surgeon, depending on what they're trying to get at, it has their scalpel and all their other tools that they're trying to use, they're trying Any of us who have conversations professionally, we're in the business of asking and answering questions.
[00:18:01] Dr Jeff Wetzler: So we better learn what makes for a quality question. I'll give you one example. There's one strategy that I call request reactions, and that's simply to share something with someone else. Maybe you're explaining something. Maybe you are asking them to do something. Maybe you're offering feedback and then to stop and say, what is your reaction to that?
[00:18:21] Dr Jeff Wetzler: How does that strike you? How does that sit with you? What does that make you think? What might I be missing? Any of those are examples of the strategy of requesting reactions. Sorry. I love this so much because I feel like often and sort of as a former lawyer, it's a lot of like the way that I historically have asked questions is very fact gathering.
[00:18:40] Dr Jeff Wetzler: And when people are sharing facts or sort of past experiences, it's kind of this almost, you know, just this trite explanation, but what you're suggesting I think is really planting them in the moment, bringing them into the present about how they're feeling or thinking about that now and kind of bringing.
[00:18:55] Dr Jeff Wetzler: The left column into the light. Exactly. Yeah. You're making room for that. Lawyers are notorious for asking leading questions that would try to like lead the witness to admit something on the, you know, on the witness stand. And they're very good at that, but we often all use that kind of, you know, I call those sneaky questions, um, that try to maneuver someone to.
[00:19:16] Dr Jeff Wetzler: Say to admit something or to agree to something, um, without really knowing what they truly think. And so quality questions do make space for anything that's in that left hand column to come out, especially disconfirming data, especially data that would actually let us know there might be something wrong with our thinking.
[00:19:34] Dr Jeff Wetzler: There might be a hole or a gap in our thinking. And so I think quite often we don't ask that request reactions type of question. If anything, people might say, does that make sense? or right, or something like that, that might be even be intended to invite reactions. But I call those clumsy questions because they're very difficult for the other person to truly give their answer to versus you want to really create one that's quite open to disconfirming data as well.
[00:20:01] Dr Jeff Wetzler: And interestingly, Jeff, as you were speaking, thinking about the context and when we might ask things like leading questions, You know, as someone who's led a team before, I fully appreciate the idea of, you know, so many competing demands and, you know, there are certain outcomes you have to achieve. And often as a leader, I would ask exactly those questions that would get people to agree with the chosen path that I had already sent out for us, because I just didn't have the time or the energy to necessarily spend looking at all the ways we might deviate from that to potentially find better outcomes or really understand what my team are doing.
[00:20:32] Dr Jeff Wetzler: But, you Yeah, I just can't help that there to think there are moments where we do get stuck in that because we as the leader don't have the time and energy to perhaps spend time doing this as well. Totally. And I think one of the biggest barriers to doing this is a misconception that we don't have the time for this, that it takes so much time.
[00:20:54] Dr Jeff Wetzler: And I, you know, I'll just, since you were talking about being a team leader, I also in one of my earliest management roles after I had learned these. Methods from Chris Argyris and others, I decided to try to apply it with someone that I was managing and I had given him some guidance and direction and then I remembered maybe I should ask him for his reactions.
[00:21:13] Dr Jeff Wetzler: So I, after I did that, I said, and what are your reactions and he paused for a moment and got very quiet and then he said, if you really want to know, I'm totally demotivated by what you just asked me to do and I was, I was shocked. I was thinking, we're good, uh, we're off and running. And after I asked the question, I realized we need to unpack what's going on here.
[00:21:34] Dr Jeff Wetzler: And it turned out that we each had different information and we were operating on different assumptions about what we were supposed to do and what our client needed and what I asked him made no sense to him based on what he knew and what he was assuming. And so in five minutes, we were able to clear that up.
[00:21:48] Dr Jeff Wetzler: Get back on the same path and it was good, but had I not taken a moment to ask those questions or that five minutes, I think we would have wasted hours or weeks going in different directions as, and our relationship would have been degrading all along the way. I'm so glad you mentioned that misconception, Jeff, because that's exactly where I found myself as well.
[00:22:05] Dr Jeff Wetzler: By not asking those questions. I thought I was being explicit and thought I was getting the fastest path forward from A to B. But in fact, I wasn't bringing people along. And. You end up with these misunderstandings and miscommunications that cause a lot of rework and mistakes down the track anyway. It makes asking those questions just seem like the most efficient thing that you can do.
[00:22:25] Dr Jeff Wetzler: Totally. Exactly. And I think then when we zoom out to that higher level of why is the organization disengaged or why are we seeing burnout and this kind of these. Outcomes in the organization, if we, I think very often track it back to these missed opportunities to align and to check in and you're right, it's like seconds of our time potentially can really track a culture in a completely different direction.
[00:22:49] Dr Jeff Wetzler: Exactly, exactly. So that's just one. example of a category of quality questions, and I can share others, and there's, you know, there's a whole chapter on what are the quality questions. But once you ask the question, it all comes down to how well you listen to the answer.
Listening to Learn
[00:23:04] Dr Jeff Wetzler: And so step four of the ask approach is called listen to learn.
[00:23:08] Dr Jeff Wetzler: And listening to learn is a particular intention. It's different than listening to Or listening to get the other person to do something. It's really trying to understand what is most essential about what the other person is actually telling you. And many of us listen through one channel, which is the channel of content.
[00:23:28] Dr Jeff Wetzler: What is the other person actually telling us and saying, that's the one I go to. But I've discovered over time, there's other channels too. There's also the channel of emotion. What is the actual feelings that are being expressed or displayed? And there's also the channel of action. What's the other person doing in this moment in this, are they asking for help?
[00:23:44] Dr Jeff Wetzler: Are they pushing back? Are they offering support? Any number of different things. And so by training ourselves to listen for content and emotion and action, I believe we can actually triple the amount of information that we're taking in. Just the same way that I think a music aficionado can listen for the vocals and the harmony and the percussion and different instruments and have a such a much more complex understanding of what they're listening to.
[00:24:09] Dr Jeff Wetzler: Imagine if we could actually similarly try to have that same level of multi channel. complex understanding of the richness of what someone is saying to us. I love that, Jeff. And I think the data suggests something like 85 to 90 percent of communication is nonverbal. So for me, it's really trying to dig into that left column that you mentioned earlier and uncover those unspoken things.
[00:24:29] Dr Jeff Wetzler: Yes. And it's not to necessarily say that because I hear something in the nonverbals. I know for sure what they're thinking in the left hand column, but it can give me a cue to say, huh, that's interesting. I noticed that you paused there. I noticed your eyebrows raised. I noticed whatever. Tell me more.
[00:24:46] Dr Jeff Wetzler: What was happening there? Because we're not very good at guessing from those nonverbals, it turns out in the research, but we can use them as cues to ask further. Exactly. And I think that's also, there's, that's where we need to bring in our leadership a little bit as well. Yeah. Because often. There's a little bit of courage it might take to actually say, Hey, I noticed this and am I reading this right?
[00:25:05] Dr Jeff Wetzler: Basically. And I don't want to check in on whether this is the truth because I think oftentimes we get these, these little data points and we make assumptions ourselves as leaders. And that also can sort of lead to some graver misunderstandings. I think the multifaceted listening that you're speaking to is, and I just also love that music metaphor.
[00:25:24] Dr Jeff Wetzler: I think that's something that's like by. Again, sort of building skills, understanding, awareness, and then practicing it. And we come to that point where it becomes more, I assume it sort of also becomes a bit more intuitive and almost an automatic component of who we are as a human and as a leader. Yeah.
[00:25:40] Dr Jeff Wetzler: One of the exercises I like to do with leaders is to show them a clip of an interaction and first ask them just to listen for content and then play it again and just to listen for emotion and then play it again and just to listen for action and then compare what are they actually. Take in through each of those three different channels and then imagine what we can do if we put them all together as well.
[00:26:02] Dr Jeff Wetzler: Mm. They're very separate data points, aren't they? Yes, for sure. For sure. So I think we've come to number five in the Ask approach.
Reflect and Reconnect
[00:26:10] Dr Jeff Wetzler: So the final step of the Ask approach, this is my favorite step. It's called Reflect and Reconnect. And it's my favorite because I'm a junkie for learning and reflection is how we learn.
[00:26:20] Dr Jeff Wetzler: Reflection is how we process our experience and convert experience into insight. So And insight into action. And I think a lot of people have a misconception that reflection takes a long time. I don't have time for it. I have to go meditate to do it, but really reflection can be very practical. And so in this part of the book, I talk about a very simple method for reflecting that I call sift it and turn it.
[00:26:45] Dr Jeff Wetzler: And so sift it is just simply to say to yourself. Of the 30 things that they just told me, what are the three most important? And let me sift out the other one, because not everything that someone tells us is equally important. And some things are actually not useful for us to take in or hear or process as well.
[00:27:00] Dr Jeff Wetzler: And so sifting it intentionally gives us the chance to do that. Sometimes I encourage people to sift it with a friend or a coach or a colleague or a mentor, so you don't accidentally sift out the wrong things and then turn it is just to turn it over in your mind three times. So the first turn is to say, from what I heard, how does this affect my story of what's going on here?
[00:27:18] Dr Jeff Wetzler: About the other person, about myself, about the issue. The second turn is based on my story shifts, what different steps can I take? Maybe I want to make a right turn or double down or apologize or whatever it is. And then the third turn is, is there anything here that would shed light on my deeper stuff, my assumptions, my biases, my worldviews, my ways of being.
[00:27:39] Dr Jeff Wetzler: And is there any insight I should squeeze out for that? So sift it and then turn it is the reflective process. And then I call it reflect and reconnect because the reconnection is really about going back to the other person and saying, let me share with you how I process what I heard from you. This is what I learned.
[00:27:56] Dr Jeff Wetzler: This is what I'm planning to do with what I learned. And how does that compare to what you were hoping I would learn and do? Um, and by the way, thank you for taking the time to do that. And if it felt risky, thank you for taking the risk. And that kind of closure of the loop I think is rare. And it, it lets people know how much you value what they have to say.
[00:28:13] Dr Jeff Wetzler: And also I think significantly increases the chances that the next time you're also going to get to, to learn from them and hear what they're really thinking. It's exactly the thought I was having as you were speaking there, Jeff, that it's kind of creates, again, this feeds back into that make it safe component as well.
[00:28:28] Dr Jeff Wetzler: That like by helping people understand that what they say has impact. Um, that impacted you as a leader and how did it sort of builds on this culture of this is a place where we share these things and that. It's not this information download and then we move on, we tear on with the thousand other things we have to do.
[00:28:46] Dr Jeff Wetzler: But there is an impact. And I think that's, that we so often forget that and it's such a missed opportunity. Yeah. It's if a leader does that with someone on their team or in their organization. I think it can be hugely empowering because it shows the other person the power that they've had over the leader to impact them and influence their thinking.
[00:29:03] Dr Jeff Wetzler: And I think that's such an important point too, that we sometimes leave it as an underestimate that there is in these power dynamics, there is, you know, particularly working in a very hierarchical law firm, that was a real extreme example of some of the sort of the power dynamics in this hierarchy that we experience.
[00:29:17] Dr Jeff Wetzler: And to really understand that, again, treating people as humans and giving that feedback back to them, that what they've said, who they've been as a human has impacted you as a leader is. It can be a transformative experience for someone in their career. Exactly. Exactly. For sure.
Curiosity Under Stress
[00:29:32] Dr Jeff Wetzler: Now, Jeff, the environment that we're often tasked with, particularly as leaders, is one riddled with stress and uncertainty.
[00:29:41] Dr Jeff Wetzler: So I'd love to know from you, how can we. Choose curiosity when perhaps our environment is really pushing us the other way or pushing us to make snap decisions. How do we step back and choose curiosity under stress? Yeah. So there are a few things that I refer to as curiosity killers. One of them is pressures for speed and urgency and stress.
[00:30:04] Dr Jeff Wetzler: Just to name the other two, the second one is emotional hijacking as well. So when we get emotionally triggered, that can kill our curiosity. Uh, and a third one is pressures for groupthink when you were surrounded by all the people who basically say the same thing that also undermines curiosity. So it's important to be aware of these.
[00:30:24] Dr Jeff Wetzler: And I think for the one that you were specifically highlighting, Which is stress, and fast movement, and risk, and all that kind of thing. Some of it, I think, comes down to recognizing what we were talking about earlier, which is that those are the moments where we need it most. Those are the moments when we're most likely to make an error.
[00:30:40] Dr Jeff Wetzler: If we're just moving so fast without taking the moment to be curious. There are certain exercises that literally can, we can just do, as it even relates to breathing, and mindfulness, and things like that, to say, I'm so aware that things are moving so fast right now, I need to pause and slow it down. And it comes out of a recognition that will get us to the better answer faster.
[00:30:58] Dr Jeff Wetzler: I work with one school system actually, where when those moments happen, they have a common language system that says we need to take a moment And essentially take a breath together and just do, they call it a true North, but it's just like, everyone knows things are moving fast. Let's just pause, take a breath and get curious.
[00:31:16] Dr Jeff Wetzler: I love that, Jeff.
Combating Groupthink
[00:31:17] Dr Jeff Wetzler: And I'd like to also just pause on the groupthink one as well, because I think the pressure of conformity is one, especially if you're not the leader in the room in this situation. Can be really hard to hit that pause button and choose curiosity. So do you have any practical tips around how we can navigate that scenario?
[00:31:34] Dr Jeff Wetzler: Yeah. So there are exercises, sometimes it's known as the five hats or the different color hats exercises that groups can do where they're actually asking people to play different roles in the team. One of the person is the role to question. One of the person is the role to be the naysayer. One of them.
[00:31:49] Dr Jeff Wetzler: And so if you think that you're likely to all be going in one direction and you can be assigning people different roles, that's one way to do it. A second way to do it is to deliberately bring in voices that you know are going to have a different perspective, a different life experience, a different point of view, and make sure that you have conversation protocols where every voice gets it, because it's no good to have diversity if the people with different perspectives are silenced, but if you have protocols, even just as simple as things like it.
[00:32:16] Dr Jeff Wetzler: Before anyone comments, let's all just take a minute and gather our thoughts, and then let's actually go around and just hear everyone's top line thoughts before anyone reacts to somebody else. Those are a couple of ways you can do it. What I love so much about that, Jeff, is as an extroverted, outgoing person who's not shy at all about sharing their opinions straight off the bat.
[00:32:34] Dr Jeff Wetzler: It's so much of my professional career and especially as a young leader, I've really missed out on the opinions and the brilliant insights of people who had different personality types than me, perhaps came from different cultural backgrounds and had different ways of expressing. So I've really appreciate this kind of pause and reflect moment for the team as well, because I think it stops the loudest voices in the room from continually dominating the conversation.
[00:32:57] Dr Jeff Wetzler: And, you know, I'll raise my hand there. It's never from a bad place, but we really do miss out on some of the brilliance of the quieter voices in the room for whatever reason, when we don't put those mechanisms in place. Yes. Or the dissenting voices or the voices with a different idea, for sure.
[00:33:13] Dr Jeff Wetzler: Absolutely. Amazing.
Outcomes of the Ask Approach
[00:33:15] Dr Jeff Wetzler: I'd love to sort of zoom back out a little bit to a higher level again, Jeff, and understand you, in your vast experience of implementing the ask approach with leaders of the teams, Sort of at that higher level, what are the outcomes that you see? What can we expect when we start to shift our leadership in this trajectory?
[00:33:32] Dr Jeff Wetzler: How does that impact teams and organizations? Absolutely. So when it's used at its best, that's one of them that we've already talked about is it saves time. You actually avoid wasting time, basically, which happens all the time. A second thing is it really improves the quality of the decisions because if you're getting every person's perspective, you're going to have just a far more informed decision.
[00:33:53] Dr Jeff Wetzler: You're going to actually think about the pitfalls before you make that decision. You're going to look at second and third order consequences. You're going to get different considerations. And so if you want smarter decisions, this is an important way to do it. A third benefit is around innovation because ideas come from the collective intelligence of a team or an organization.
[00:34:14] Dr Jeff Wetzler: And by the way, that can also include the customer base and that can include partners and not just people inside the organization. And so if you're operating in ways that essentially bring out all of those voices through all the ways that we've been talking about, you're gonna get better ideas as well.
[00:34:28] Dr Jeff Wetzler: And then the last one is just about relationships. So it's about partnerships. It's about does sales and marketing get along better? Do teams work together better? Do people actually feel more fulfilled and have a better human experience in their organizations as well, which we know matters for all kinds of reasons.
[00:34:45] Dr Jeff Wetzler: Absolutely, Jeff. And, you know, being that the capacity to perspective take is such. A critical skill for leaders right now in such an uncertain time. I really appreciate that you touched on this idea of looking outside the immediate internal company to ask good questions as well. And just to build on the term perspective taking, it's been interesting.
[00:35:05] Dr Jeff Wetzler: I've discovered in the research. That humans are very bad at taking other people's perspectives because we're not in their shoes. We can't be like, we don't. And so the ask approach, I think, transforms perspective taking into perspective seeking and equips leaders to actually not try to take someone's perspective, but to seek their perspective, which I think is a more reliable way to get the truth.
[00:35:26] Dr Jeff Wetzler: I love that. Alexis and I are both quite obsessed with definitions and language around these things. So I think having that slight sort of shift really frees us up and also takes some pressure off the leaders to take perspective, which is, can be really difficult and really challenging, but seeking and sort of garnering that perspective, understanding, and we're bringing that choice to be curious to our leadership that.
[00:35:48] Dr Jeff Wetzler: Understanding that we all inevitably have our own interpretations, but just keeping on asking the questions and seeking those perspectives in various ways is such an important tweak in the terminology there. Good. Brilliant.
Final Thoughts and Takeaways
[00:35:59] Alexis Zahner: Now, Jeff, we both loved your book and there was a lot of bank of questions here that had to get skimmed down for this conversation.
And we'll just ask one more if we may. And that is for leaders listening right now, what would you advise as the starting point for them to start embodying the ask approach?
Dr Jeff Wetzler: I do think that it has to start with curiosity. And so I would go back to that as the foundation to the whole thing. And the simplest way to do that is if you can walk into any interaction, and just bring back that single question in your mind that we were talking about earlier, what can I learn from this person, I think that will create the ethos of it.
[00:36:38] Dr Jeff Wetzler: There's all kinds of tools and tips and tactics, as you know, in the book. But it's got to start from that place of genuinely having this interest and this fascination with what can I learn from this other person. It's such a beautiful point, Jeff. And I think that also really speaks to part of the evolution that we go on as leaders from that shift from sort of, I need to prove my ego and my importance in this situation to the humility of what can I learn from it?
[00:37:02] Sally Clarke: So thank you so much for being with us today. We've learned so much from you. Thank you for the conversation. Thank you for reading the book. And just, I really appreciate the questions that you posed as well. Thank you.
[00:37:19] Alexis Zahner: Thanks for joining us for this conversation with Dr. Jeff Wetzler on We Are Human Leaders. Get your copy of Ask, tap into the hidden wisdom of people around you for unexpected breakthroughs in leadership and life at all major bookstores. And find more information about Dr. Wetzler at our show notes at www.wearehumanleaders. com. You can learn more about human leadership there too. Thanks for being with us for this conversation and we'll see you next time.