Key Questions for Leaders

SARAH GREEN: Welcome to the HBR IdeaCast from Harvard Business Review. I’m Sarah Green. Today we’re talking about leadership, which is a familiar topic. But we’re talking about it in a slightly different way.

I’m talking today with Robert Kaplan, Harvard Business School professor and author of the new book, What To Ask The Person In The Mirror: Critical Questions For Becoming A More Effective Leader And Reaching Your Potential. Rob, thanks so much for talking with us.

ROBERT KAPLAN: Thank you for having me.

SARAH GREEN: So I think what’s interesting and different about this book is that it’s framed around questions. And so many books in this genre seem to be focused on providing answers. Why did you take that different approach?

ROBERT KAPLAN: Well, the reason I did this is, I’ve managed businesses and I’ve worked with so many leaders over the years. And ultimately when I go back and postmortem and think about what I should be doing in running businesses and nonprofits, and I sit with leaders in my office, or in their office, and talk through the issues they’re facing, ultimately it gets down to questions.

And I think through the most effective leaders that I’ve ever worked with that I learned the most from and that were outstanding, and they were very good at asking questions.

And what I’ve realized is the same types of questions come up over and over again. And normally to the point that, when someone is having a problem in a certain part of their business or nonprofit, their problem may not actually be what they think their problem is. Or the problem they’re having is a symptom. It’s not the cause. And ultimately when you’re having a problem or you’re frustrated or things are not going well, I found it is far more effective to step back and ask certain questions.

SARAH GREEN: In the book, you also have a set of questions that would be useful for leaders at any level, and very specific things about something as seemingly small as managing time. That’s something that almost all of us struggle with. So can we get a little specific and talk about maybe, how would you use questions to help manage your time?

ROBERT KAPLAN: OK. So in fact, let me go through a little bit of the setup. There are eight chapters, which basically, eight areas of questions. There’s the big what seems like a macro question, which is really a strategic question. What’s our vision and what are our key priorities? And what the chapter goes through is lots of different ways to help people figure out how to ask and answer those questions, and then how to put it into practice.

And what happens is we go from the big, as you say macro, strategic, down to the micro including, do you know your own strengths and weaknesses? Do you know your own passion? Do you match how you spend your time with your key priorities? Do you even know how you spend your time?

And, for example, you ask about time, most people may have a clear vision in priorities. But it doesn’t occur to them that they actually should track– let’s say you work 60 hours a week, for example. Break down those 60 hours. And I say to some people, measure it. See for a week how you’re spending your time. Then compare that break down to your top four priorities that you said are the most important things you and the business need to be doing. And almost invariably, when a manager or a leader’s struggling, there’s a mismatch, sometime severe.

And just think about it. I’m a professor at Harvard. Well, OK, what are the three most important things I need to focus on to be a successful professor at Harvard? OK, am I doing them? Well, no, not quite and not always. And why does that happen? Especially when you’re a leader. I’ve got people at my door. There’s a crisis that comes up. I have some old habits that– gee, the CEO always did X, Y, and Z. So that’s what I’m always going to do, even though it doesn’t fit the priorities anymore. I’m out of date. Maybe I’ve just gotten into some bad habits.

So what I’m trying to do is jar people. Sometimes asking a question will jar you. And if I say to someone, or I say to you or myself, does my time match the priorities? And I actually make myself go through it. I go, oh boy. And when I meet with the CEO and they just take me through it, I don’t need to say a word. They say, oops.

And then I’ll say, well, why are you spending 15 hours a week on X, Y, or Z? The truth is right. I never thought about it. I don’t know. It’s what I’ve always done. We were a small business once. And I always did this when we were small, and I never stopped doing that when we got bigger. And so what it allows people to do is say, you know what? I need to adapt. I need to change. It’s like, the light bulb goes on. And then they learn, OK, I need to strive to do this.

And by the way, you may go for several months where you’ve got a good match. And then all of a sudden the world changes again. And maybe you need to be out more with customers, and you haven’t made the adjustment. You just haven’t done it. I need to spend more time out with customers. And, boy, if I measure my time, I realize I’m spending almost no time. I knew I wasn’t spending enough time, but I didn’t realize it was so little.

And then you realize you got a problem with all your people where they’re watching you. You’re telling them to go out with customers, except you’re not doing it. And so there’s one chapter here on what signals do you send. Are you a role model? Because leaders are, ultimately, do lots of things. One of them is, you’re a role model.

People will imitate you. And so if you’re not asking these questions and trying to drive these issues, my guess is people are going to mimic you. And then you get out of alignment. So there’s a chapter also in this book on clean sheet of paper.

SARAH GREEN: What do you mean by that when you say clean sheet of paper?

ROBERT KAPLAN: And this sounds so innocuous. By the way, all the questions in this book– you talk about low tech. These are brutally simple questions, very plain, simple. No highfalutin questions here. They’re very basic. So one of them is, do you look at your business with a clean sheet of paper and decide whether what you’re doing still works?

And one way to ask this question is if– let’s say we’re starting over from scratch. Is this really the way I would organize this company? Are these the people I would hire? Are these the tasks we would do? Are these the markets we would serve? And this sounds like a very simple question. And most leaders, including me, often don’t do that. And why? It’s emotionally, extraordinarily difficult to do.

I’m running a business. I’m comfortable with the way I’m running it. I’m comfortable with our setup. I’ve gotten in a routine. And this requires me to take a step back and face some tough realities. And because it is so emotionally difficult to do, the best advice I give to many CEOs– and I used to follow this myself– take a group of three or four of your up and coming people. There’s a chapter on succession, planning.

Take some of your up and coming people, future leaders. Give them this assignment. Take yourself out of it. Give them this assignment. Ask them to do this analysis. If they had to start the business from scratch, how would they design it? And they’re not so emotionally tied to it the same way we might be. And then tell them in advance, I may not take all your advice. But I want to hear your recommendations.

And they will come back invariably, when I’ve seen this done, fabulous, fabulous insights. And sometimes it makes it easier for the leader to realize, you know what? There’s more buy in than I thought for this. People at the point of attack, close to the customers see this, and we actually need to try to do some of these things. That’s what I mean by the looking at the business with a clean sheet of paper. We invariably do this.

Listen, people who are successful, individually and who run organizations, have to ultimately look at reality, compare it to what they’re doing. And if you’re a business leader, you’ve got to do it. And if you don’t do this, ultimately the market will do it for you. It’ll put you out of business. Or your board’ll do it for you.

SARAH GREEN: And of course that means that the leader has to be more on his or her toes as well.

ROBERT KAPLAN: It does. But you know, a lot of people think, and we’ve had some government leaders, very famous leaders, who say, leadership is about saying, we’re going to go north northeast and follow me. And here’s what we’re going to do. And that’s what my people expect of me. And they don’t want to see vulnerability. They want to see confidence. And they want to see me make decisions. They come to me for the answers.

And I actually don’t think that that is necessarily– there’s some of that, that a strong leader needs to do. But I think a extremely strong leader, ultimately a very strong leader, is willing to stop and say, I don’t have all the answers, actually. I’m concerned about the fall and I want to frame a question. Let’s discuss it.

And so one thing, nice thing, that does for the leader is, you actually don’t have to know everything, which you’re not going to anyhow. And you don’t have to pretend you do. And it takes a great burden off people to know that.

And number two, rather than spending your time thinking of the answer, maybe a better use of your time is to think about, gee, are there two or three questions I should be asking, and how should we orchestrate a discussion so that we can actually figure out together what the best thing is to do? And we’re going to come up with a better answer and a solution, a plan of action, than if I try to do this myself.

It reorients the focus of the leader, takes a burden off that leader. But also requires a different type of preparation, as you say, being on your toes. A different way of being on your toes.

SARAH GREEN: So I guess the central point there is that if you’re not asking good questions, you’re never going to get good answers.

ROBERT KAPLAN: No. Listen. Part of being a leader is there’s deciding what you believe and acting on it. That’s part of a leader also is, to your point, is learning to frame, get better at framing issues, and asking questions, and orchestrating debate, and listening. All the things I just talked about require listening.

And that’s one of the most powerful tools and assets you have as a leader is listening. Asking a question and then listening. It shows a lot of respect to someone. If I ask them a question and I listen carefully what they say, it’s a very powerful tool that a leader has. And it’s underused.

SARAH GREEN: I think it’s some great food for thought. Rob, thanks so much for talking with us today.

ROBERT KAPLAN: All right, thank you.

SARAH GREEN: That was Harvard Business School’s Robert Kaplan. The book is What To Ask The Person In The Mirror. For more, visit hbr.org