Leadership · Every phase
Digging deeper
You understand what the other person means before you come up with a solution.
Does this sound familiar?
- A team member starts telling you about a problem, and two sentences in you already know what they should do.
- After a conversation you think: sorted. A week later the same thing comes up again.
- You notice that in a conversation you're mostly waiting for your turn to speak.
- A customer tells you what they're struggling with, and you're already explaining what your product does about it.
Who it's for, and when
For founders and managers who are quick with an answer. You use it in every conversation where you want to know what's really going on: with an employee, a business partner or a customer. It matters more once you no longer work alongside everyone and a conversation is where you hear what's happening. If you're still in the Searching phase, it's how you question customers. It's the foundation for the other lessons in Leading people.
The model
A conversation has two halves. First you open it up: you listen, summarise and keep asking until you understand what's going on. Then you close it: what are we going to do, who does what, and when do we look at it again. Digging deeper is the first half. For a while you let go of all structure: no agenda, no solution, no judgement, until you know what the other person actually means. What someone says first is rarely what it's really about.
You've gone deep enough when the other person says in their own words what's going on, and no longer corrects your summary. That's when you make it concrete. Often they've already named the solution themselves.
It's a skill rather than a set conversation. You use it in the one-to-one, in a difficult conversation and in the corridor. And outside your team too: in the Searching phase it's exactly how you question a customer. You ask what they did last time, not what they think of your idea (the lesson Searching: who really has the problem?).
From coaching practice. Edgar Schein described the attitude in Humble Inquiry (2013): asking questions you don't know the answer to. Michael Bungay Stanier summed it up in The Coaching Habit (2016): stay curious a little longer, and rush to action and advice a little more slowly. Listening, summarising and asking further (LSD, from the Dutch luisteren, samenvatten, doorvragen) is the Dutch version of it.
Listening
To what they're saying, not to what you think of it. Don't prepare your answer while they're still talking.
Summarising
In your own words: 'If I've got this right, ...' That way they hear what you heard. If it isn't, you'll hear what is.
Asking further
Short, open questions. What do you mean by 'it's not working'? What else? What makes it hard?
Silence
After an answer, let a few seconds of silence pass before you say anything. If you wait a moment, you often hear the most important part.
Pitfalls
Advice with a question mark
'Have you tried ...?' is advice. They hear that you've already got the solution, and they stop thinking. If you use questions to steer them to your solution, they'll feel that too: it turns into an interrogation.
Why questions
'Why did you do it like that?' sounds like a reproach, even when you don't mean it that way. Then you get a defence. Ask 'what made you choose that?' or 'how did it go?'.
Filling it in with your own story
'I've been there, for me it was ...' feels like understanding, but from that moment the conversation is about you. And you're filling in their story with yours, when for them it may be quite different.
Watch and read
The author of The Coaching Habit on why you jump straight to advice, and how to stay curious a little longer.
Watch on YouTubeLSD in Dutch, for managers, with the pitfall of filling in someone else's story with your own experience.
Watch on YouTubeTo go further
Edgar Schein himself, with his son Peter, on asking instead of telling. A long conversation, for anyone who wants the background.
Watch on YouTubeRead
The Coaching Habit
Michael Bungay Stanier · 2016 · ISBN 9780978440749
Seven questions, including 'And what else?', in a slim book you can read in an evening. Published in Dutch as Maak van coachen een gewoonte (Nubiz, 2020, ISBN 9789492790316).
View the bookHumble Inquiry
Edgar H. Schein · 2013 · ISBN 9781609949815
A slim book about asking questions you don't know the answer to, and why that's so hard for a manager. Only available in English; a second edition, with Peter Schein, came out in 2021.
View the bookApply it
- 1
Make room
A conversation where you want to dig deeper isn't one you squeeze in between two meetings or have with your phone on the table. Twenty minutes, somewhere quiet.
- 2
Keep your first solution to yourself
If you notice you've got an answer ready, write it down and ask one more question. After the conversation, see whether it was still needed.
- 3
Summarise before you close
'So if I've got this right, ...' Only once they say yes do you move on to agreeing next steps.
- 4
Let them name the first step
'What are you going to do?' comes before 'what I'd do'. People do what they've come up with themselves.
- 5
Question a customer the same way
If you're in the Searching phase, use it in your customer conversations. Ask about the last time they ran into it and what they did then. You only talk about your own product at the end, if at all.
Searching: who really has the problem?
Examples
Ready to use: a conversation, first like this
Planner: 'I can't get next week's schedule to work.' You: 'How come? You've got Mark helping, haven't you?' Planner: 'Yes, but he still needs to be shown the ropes.' You: 'Then put him on the small jobs. And have you checked whether Thursday's delivery can move to Friday?' Planner: 'No. I'll look into it.' You: 'Great, let me know.' A week later the schedule doesn't work again. You gave two solutions to a problem you hadn't heard yet.
Ready to use: the same conversation, then like this
Planner: 'I can't get next week's schedule to work.' You: 'What's getting stuck?' Planner: 'Rush jobs keep coming in.' You: 'Who are they coming from?' Planner: 'Mostly sales. They promise a customer something, and then it has to be squeezed in.' You say nothing and wait. Planner: 'Honestly, I don't feel I can say no to Henk. He's been here fifteen years.' You: 'So if I've got this right: the schedule is doable, but rush jobs from sales throw it off, and you find it hard to say no to Henk.' Planner: 'Yes, that's it.' You: 'What would you like?' Planner: 'For rush jobs to go through me, and a fixed time each day when they can still be added.' You: 'What do you need from me for that?' Planner: 'For you and me to agree it with Henk together.' It wasn't about the schedule. You only heard that after the silence.
Ready to use: five questions on a card
1. What do you mean by ...? (their own word, like 'hard' or 'not working') 2. What else? 3. What makes it hard for you? 4. What have you already tried? 5. What would you like? Then summarise: 'If I've got this right, ...' Keep the card beside you during a conversation; after a few weeks you won't need it any more.
An employee asks for a pay rise
You could answer straight away: yes, no or not now. First ask where it's coming from. Sometimes it's about money, sometimes about recognition or a role that no longer fits.
Do this in your own business
Everything up to here is free. What you fill in for your own business, you keep in Boldcaster.
- You look back on a situation from your own work. Only you can read what you write.
- You set a date with yourself, and on that day the app asks how it went.
- You assign the lesson to your team and see who has done it.
- The quiz counts towards your progress, and you see which lesson comes next.
Four weeks free. You'll land straight in this lesson.
Quiz
6 situations. You need 5 of 6 right. You can try again at any time.
1.An employee says: 'That customer, Jansen, is really difficult.' What's the best first response if you want to dig deeper?
2.A quote went out a week late, and the customer chose someone else. You talk to the salesperson. Which first question gets you the most?
3.You've been asking questions for twenty minutes. You summarise, and they say: 'Yes, exactly, that's it.' What do you do now?
4.After you've asked a few questions, an employee tells you she's not sure she's in the right place. What fits best?
5.You're talking to a potential customer about a new service. He says: 'All that hassle with scheduling costs us a lot of time.' What do you ask?
6.Halfway through a conversation, you notice you've got a solution ready. What do you do?
Nothing is saved here. In the app, the quiz counts towards your progress.
Read next
- Situational leadership · You give everyone the leadership they need for this task.
- The one-to-one · You have a regular conversation with each of your people, and it's theirs.
- The difficult conversation · You name behaviour that doesn't fit, once and clearly, without tearing anyone down.
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