Humble inquiry: asking instead of telling (Schein)
Project managers are expected to have answers. The plan, the risk picture, the next step – all eyes turn to you, and it is tempting to always deliver an answer. Edgar Schein, for many decades a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management and one of the most influential voices in organizational research, argued that this habit is a trap.
In his 2013 book Humble Inquiry, he describes the opposite skill: the art of asking questions you don't already know the answer to, out of genuine curiosity about the other person. It sounds simple. According to Schein, it is one of the most underrated leadership skills there is.
What does the research say?
Schein's starting point is that our work culture systematically values telling over asking. Someone who tells, explains, and gives answers comes across as competent; someone who asks risks looking unsure. The problem is that a culture of telling silences information. People who are constantly being told things stop sharing what they know – especially upward in the hierarchy.
This is more than a matter of workplace comfort. Schein points to settings where safety depends on subordinates daring to speak up to their superiors – such as healthcare and aviation – and notes that crucial information was often held by someone who didn't feel able to bring it forward. The bridges are built before the crisis: a manager who asks genuine questions in everyday situations gets team members who dare to raise uncomfortable issues when it really matters.
He also emphasizes what he calls here-and-now humility: the realization that right now I depend on what this person knows and does, regardless of which of us holds the higher formal position. Humble inquiry is not an interrogation technique or a way to dress up direction – leading questions like "haven't you considered...?" are telling in disguise. It means asking genuine questions, and then actually building on the answers.
What does this mean for you as a project manager?
You almost always lead people who know more than you about their parts of the project – that is the whole point of a team. Before you propose a solution in your next problem discussion, ask two genuine questions and listen all the way through the answers. Often the answers change your solution; sometimes they make it unnecessary.
Use questions to open the channel for bad news. "What worries you most about this delivery?" asked in calm moments, with interested follow-up, teaches the team that risks can be talked about. That investment pays off the day someone knows something you really need to hear in time.
Examine your own questions. Is "shouldn't we be able to finish if we cut the testing time?" a question or an order in question form? The other person hears the difference immediately – and answers accordingly. You can recognize a genuine question by the fact that the answer can actually change what you do next.
How to practice this
The habit of telling runs deep, and it is broken through practice, not resolutions. In Project-simulator, your conversations are assessed on exactly this, among other things: do you ask open questions and build on the answers before proposing solutions, or do you go straight to giving answers? The feedback points to your own lines, so you see exactly where the telling took over. Try it free for a week.
In Project-simulator you practice these conversations against an AI counterpart and get feedback grounded in research like this.
Try free for 7 days