Dear Managers and Leaders!
In my last two posts, I classified questions into the two broad categories of open and closed questions and then looked at a list of open questions to clarify a vision. Today I continue my journey into the world of questions as leadership tools by exploring a different classification of questions: implicit and explicit questions.
According to the Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (10th edition), explicit means
“Fully revealed or expressed without vagueness, implication, or ambiguity.”
Explicit questions are thus questions we ask directly to people. For instance, we meet with someone and we ask him or her how that project is going, or when that product will be delivered to a customer. Or we send someone an email asking if she wants to go for lunch at noon today. Explicit questions can be open or closed, but explicit questions are directly asked to your interlocutor. They can be live during a face-to-face meeting or written in an email you send to someone.
On the other hand, implicit questions are just implied. They are never expressed, never clearly stated. `For instance, you may want to know as soon as possible when a task gets delayed in a project you manage. However, you take for granted that people know about that requirement and never said it clearly to your team. This becomes an implicit question for your team, a behaviour you expect people to have even though you never explicitly required it from your team. How will you react when a task is delayed but no one tells you about it? Who would really be to blame in this situation?
As you can see, implicit questions are tough for leadership. If a leader’s requirements or expectations are not clearly expressed to the team, it inevitably leads to disappointment and hardened relationships. The leader expects something implicitly but never explicitly formulated his requirement. When the requirement is not met, the leader might get upset although he has no real right to be. It can then be quite disconcerting for the followers who did not know they had to meet an expectation they never heard about.
Leaders should be as explicit as possible!
To avoid problems with implicit questions, Thomas Kolditz in his excellent book “In Extremis Leadership” urges leaders to be as explicit as they can with their communication expectations. He tells leaders to make it crystal clear what needs to be communicated to them, especially for critical situations. As an example, he gives a list used in the US army called “the commander’s critical information requirements”. Here is the list he provides:
- Death or hospitalization of an organization member or immediate family member
- A life-threatening, lost time accident occurring within the organization
- Major theft or felony crime committed in the organization
- Significant threat to the organization’s core mission
- Legal action or credible exposure to legal action, such as damages caused by an employee in the conduct of duties
- Organizational exposure in the media, such as a positive or negative newspaper story mentioning the organization, or a visit to the organization by a journalist
The list is a bit biased towards a military setting. However, it has the benefit of making clear what some leaders would have taken for granted and left as implicit questions for their team.
I invite you to take a look at this list and to build your own list. What events in your organization should trigger immediate communication to you? Are you sure that your team is clear about those events? Do you need to make it clearer so that no one will ever wonder whether such and such information should be communicated to you? How often do you repeat this message to your team? Are you sure that people still remember your questions? Are you sure they have not turned implicit?
Until next time,
Remi Cote
PS: If you find these postings interesting and would like to learn more about what I can do for you and your team, then please visit www.innovachron.com or contact me directly at remi@innovachron.com.
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