LEADING BY LISTENING – 8 QUESTIONS FOR NEW TEAM MEMBERS THAT HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH “THE WORK”
Net/ Summary:
When on-boarding new team members or meeting new peers during my second tenure at Year Up leading national accounts like GE and Nielsen, I always scheduled two sessions with my colleagues. The first meeting had nothing to do with strategies, performance metrics, or deliverables. It was about connection. These are the 8 questions I asked during the initial session:
- Tell me about your family and where you grew up.
- Tell me about your family today.
- What are your other non-work priorities?
- Tell me about your work style. What hours do you like to work? When are you most productive?
- Tell me about your communications style. How do you like to interact? Email, text, PowerPoint, IM, calls, etc.?
- What do you want to get better at? If we had an unlimited training budget (which we don’t) what training would you like us to invest in you?
- Do you have any pet peeves?
- What is your “Why?”
More Details:
A Hard Lesson on Listening
“You know Craig, I know a lot about you. I know your ex-wife’s name, your kids’ names, even your dog’s name, but you don’t know anything about me. You don’t even know my kids’ names.”
R.K.
Year Up Manager
My #2 on GE Account
Ouch! But true. This was part of an actual conversation I had with a colleague at Year Up early in my tenure leading National Corporate Accounts. “RK” was a rock star who led our Boston GE account placements and opportunities. She was also my thought partner as we worked to grow Year Up internships and entry-level jobs for the young adults we served at GE locations and divisions across the country. Her comments hit me like a load of bricks, and I immediately changed how I interacted with and on-boarded new local office team members working on my accounts and other colleagues with whom I collaborated.
The Matrix Leadership Challenge
Year Up was a “matrix organization.” Although I needed to work with and convince over 60 people across the country to support the creation of internship and employment opportunities at GE and my other national accounts, None of them reported to me. Under Year Up’s organizational structure, there were local account managers at our (then) 23 offices, each of whom reported to a national leader, who was technically my peer. I also had to collaborate with local Executive Directors, placement officers, and even technical instructors to ensure I was not over- or underselling our students’ skills in cybersecurity, IT support, programming, or other areas. Again, none of these fellow team members reported to me – and they all had multiple priorities as they prepared thousands of students for placements at hundreds of companies.
I remembered when I first realized this challenge. To be candid, I recall my first reaction being something between horror and frustration. As an advocate of “3 I Leadership” and someone who had always had multiple direct reports, from my first team leader role at Bain & Company to my Founder and CEO roles, I had a mini-freak out as I realized that I would have NONE of the traditional tools of “Implementational Leadership.” No hiring, no firing, and minimal say in performance reviews.
Once I calmed down, I realized that – instead of this being a leadership nightmare – it was actually a supreme challenge of my leadership skills. Without the traditional Implementational Leadership levers, I would have to rely upon my Intellectual and Inspirational Leadership abilities. I embraced this challenge and will be forever grateful to RK for her brutally candid, but extremely accurate and incredibly important feedback. I immediately changed the way I onboarded new people to my team and engaged with other SME’s with whom I needed to collaborate. I began scheduling two 45-minute sessions with new colleagues. I explained that during the first session, we would not spend any time talking about the work (e.g., our strategy for maximizing opportunities at GE or other accounts), but instead, I wanted to have a “listening session” to learn more about them, their non-work priorities, and how best to collaborate. During the second session – always scheduled on a separate day if possible, so as not to diminish the importance of the first one – we would talk about our account strategies and their role.
Why These Questions Work
Let’s break down why these eight questions are important:
Questions 1-3: Family & Priorities
- Tell me about your family and where you grew up.
- Tell me about your family today.
- What are your other non-work priorities?
The first three questions are obviously interrelated. The first two are intentionally open-ended. I found the answers to these questions always highly interesting and often fascinating. As I write this, I am reminded of a favorite quote from one of the most important books I have read – You’re Not Listening, What You’re Missing and Why It Matters by Kate Murphy, a fascinating book about the importance of listening 😊:
“The most valuable lesson I’ve learned as a journalist is that everybody is interesting if you ask the right questions. If someone is dull or uninteresting, it’s on you.”
Actively listening to my colleagues talk about their upbringing, their families, their kids, and their partners often gave background logic to their answers to Question 8—Their Why. Answers to questions about their own families and other priorities also provided clues to answers about the timing of work—and, importantly, non-work.
Questions 4 & 5: Work & Communications Styles
- Tell me about your work style. What hours do you like to work? When are you most productive?
- Tell me about your communications style. How do you like to interact – email, text, PowerPoint, IM, calls, etc.?
Although I cannot remember the specific (again candid) feedback I received that taught me the importance of these two questions, I know it was almost as painful as the RK quote above. By the time I began my second tenure at Year Up, I was a single empty nester and incredibly passionate about the work I did to help bridge what we called “The Opportunity Divide.” I truly felt it was my calling. The combination of these two things led to some fairly “non-traditional” work styles. Some of our intern managers or other corporate sponsors liked to meet at 6 or 7 in the morning, and others at dinner, and I was happy to oblige.
I learned the importance of these two the hard way. At one point, I was sending late-night texts after West Coast graduations—not thinking about the fact that I was pinging my East Coast colleagues at 11 PM. Intentions don’t equal impact. I thought I was being respectful by saying, “You don’t need to work the hours I do.” But my behavior sent a different message.
Understanding how someone prefers to work—and how they like to communicate—helps avoid unnecessary friction. Some prefer early calls, others email summaries. I was again fortunate that more than one of them explained to me something like:
“When I am out on a date with my wife, the last thing I want to hear is my phone pinging me that you have yet another ‘great’ idea!”
Obviously, the way/ technology with which people prefer to be communicated with is related to this. Some preferred me to pick up the phone and call, others a text or email, often depending on the subject matter and it’s relative priority. (One of my prized possessions is a Blue Ribbon with the words “I survived another meeting that should have been an email” given to me by a senior GE manager!) Surprisingly, I was able to keep a “communications style and timing matrix” in my head and tailored my communications to the needs and preferences of my colleagues. I knew that with some, like Binundu Samuels from Atlanta, I could call almost anytime day or night with new ideas and opportunities. While others, I would text a request for a phone call during more traditional business hours.
Question 6. What do you want to get better at? If we had an unlimited training budget (which we don’t) what training would you like us to invest in you?
One of the great things about working at Year Up is that they give all employees a $2,000 allowance for professional development, with great latitude on how each team member chooses to invest it. I am often baffled by companies that never ask the simple question “What training to you feel you need to do your job better?” and instead offer only mandatory training dictated by what managers believe their people need (see the GE ribbon above). I ask this question so that I can be on the lookout for articles, books, online training, or work-based opportunities to support their professional interests.
Question 7. Do you have any pet peeves?
Being either blessed or cursed with a relatively strong personality, and possibly more often the latter, I am at least partially aware that elements of “my style” can rub some people the wrong way. One way to head this off is to ask the direct question – are there any things that I might do that will either slightly irritate or royally piss you off? Most everyone has some. Mine are those who over-use the words “you know” or whose ratio of using the word “like” to every other word in their vocabulary is dangerously close to 1! This knowledge is – of course – only of value if you try to eliminate or at least minimize and recognize when you commit these acts of frustration to others.
Question 8. What is your Why?
I love this question, and it always enables the listening session to end on a high note. This question is taken from the books “Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action” by Simon Sinek and the follow-up work “Find Your Why: A Practical Guide for Discovering Purpose for You and Your Team” by Sinek, David Mead, and Peter Docker. In this bestselling book, Sinek introduces the concept of the “Golden Circle“ — Why, How, What — and emphasizes the importance of understanding your “Why“ – your purpose, cause, or belief – as the foundation for inspiring leadership, meaningful work, and long-term success.
Final Thoughts
Although you would have to ask those I have worked with if starting off a professional relationship by listening to colleagues answers to these 8 questions have made me a better player coach and servant-leader, I continue to use them today. They work equally well in both a traditional direct report structure as well as more matrixed organizations like Year Up. I have also found them highly valuable when first meeting with those I am going to mentor, a key role I played on Alan Khazei’s 2020 Congressional Campaign.
