【第217回】Edgar H. Schein, “Humble Inquiry”

What is ‘Humble Inquiry’? What is the difference between usual hearing and  ‘Humble Inquiry’. Dr. Schein defines it as below.

Humble Inquiry is the fine art of drawing someone out, of asking questions  to which you do not already know the answer, of building a relationship based on curiosity and interest in the other person. (No.93)

According to him, having attitude of Humble Inquiry is very important in any situations including business and private life, because work and life become more and more complex today. Doing Humble Inquiry brings us many advantages in these situation.

Ultimately the purpose of Humble Inquiry is to build relationships that lead to trust which, in turn, leads to better communication and collaboration. (No.337)

It is important for us to use Humble Inquiry to build good relationship and  trustfulness. Then, good relationship and trustfulness bring us better communication and collaboration.

These cases also illustrate that Humble Inquiry is not a checklist to follow or a set of prewritten questions -- it is behavior that comes out of respect, genuine curiosity, and the desire to improve the quality of the conversation by stimulating greater openness and the sharing of task-relevant information. (No.548)

Humble Inquiry is not a checklist but a behavior which comes from their own mind. When we do something based on some checklist, we tend to be just focused on actions without any consideration and reflection. It’s not the attitude of Humble Inquiry. If we are based on it, we take care of other person’s mind and ourselves.

The skills of Asking in general and Humble Inquiry in particular will be needed in three broad domains: 1) in your personal life, to enable you to deal with increasing cultural diversity in all aspects of work and social life; 2) in organizations, to identify needs for collaboration among interdependent work units and to facilitate such collaboration; and 3) in your role as leader or manager, to create the relationships and the climate that will promote the open communication needed for safe and effective task performance. (No. 1253)

In order to develop our attitude of Humble Inquiry, these lists above seem to be useful. These are not checklist to be focused on outer actions, but  guideline to be focused on inner feeling and mind.

Sheryl Sandberg, “LEAN IN”
“To sell is human”, Daniel H. Pink
“How will you measure your life?”, Clayton M. Christensen
“Makers” by Chris Anderson