Using Strategic Questioning to Explore Complex Subjects

“The answers are all out there, we just need to ask the right questions ” Oscar Wilde

At 2112 Consulting, we work from the perspective that strategy creation is based on information, much of which is messy and complex.  Consequently, the first step in the strategy creation process is gathering strategic information. Most of this information is subjective in nature, consisting of the thoughts and views of the key people within the organisation.

This information can, therefore, be difficult to obtain and to manage. As a result, we use tools and techniques that are designed to help us to obtain the views of key people. These are the individuals who will shape the future of the organisation and ultimately be responsible for implement the strategy.

Strategic questioning (also known as Socratic Questioning) is one of the primary techniques that we use. This helps to obtain facts, ideas and assumptions about the organisation and its future. The technique is used in both individual interviews and strategic workshops. In both of these methods, gathering useful information through asking the correct questions is important. The questions should help the individual or group generate ideas, uncover assumptions, examine concepts, identify and explore issues, goals and objectives.

Laddering

The questions that we ask are critical to the quality of the information that is obtained.  We use a technique called laddering to clarify and expand on the information obtained. This technique uses questions to understand the cause and effect relationship among statements and is crucial to creating a causal map.

Laddering works in two directions. You can ladder up to discover the impact of an idea, action, issue, etc. Laddering down, on the other hand, is used to uncover the cause of the outcome, i.e. what is driving the outcome. Consequently, the questions used in laddering typically fall into one of the following four categories:

Seeking clarification.

As a facilitator you should never make assumptions about what people mean.  It is, therefore, important so clarify what the person means by a statement that they make.  These will tend to be used to narrow the focus of a general statement, in other words, getting more specific information from the participant.

Testing beliefs and perspectives.

Everybody has their own belief system that is developed through their life experiences. These beliefs will influence how they look at things.  Typically, we will have a pen portrait of each of the participants involved in the strategy development process. This will give the facilitator an understanding of their background.  Understand the person allows the facilitator to ask questions to understand how their beliefs may influence their statements. As a result, we can ensure that their statements are taken in the correct context.

Examine reasoning and evidence.

People can make ‘off the cuff’ statements. If taken at face value could have an impact on strategic direction of the organisation.  Consequently, our facilitators will ask questions that are designed to validate the statements. This is done by ensuring that they are based in sound logic and that there is evidence to support them.  We often find that when we challenge a frivolous statement the person will amend or retract it. They may, for example, say “oh, that is not what I meant” or “what I meant to say was …”.

Explore cause and effect relationships.

Causal mapping is the primary tools we use to capture information that is used in the strategy creation process.  A crucial part of this process is understanding the implications and consequences of statements that are made by participants. In addition, this helps to add context to the content that is captured. This is important when analysing the strategic information that has been gathered.

Summary

In summary, strategic questioning is an important part of the strategy creation process. Done properly, it will uncover a wealth of detailed information that will ultimately be used as the building blocks of creating a robust strategic for the organisation.

Gathering Strategic Information

Obtaining and managing information, much of which is complex, is the foundation of building a robust business strategy.

Obtaining information is a crucial part of developing a strategy for your business.  The majority of this information will come from the key people in your organisation and it is important to ensure that the information provided is both accurate and comprehensive.

Consequently, it is critical that the processes used to acquire the information is both robust and thorough.  We have developed processes to ensure that the people involved in strategy development feel secure so that they are open and honest with their thoughts, views and ideas.

There are two ways to obtain the information that is used in the strategy creation and business planning processes. In both cases the information is captured and then analysed to identify and structure the key components of the business strategy.

Practical Application

We are likely to use both of these methods in a strategy creation project.  The order I which they are carried out will depend on the organisation, its culture and the level of detail our client wants to go into.

The most common method would be to start with group workshops to generate high level ideas about the where the organisation will be in the future, how it will get there and what way get in the way.  These group workshops would then be followed with strategic interviews to obtain more detail about where the ideas, issues and options raised in the workshops.

In some cases, we will start with strategic interviews to allow people to express themselves freely. The information gathered in the interviews would then be collated for further review in a group workshop.

There is, however, no ‘one size fits all’ solution.  We always work with our client to design a strategy creation project that best fits the needs of the organisation.

Strategic Interviews are one-to-one discussions that are held with the people who are involved with the strategy development process and/or have knowledge that is important to the process.

The interview takes the form of a structured discussion between the individual and an independent facilitator and are designed to obtain information that is pertinent to the strategic future of the organisation.

The purpose of one-to-one discussions is to uncover information about the individual’s ideas, issues, opinions, goals and aspirations, as well as their fears and concerns regarding the current and future state of the business.  As such, the discussions can be a powerful tool in the strategy creation process and are very useful when you want to engage the key people in your organisation in strategy creation and implementation.

The nature of the process means that we obtain the views of individuals who will naturally tend to stay within their own sphere of knowledge and experience. This means that we will obtain a lot of detail about specific areas of the business and not much detail for areas of the business that they are more as familiar with.

Obtaining a pen portrait of each participant can help ensure that you are able to engage with each person in a way that is most likely to obtain good information that is relevant to the strategy creation process.  In addition, you should pay attention to where these interviews are held to ensure that the interviewee is comfortable ad that there are no interruptions.

When we hold 0ne-to-one discussions, we capture the information that is gathered as a causal map. This is subsequently entered into our computer system for analysis.

A significant advantage of this method is that it enables us to combine the maps from the discussions from all of the people involved. This then becomes a very powerful tool vs strategy workshops as it creates a strategic model that covers a wide area of the business with a lot of detail while strategy workshops do not give the same depth information.

Another advantage is that people feel that they have been listened to and that their comments have been taken seriously. This is a key component when it comes to implementing the strategy and/or business plan because people will be more engaged in the process and, therefore, more motivated to help make the strategy succeed.

Finally, the people involved very often find this process to be very therapeutic. This is because they are able to express their thoughts, ideas and feelings in a safe space.  Due to the success of this process, we decided to offer it as a a stand-alone service – Safe Space Business Support.

Where you conduct your strategic interviews can have a significant impact on the results obtained.

The interviews should be held in a relatively neutral location, away from the interviewee’s place of work.

If the strategic interview has to be held within the workplace, then it should be away from the interviewees office or workstation. This helps to reduce the possibility of interruption and, perhaps more importantly, to move them out of their own environment, or ‘comfort zone’.

Using a neutral location also aids facilitation, as you can set the room up in advance, making it as ‘user friendly’ as possible.  The seating positions of the facilitator and the individual involved are very important. While the relative position of the interviewer and the interviewee may seem to be a minor issue but it is, in fact, critical to the outcome of the interview as it determines the nature of interaction between people.

Research has found that an angle of 90 degrees is the preferred position for open conversation.

In order to help to build a degree of mutual confidence and also to ensure that the interviewee can see what is being written, the chairs should be arranged to ensure that there is a 90 degree angle between the interviewee and interviewer, as shown.

We use this technique in all interviews and find that it works well with the majority of people. We also pay attention to the body language of people to determine if they are adopting a defensive position, preparing to compete, negotiate or argue.

This is important information when developing and, more importantly implementing, strategy as it can help identify people who may get in the way of progress as well as those who are more likely to support it.  The status and/or power of the person involved will determine the degree to which their attitude towards the business’ strategy will impact upon the success of its implementation.

What is a Pen Portrait?

A Pen Portrait helps facilitators to gain an insight into the people involved in the strategy creation process.

Everyone has their own belief system which will influence how they see the world. From a strategy development perspective, this will influence how they view the current and future state of the organisation. Consequently, before working with a strategy group, it is important that our facilitator has information about who is involved. This will include their background, their beliefs and how they are likely to react to the strategy creation process.

Pen Portraits

A pen portrait is a simple, but effective, method that we use to gather information about the people in the strategy group. It is written by someone in the organisation who knows the people involved well.  As its name suggests, a pen portrait is a written document that describes each person honestly and in as much detail as possible.  We always use them before starting to work with the people in our client’s organisation.  They are invaluable aid when working with people both in individual interviews and strategic workshops.

The information to that should be obtained about each person will include the following:

• Name and age;
• Position in organisation;
• Roles and responsibilities;
• Area(s) of expertise;
• Type of person (e.g. leader, follower, blocker, negative, positive, etc.);
• Their importance to the strategy development process;
• Their likely reaction to participation in a group workshop vs one-to-one discussion;
• Importance to the business going forward;
• Likely response to change and any other relevant information or observations.

It can also be useful to include a photograph of the person so that the facilitator knows what they look like.

The pen portraits should be written by the client, who will normally be a senior member of the strategy team.  The client’s pen portrait will normally be written by another senior member of their team.  If the organisation has an impartial member of the executive team, such as a non-executive director, then that person may be a good source of information about the participants.

We find having this information about people in the strategy group to be invaluable, especially in strategic interviews. It allows us to prepare better for the interview but also enables us to understand the context of the statements that they make. It also enables us to use the appropriate strategic questioning techniques to elicit the information that is important to the strategy creation process.

To help understand how this works, we have created some examples of Pen Portraits and their use.

Examples of Pen Portraits and their use in Strategy Creation

In our article “What is a Pen Portrait?” we discussed the importance of ensuring that the facilitator has information about the people involved in the strategy development process. This means that they have some understanding of their background, beliefs and how they are likely to react to the process.

Here are some examples of real pen portraits (the names have been changed for obvious reasons) and how we used them during strategic interviews:

Example 1:

“Joe Bloggs is 42 years old and has been with the company since he left University.  He is head of his department but got there trough time in the job rather than talent.  He has no formal (or informal) management training.  

While he is very intelligent, he can be quite immature and seems to lack confidence in interacting with people.  As a result, he can be difficult to deal with and he tends to talk about people behind their back, which causes resentment and mistrust.  

He has a tendency to look down on those who are not as academically qualified as him.  In addition, he has a very close relationship with two people in the business and consequently, they each have influence over the other. Consequently, he is likely to play the role of expert as in relation to internal procedures.

He may also be an opinion former, at least as far as his immediate subordinates are concerned.  

Finally, he can be cynical and has the potential to be disruptive or to act as a saboteur in the strategy process.”

Here, we started with easy questions based around this person’s area of expertise.  This gave him time to get comfortable with me and the process and to start talking which was the biggest challenge.

By listening carefully to his answers we made sure that we asked relevant question, even if they were not relevant to the strategy development process.  This gave him confidence that we were both  listening to and interested in what he was saying which eased his concerns about the process. The result was that he eventually opened up and gave me some valuable insights, ideas and information about the current and future state of the business.

Given his influence over others in his team who were also involved in the process, we made sure that we interviewed him first. We did this because we knew that he would feed back his experience to the others and hopefully make them more cooperative.  This worked well and the other interviews went well, albeit they we not without their challenges.

Example 2:

“Jane Doe is 32 years old and joined the company from another firm who were based in London.  She is one of the more approachable people in the business but gives the impression that she sees herself as being above everyone else. 

The fact that she speaks very quietly means that it can be difficult to hear what she is saying.

She knows the business very well and is quite switched on commercially and has come up with some good ideas. In addition, she is actively involved in what little marketing the company does, giving talks at various local enterprise events, etc. 

However, she could be a potential saboteur is some circumstances, particularly if she were to see herself as a potential loser in the process.  It is, however, unlikely that she would deliberately feed misinformation to the process.

Finally, she is very much a ‘9 to 5’ person so it would be very difficult to persuade her to attend an out of hours workshop.”

Here we made sure that we scheduled the interview mid morning so that this person had time to get settled into work while giving me enough time to speak with her before lunchtime. Knowing that she was quietly spoken meant that we were able to set the seating up in advance so that we was close enough to her to be able to hear what she was saying (without being too close!).

Given her involvement in the marketing of the business, we started with that aspect of the strategy and used her comments to move the conversation into other areas of the business.  This worked well and she made a lot of good suggestions and observations about the business.

Strategic Interviews Case Study

Introduction

It should be noted at this point that I took care not to use the word ‘interview’, preferring to use ‘discussion’ instead, as I felt that people would feel intimidated or, in some cases, insulted if they thought that they were being interviewed.

This was based on the premise of ‘how do I know what I think until I hear what I say?’, which suggests that the act of discussing an issue can help the participant to take ownership of it, thereby helping to start the process of consensus building.

Interview Schedule

The interviews had been scheduled to take account of ‘political weighting’, in other words, the most senior people were interviewed first. The reason for this was to ensure that the key issues raised by senior management were fed into the subsequent interviews, thereby ensuring that the final group model would, to some extent, be moulded around their thoughts.

I found that the interviewees were inclined to stay within their own functional boundaries and tended to resist attempts to persuade them to talk about more general issues about the business.   One interviewee actually said that he was deliberately dealing with issues that related to his department. I think that this may have been due to the functionally focused nature of the organisation meant that they were very knowledgeable about their own area of the business but because they had not been exposed to the wider business issues, they had a very narrow view of the business.  Subsequent analysis of the group model tends to support this since the need to gain a better understanding of what others do was raised as an issue in terms of improving internal co-operation and communication. This is indicative of lack of knowledge about the business in general within the group that was interviewed.

The Interviews

A series of eight interviews were held with the senior and professional staff in the company. These discussions centered on exploring the ways in which the business ought to develop over the next few years. Each participant’s comments were recorded as a series of statements, connected by arrows representing a cause and effect relationship, effectively creating a map of their thoughts, as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1 – Example of an extract of a causal map

The interviews were held in a relatively neutral location, away from the interviewee’s office. This helped to reduce the possibility of interruption and, perhaps more importantly, to move them out of their own environment, or ‘comfort zone’. Using a neutral location also aided facilitation, as I was able to set the room up in advance, making it as ‘user friendly’ as possible.

Research has shown that a relationship exists between the nature of interaction between people and their position around a table. They found that an angle of 90 degrees is the preferred position for conversation. In order to help to build a degree of mutual confidence and also to ensure that they could see what I was writing, I arranged the chairs so that I was sitting at a 90 degree angle to the interviewee, as shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2 – Example of seating position when conducting a strategic interview

This worked very well with the exception of one interviewee, who took the seat directly opposite me when I made an attempt to take the seat to his left.   This suggests that he was adopting a defensive position which was not conducive to a productive discussion. I switched my position, explaining that it was important that he could see what I was doing.

He continued to adopt a defensive position throughout most of the interview, sitting back in this chair, often with his arms folded, and making no attempt to look at what I was writing, despite my attempts to encourage him.

I had had some concerns about this person before the interview as I felt that he was not interested in the process and it was clear from his non-verbal signals that he was simply ‘going through the motions’.  As an facilitator, it is important in these circumstances not to take people’s negative reactions personally and to remain calm and positive throughout.

This highlights the importance of not only performing a stakeholder analysis within the organisation, but also taking care to act on the information that is obtained. Whilst I had identified this person as being a potential saboteur of the process, I had underestimated the level of his negativity. With hindsight, it may have been beneficial to engage them in the process at an earlier stage by, for example, asking their opinions on various aspects of the design of the intervention.

The interviews were intended to elicit the emergent goals of the actors involved, with objectives being surfaced using a technique that called ‘Laddering’.  This involves encouraging the interviewee to elaborate on the issues that they raise by asking ‘so what?’ type questions. This helps to generate causal relationships in a way that uncovers information about their aspirations.

This proved to be very difficult for two reasons. Firstly, I believe that the problems with the MBO may have affected the state of mind of the interviewees, causing them to focus on the short-term rather than looking too far forward. This could have signalled that they saw only a short-term future for the company and/or for themselves within it. The fact that there was probably some anger and bad feeling would also have affected their views.

Secondly, I found that they consistently started the interview with topics that were at the forefront of their minds and that these issues were normally operational in nature. One interview in particular provided a good example of this. The interviewee spent about 10 minutes discussing issues relating to something that had happened a few hours earlier and when he finished, he said that he did not know why he had talked about it because he did not think that it was that important!

I think that there is a danger with this methodology in that people can focus on current issues at the expense of looking past that into the future. It is, therefore, important that the facilitator is aware of this and is able to direct the conversation in the appropriate way. This is, however, not as easy as it may seem as I found that the interviewee can very often be determined to get ‘today’s special’ off their chests and they tend to resist attempts to steer the direction of the conversation away from it. I found that it is best to let them get whatever is bothering them  out of their system and then to move the interview forward from there. This worked well in all but one interview where the interviewee seemed to want to take up the whole discussion with anecdotal ramblings and it proved to be very difficult to get him to focus on the issues at hand.

I believe that I would have obtained far better results if the participants had been given some information relating to the subject matter before the discussion. This would have given them time to think about the issues and may, therefore, have generated a greater depth and quality of information. This is supported by the fact that I found that people tended to arrive with some preconceived ideas of what they were going to discuss and had done some preparatory work in advance of the interview, despite being asked not to. One participant even arrived with his laptop computer and used it during the initial stages of the interview to refer to notes that he had made on it before the meeting! I believe, therefore, that if people are going to prepare anyway then it would make sense to give them the information that will allow them to think about relevant issues.

As discussed, it is important to try to uncover the goals and aspirations of the participants. One technique that is favoured by many is what is known as the ‘Oracle Question’.  Here, the interviewee is asked to consider what questions they would ask someone who is able to foretell the future. I tried this in one interview and I was amazed by the reaction of the individual concerned – the transformation in his demeanour was almost miraculous.   After thinking about it for a few seconds, his manner changed completely; he leaned forward and his eyes came alive as he began to describe his vision for the future.   It is clear that this technique has significant potential as a tool for eliciting emergent goals and I would recommend its use in this type of environment.

In general, I found that the interviewees were more than happy to talk, to the extent that the amount of information that was forthcoming was often difficult to manage. While I was able to record what was being said, I had some difficulty finding the opportunity to discuss the linkages between the statements with the interviewee. While many of the links tended to follow the flow of the conversation, I found that I often simply drew lines between concepts in an attempt to keep up with what the interviewee was saying. This meant that I had to return to them later to discuss the cause and effect relationships. It is important to find a balance between asking for clarification and trying to avoid breaking the interviewee’s train of though.

Conclusions

An analysis of the individual maps confirmed that no two individuals think alike. A wide variety of opinions were generated, with each person contributing an average of 100 concepts, less than 14% of which were duplicated by others. An average of 7 key issues were raised by individuals and most were well articulated.

As one might expect, an analysis of the group model, which was created by merging the individual maps, showed a far higher degree of articulation of the key issues with an average of 4 people contributing an average of 11 statements to each of the key issues that were surfaced. This indicates that some commonality of thinking exists within the group and I would, therefore, conclude that there is a basis on which a consensus view of the strategic future of the company could be built.

This process helped me to understand the concept of a ‘consensus strategy’ as shown in Figure 3. I had originally thought that the arrows in the diagram represented differences of opinion on the same or similar topics. Based on the work that I have done, I believe that they represent the different perspectives that people hold about the future and about the issues that face the organisation. To me, these perspectives do not represent the potential for conflict but rather the richness and diversity opinion that exists within the organisation.

Figure 3   A representation of how people’s perspectives gradually change as a consensus is formed.

This is supported by the fact that even though a large number of issues were surfaced, none of them was contradictory in nature. Consequently, consensus is reached by allowing people to gain an insight into the views of others, which they may not have considered before, and to build a joint understanding on that basis.

It should, however, be noted at this point that the group with whom I was working had been involved in a large number of meetings relating to the MBO. It is possible that those meetings may have inadvertently started the process of negotiating consensus, through allowing the people involved to gain an insight into the opinions of others.   This may then have meant that they consciously, or subconsciously, avoided topics that they believed would be controversial or would cause conflict.

In general, I found the interview process to be a very valuable tool and one that is suited for use in a company where the culture is not conducive to team working. The fact that it allows individuals involved to have much more ‘air time’ than they would have in a group situation means that it is also useful in situations where a greater depth of information is required. It should, however, be noted that it places a significant time burden on the facilitator and also generates a great deal of material which can make the analysis of the aggregated group model challenging.

Why Should Strategic Interviews be used?

It is important to understand when it is more appropriate to use strategic interviews rather than using strategy workshops.

Both Interviews and Workshops are effective in different situations so it is important to understand when each should be used.  Strategic interviews should be used in the following situations:

Depth of information

When a lot of information is required on a person’s views or knowledge on a particular subject matter or areas of the business. It allows individuals involved to have much more ‘air time’ than they would have in a group situation. This means that it is ideal in situations where a greater depth of information is required.

Internal issues

The culture in some organisations is not conducive to working in a group to develop their strategy. In these circumstances strategic interviews allow people to express their thoughts and feelings in a safe environment.

Need for anonymity

Situations can arise where people are not comfortable sharing their sensitive information, thoughts and feelings in a group situation. The anonymity provided by strategic interviews enables people to be more open. Consequently they tend to provide some important strategic information.

How to Obtain Strategic Information from Interviews

The primary purpose of strategic interviews is to obtain information that will be useful in developing a strategy for the organisation. This includes actions that need to be taken in order to attain individual and corporate objectives, goals and vision.

Ideally interviews should be scheduled to take account of ‘political’ weighting, with the most senior people being interviewed first.  The reasoning behind this is to enable some of the key issues raised by senior management to be fed into the subsequent interviews, thereby allowing us to obtain their thoughts on issues that are important to the strategic future of the organisation.

It is important to note that this is not a way to fabricate the corporate strategy.  If the interviewee has no knowledge of or comment on the issues raised, then we do push them to do so.

Most people will start the interview focusing on issues that are on their mind that day and don’t immediately think about the future of the business.

We use various tools and techniques to encourage the interviewee to discuss and then elaborate on the issues that they raise by asking ‘so what?’ and ‘what if’ types of question.

This moves them from the issues they are facing in the here and now to thinking about the ‘big picture’.  This way of working reflects the structure of the strategy model that is shown here.

The main technique that we use to capture the information provided by the participants is causal (or cognitive) mapping.  Working this way allows us to generate causal relationships in a way that captures both the content and context of the information provided by the interviewee.  It also ensures that the conversation is captured accurately and helps to engage the interviewee in the process.

How is Causal Mapping used to Capture Information During a Strategic Interview?

During the discussion the interviewee’s comments are recorded by the interviewer on a large piece of paper.

Their statements are written down as they speak and these statements are connected by arrows representing a cause and effect relationship, an example of which is shown.

This process creates what is called a causal (or cognitive) map.  There are many advantages of taking notes in this way.

It captures context as well as content.  This is extremely important when reviewing the notes at a later date as it adds clarity and understanding.

The interviewer can use this technique to clarify the statements that the interviewee made and engage them in the process.  This helps to ensure that they feel that they have been listened to and that their views will be considered and therefore helps to gain their commitment to strategies that are developed during in the process.

In addition, it enables the information that has been collected to be entered into our software system to be combined with the maps from other interviews and analysed to create the strategy model.