Using Questions to Build Staff Connections

“Nothing shapes our lives like the questions we ask,” said Chad Littlefield in his CAMEX21 Reimagined general session, Connection Before Content. His consulting firm, We and Me, uses question cards to help organizations build stronger rapport among their employees.

“If you want to increase the culture of connection and get more lift in your bottom line, there’s a really simple tactic,” Littlefield said. “Double the number of the question count.”

Using questions in team exercises can open up the lines of communication and allow employees to get to know each other in a casual environment. The process can foster more trust among employees (the connection) to improve how they work together (the content).

That trust factor is important, according to Littlefield. “Google did a research project to find out what are the characteristics of the highest-performing teams at Google,” he said. It turned out the top determinant was “the degree of psychological safety in that team.” Employees performed better when they felt others on the team acknowledged their feelings and efforts, listened to them, and demonstrated empathy.

Questions are different from the typical icebreakers many organizations may try at meetings. The questions are intended to “connect to purpose,” Littlefield said, rather than just serve as a fun get-acquainted game. He suggested starting off a team meeting with a question. Just a few examples from We and Me’s card deck:

• What is the most adventurous thing you have ever done?

• What is the strangest food you have ever eaten? (No one-word answers. Each person should explain the circumstances of ingesting the strange food.)

• What is one thing you want to accomplish in your lifetime?

• What is one thing life is teaching you right now?

The questioning method is adaptable to online meetings, too, he pointed out.

A variation on the question exercise is to ask the team to complete a sentence. “You build the first half of the sentence and invite other to finish,” Littlefield explained. His example: “If you really knew me, you would know…”

Another way to create connection among employees is what Littlefield called a “tiny teach.” Ask employees to divide up into smaller groups and briefly teach something they know that the others probably don’t, such as how to play a guitar or doing a dance move.

Littlefield said a goal for encouraging this connection is to engage employees who may otherwise be detached from the organization in some fashion. Some workers are natural contributors and connectors, but others simply criticize “without any interest in doing anything,” are totally disinterested in what’s going on outside their own work, or are in “a perpetual state of crankiness. Nothing you do will make them happy,” he said.

But, building stronger connections among employees isn’t enough on its own; context is also critical. Employees need to understand the “why” of their managers’ directions in order to pull together toward shared goals.

“Get crystal clear about what your intention is and share it with the group,” Littlefield said.

“When we are abundantly clear about intention, manipulation packs its bags,” he added. “When we try to get people to do things, but we don’t tell them why and don’t give context, that’s really close to manipulation.”

Go to www.weand.me to access a number of free resources provided by Littlefield and co-founder Will Wise, including 21 printable connect card questions, links to 10 video tutorials for group activities, and a 10-page excerpt of Ask Powerful Questions: Create Conversations that Matter, written by Littlefield and Wise.