Ask what can we learn here

Before you give an answer, ask what can be learned from the situation in front of you.

Pourquoi ça marche

Garvey Berger and Johnston’s first habit is asking different questions instead of having the answers. The Integral Leadership Review’s summary of the book describes the shift as moving toward questions about what can be learned in a given situation, and links that to enhancing a leader’s capacity for listening. This page’s inference, not the review’s: a question keeps a situation open, while a verdict tends to close it before the next piece of information has arrived.

Comment faire

1. Before you state a view in your next meeting, write down the question you are actually trying to answer.
2. Rephrase it as “what can we learn about this situation?” and ask that out loud.
3. Listen for one new fact in the reply, and write it down before you respond.
4. Then state your view, and say what would change it.

Données probantes

The first habit, asking different questions in place of having the answers, is named in Garvey Berger and Johnston (2015) and in the Cultivating Leadership summary of the book. The learning-question framing and its link to listening come from the Integral Leadership Review summary, and the book’s own passage was not read directly. (anecdotal)

No outcome study of this practice was found. The authors present it as a habit a leader builds, not as a tested intervention.

Sources

• Garvey Berger, J., & Johnston, K. (2015). Simple Habits for Complex Times: Powerful Practices for Leaders. Stanford University Press. (The DOI resolves to the 2020 e-edition record.)
• Integral Leadership Review (2015). Book review of Jennifer Garvey Berger and Keith Johnston, Simple Habits for Complex Times: Powerful Practices for Leaders.
• Cultivating Leadership, book page for Simple Habits for Complex Times (Garvey Berger & Johnston), accessed 2026-10-14.

Erreur fréquente

Asking a question that is really a hidden statement of the answer, such as “don’t you think we should…?”, and then calling the conversation an inquiry.