Leadership through Systemic Moderation: 6 tips for successful questions!

Ask determine our lives from morning to night. Therefore, we naturally assume that we Discipline of asking questions like a pro. But to moderate questions, more is needed.

Questions as the heart of moderation

Questions rule our lives. For example: "When does your plane leave?", "What would you like to have for breakfast?", "Which project team member did you choose?". But the moderation requires a much more sophisticated questioning technique than it is used in Everyday life necessary is.

Because while we often ask things in everyday life that we do not know - but the other person already has - the question in moderation has a completely different task:

The task of moderation

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Moderation is not about querying what is known, but about making new things possible. This requires a goal-oriented and clever question that People inspired to think differently.

Not for nothing did the French writer, painter and graphic artist Francis Picabia (1879 - 1953) once say:

"Our Head is round so that thinking can change direction!”

6 success factors for excellent questions

If you are looking for excellent answers, you have to put the foundation stone with excellent questions. Six success factors for successful questions:

Success factor 1: Consideration of the moderation check

The moderation check (see part 2) also accompanies us with questions. When formulating the questions, it is important to look back at the Set and to make clear the framework conditions of the moderation and to consider what influence the participants have on the result.

Success Factor 2: Avoid Inappropriate Questions

Avoid leading questions and closed questions that only end with “yes” or “No” can be answered. The stylistic device of the rhetorical question also tends to cause confusion.

Success Factor 3: Ask openly

Work with all open W questions - but refrain from why, why, why, because these question words provoke justifications. Would you like an example? "Why are our sales figures behind the targets for the third consecutive quarter?" Only when reading the question does the “justification mode” appear internally.

Success Factor 4: Just ask

Questions should not attract a beauty contest, but should encourage participants to think and act. Ask in simple and understandable language so that all participants understand you. The participants should shake their heads about the answer to the question, not the question itself.

Success Factor 5: Get the participants where they are

Engage with the participants and put yourself in their shoes before they ask forms. The participants' glasses help to incorporate different perspectives into the questions. Empathy is required!

Success Factor 6: Visualize your question

It is presumptuous to believe that all participants give us their full awareness give by asking the question around. It therefore helps to visualize questions using a whiteboard, beamer or flipchart.

Away from the problem - towards the solution

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Behind every moderation there is an order - but behind it there is often a Problem: “The mood in the Team is bad”, “Innovative product innovations are in short supply” or “The customers want better service.” Don't let that fool you! Because a decisive aspect of systemic moderation is precisely the renunciation of problem focus - instead it works with goal-, solution- and resource-oriented questions.

Imagine confronting the participants in your workshop with the above problems at the beginning. This not only depresses the mood in the room, but also prevents creative solutions, as those present remain in the deficient “problem mode”.
It is better to enable the participants to change their perspective on the task to be solved. You can grant the following perspectives:

The viewer's view

Conversations go in circles – the participants are completely caught up in their own perspective. The madness of everyday life Meeting? It doesn't have to be! Give your participants the spectator's gaze so that they gain distance and avoid tunnel vision. The following example question can help: “Suppose a stranger came through the door at that very moment. How would the situation appear to him? And what solutions would he have?"

The look of the pioneer

often verlieren Groups on a small scale – they lose sight of the big picture. The group literally does not come out of the slippers. Here it can help to offer the participants the role of pioneers: “They all know personalities who are in their respective Industry take on a pioneering role, not chasing trends, but shaping them themselves. What course of action would this pioneer take in your place?”

The look of the partners

Sometimes it helps too Perspektive of an actor who is of our own System originates - the view of the customer, the supplier or the manager. Each of these actors is directly or indirectly affected by our actions. An example question could be: "If our little customers were allowed to put together their World Savings Day gifts themselves - which would then be the absolute hits?"

To see through the spectacles of other participants is to leave the indented ways of thinking and to arrive at new options. Try out the perspective changes, play with it and you will be amazed at the positive results.

Step out of the present into the future

We all have goals and dreams, but we always find reasons why we haven't tackled this or that project yet. Put the bridle on the horse from behind: Let the champagne corks pop in your mind and just pretend that you have already reached your goal. Seen from the sunny side, the mountain to be climbed is not that high anymore. Catapulting into one positive Future can take the paralyzing pressure and open up a clear view of the success factors and parameters that you can turn.

Give this clear view to your participants as they stand in front of the virtually insurmountable mountain.

Questions such as "Assuming that you have already increased the awareness of your product in the target group by fifty percent - which communication channels would have been particularly important for this?" In a two-step question, you can put one more thing on the agenda by deliberately focusing on the present and the future. Step 1: “Suppose we had the women's quota successfully implemented: How would we work together in management and communicate with each other?" Step 2: “Which lever can we move today so that we can align our cooperation accordingly today?”

With the headstand you can see better

Friendliness in dealing with customers is a top priority everywhere, as everyone knows by now - from the management floor to the cashier. But what happens when customer surveys paint a bleak picture of service? How is that supposed to work Companys improve here if already everyone Employees has internalized the value of friendliness in service? But does everyone really have that or is this value just waste?

Here it helps to turn yourself upside down: Draw the worst horror scenario! Try asking, "What can we do to completely alienate our customers?" You will be amazed at the creative answers you will receive and at the same time how some employees will start pondering whether they are violating the value system at one point or another without malicious intent, but with all the more serious consequences. This Method This is particularly useful in stuck situations or when participants are unaware of the impact of their behavior.

Fill empty phrases with life

“As a company, we rely on trust, transparency and Esteem towards the customer” – boring isn't it? But why? Because every company claims these interchangeable keywords as a philosophy and prints them on its website or in glossy brochures.

So what if these empty tags are nicely written by the participants on moderation cards when the job is to improve the mood in the team? Here the moderator has to ask wisely and fill these lifeless terms with life. Bring the participants back to real life. For example, through questions like “What behaviors of your colleagues would you recognize that they have confidence in you?”

The best slogans are of little use if the employees do not live these communicated values. If the slogan is "We are clearing the way", the employees should be asked the question: “How can I behave that my Customer feels like I'm making way for him?"

The view into the treasure chest

As a moderator, draw on the wealth of experience of your participants and value their skills and, above all, their successes. If there is an apparently unsolvable problem in the room, the view automatically turns to the negative. Taxes As a moderator, you actively counteract this by reminding your participants of your successes and achievements, of which they can be proud. Questions like “What is going particularly well in your team, which success stories are you particularly proud of?” or “How did you manage to work so successfully last year despite the vacancy?”

Now you have got to know a wealth of possible questions. Just give them a try! And don't make it too difficult for yourself. Because there is not one right question – many ways lead to Rome. Be creative with the questions, notice the immediate reactions and inspire your participants!

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