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At Vervago our mission is to cultivate sharper minds. Our quarterly newsletter is designed to give you insights into critical thinking, problem solving, and effective communication at work. If you have questions or suggestions for future newsletter topics, please contact us at info@vervago.com.
Spotlight
From the CQO Politeness is a Two-Way Street
The focus in this issue of Sharper Minds is on the difference between Everyday Q&A and Precision Q&A in your workplace conversations. The differences in these modes of talking also translate into differences in perceptions of politeness that are important to keep in mind as you work with people who haven’t taken an introduction to Precision Questioning.
When we are following the protocol of Everyday Q&A, we tend to provide much more information than is literally requested in response to a question. By the rules of Everyday Q&A, answers that are extremely brief tend to confuse people and are easily misinterpreted as being rude.
When we shift into Precision Q&A, however, the logic of politeness is transformed. By the rules of Precision Q&A, it becomes polite as well as conversationally efficient to say less, rather than more, in response to a precise question. Novices often misunderstand the intentions of a questioner because they don’t yet understand this reversal in the rules for politeness.
This quarter’s Spotlight focuses on Dr. Monica Worline, Co-Founder of Vervago and assistant professor of organization & management at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School.
Monica has followed an unusual track to the study of organizations, which is her passion. She grew up in Elko, Nevada, but she knew from a very young age that she wanted to have experiences outside of small-town life. Her dreams of exploring the world started coming true when she was accepted at Stanford University, where she studied English and Feminist Studies. It was at Stanford that her path first crossed with Dennis Matthies, Vervago’s fellow co-founder. Monica jokes that she really got to know Dennis when she applied for a job as a Resident Assistant in the dormitory where he served as a Resident Fellow for over a decade. Dennis’ vigorous interviewing process included 3 to 4 hours of intense one-on-one meetings. Feeling confident that after all of that interviewing, Monica would get the position, “he had the audacity not to hire me,” she says. “My working with Vervago is the sweetest revenge for him not hiring me the first time around!”
After Stanford, Monica worked in several Silicon Valley companies, and ultimately helped with the start-up of a software venture. One afternoon just as she was contemplating her next step, Monica bumped into Dennis on the seaside walk in Sausalito, “and it just so happened that, in a moment of divine irony, Dennis was walking with the person who got the RA job instead of me,” Monica explains. “Well, of course, we had to strike up a conversation under those conditions.” Dennis told Monica of his interest in taking Precision Questioning to the workplace setting and wanted to hear about her experiences with start-up companies. Those conversations led them to co-designing and teaching a PQ class for adults in the workplace.
While co-teaching and writing articles about PQ, Monica decided to pursue a Ph.D. in organizational psychology, while Dennis left Stanford and moved to Seattle to work more closely with Microsoft as they were implementing PQ throughout the organization. As luck would have it, the market demand for PQ workshops grew to be more than Dennis and Monica could handle, and so, Vervago was born.
Quarterly Feature Using PQ & PA with your colleagues: Build a culture of shared respect around questions
A 1996 poll conducted by US News and World Report suggests that 89% of respondents believe incivility is a serious problem in the United States, and 78% of respondents feel that incivility is intensifying as a social issue. The widespread perception of increasing incivility in our society also permeates our workplaces, with 20% of people in one poll reporting that they are targets of incivility at work at least once per week. Another study suggests that executives may spend up to 13% of their time resolving conflicts among employees, and recent research with 2,400 employees and managers across a variety of industries shows that incivility is also costly to work organizations because it corrodes collaborative cultures, stifles creative contributions, and contributes to employee turnover and absenteeism.
PQ & PA Skill Sharpener Using PQ & PA in a Non-PQ & PA World One of the most common questions we hear during the Precision Questioning workshop is, “How am I going to use this when I get back to my office, where almost nobody else will be using PQ & PA?” It’s an important question. Because Precision Questioning’s rules turn the rules of everyday discussion upside down, you are very likely to encounter some natural resistance to PQ & PA with people who don’t yet understand its structure.
In everyday discussion the answerer controls the discussion—long answers have high value, and following up looks aggressive, if not rude. After a workshop, however, here you come, assuming that the questioner is in control, that concise answers are valued, and that following up is expected and necessary! The theme of this Skill Sharpener is to help you avoid becoming the bull in the conversational china shop.
