In this issue of Vervago’s Sharper Minds, we focus on building your skill at using PQ and PA with people who haven’t been formally introduced to the techniques that we teach. This is an important issue, because PQ and PA done well can build high-quality working relationships, but PQ and PA depend on specialized knowledge that turns the assumptions of everyday conversation on their head. Vervago’s goal is to help you cultivate a culture of intellectual inquiry where PQ and PA become valuable work tools. Questions and answers are valuable, primarily because they increase the organization’s capacity to deliver great work, but PQ and PA can also become a shared way of working with difficult problems that helps people put tough questions and precise answers into a mutually-understood framework. This kind of shared framework for questioning makes Q&A easier to understand and less likely to cause personal misunderstandings.

Researchers define incivility in the workplace as “low-intensity deviant behavior with ambiguous intent to harm the target, in violation of workplace norms for mutual respect.”(4) As PQ and PA work their way into organizations, people build their capability to ask one another questions in ways that deepen their thinking and enhance their working relationships. When PQ & PA are new to people, however, they may perceive direct, precise questions that drill into an issue as threatening or personal in some way. Using the tools in this issue will help reduce this possibility and allow you to get the value of PQ and PA in all of your business interactions.

Questions can be misused in organizations—and in some cases people who lose patience may use questions as a means for attacking another person’s work rather than deepening their thinking. When this happens, managers and employees are no longer using PQ. They have slipped into hurtful and disruptive action that may be perceived as uncivil workplace behavior that creates harm. As one manager said to researchers: These [uncivil] actions hurt people, make them feel bad about themselves, with no options or recourse to address the situation, at least easily, or within the norms of the organization.(5)

When questions are misused in organizations, people feel strain on their social relationships and become less, rather than more, willing to collaborate. The same can be true if people’s questions go ignored or unanswered. For instance, one professional in this research gave an example of incivility as, “It’s lack of respect, use of unkind words about others, ignoring someone or not responding to someone’s questions.”(6) In the letter from Dennis, our CQO, in this issue, he discusses the impact on executives when people around them fail to listen or comprehend their need for precise Q&A. These instances can cause a breach of mutual respect and collaboration in ways that are similar to harmful questioning that violates the basic techniques of PQ.

So what can you do to ensure that PQ and PA are successful and civil in your organization? Pearson and Porath recommend that managers set zero-tolerance expectations for people regarding breaches of trust and respect, confronting uncivil behavior when it occurs and making sure to emphasize the importance of respectful interaction.(7) Point out when people slip from using PQ into using questions disrespectfully. Point out when people are not answering one another in mutually respectful ways. And, teach civility by teaching PQ & PA. Bringing PQ and PA into your organization, teaching people the rules and techniques rather than expecting them to know them, and emphasizing the value of respectful questioning and answering can build your intellectual culture at the same time that it preserves high-quality working relationships and heightens the cooperation and collaboration that is so necessary for today’s global business success.

(1) Marks, J. (1996). “In your face: Whatever happened to good manners?” U.S. News & World Report, 22 April, 66-72.
(2) Pearson, C. M., & Porath, C. L. (2005). On the nature, consequences, and remedies of workplace incivility: No time for “nice”? Think again. The Academy of Management Executive, 19:1, 7-18.
(3) Pearson, C. M., & Porath, C. L. (2005). On the nature, consequences, and remedies of workplace incivility: No time for “nice”? Think again. The Academy of Management Executive, 19:1, 7-18.
(4) Pearson, C. M., Andersson, L. M., & Wegner, J. W. (2001). When workers flout convention: A study of workplace incivility. Human Relations, 45:11, page 1397.
(5) Pearson, C. M., Andersson, L. M., & Wegner, J. W. (2001). When workers flout convention: A study of workplace incivility. Human Relations, 45:11, page 1399.
(6) Pearson, C. M., Andersson, L. M., & Wegner, J. W. (2001). When workers flout convention: A study of workplace incivility. Human Relations, 45:11, page 1398.
(7) Pearson, C. M., & Porath, C. L. (2005). On the nature, consequences, and remedies of workplace incivility: No time for “nice”? Think again. The Academy of Management Executive, 19:1, 7-18.

click here to view Sharper Minds newsletter - Issue: 2 (May 2007)