The People, Process, & Progress Podcast - The Power of Asking Objective Questions | Fix it Friday 01

Episode Date: April 11, 2025

Restarting the Fix It Friday series with the March 2024 episode from the Hope is NOT a Plan podcast. This episode delves into the crucial skill of asking objective questions to drive clarity and problem-solving. We explore how unbiased inquiries can empower teams and improve processes by drawing parallels to the host's diverse podcasting journey and the principles in his book The Stability Equation. Learn practical techniques to formulate effective objective questions and unlock better organizational outcomes.How to ask:Focus on "who," "what," "when," "where," and "how" questionsAvoid leading questions that suggest an answerPhrase questions neutrally, without judgmentEncourage elaboration with open-ended questionsGodspeed y'all,Kevin

Welcome back to the People Process Progress podcast. I'm your host, Kevin Pennell, and Fix It Friday is back. Like my podcasting journey from Between the Slides to Up in the Morning, Ujitsu, Hope is Not a Plan, where we focused on how to focus, how to plan, we all have seasons. My wife reminds leaders of this and rings true even here, but People Process Progress has always been the most impactful for me and for you all that I've heard.

So we're back focusing on what matters, right? People, process and progress ties directly into my book, The Stability Equation, Seven Pillars for a More Balanced Life that just released this week. And it highlights the ownership, mindfulness, movement, boundaries, connection, sleep and faith that are the seven pillars that I found that helped me in troubling times

and helped me maintain to the best of my ability in we'll say steady times. And what's the key to progress? It's asking the right questions, right? So today our Fix It Friday relaunch is an episode from the Hope Is Not A Plan podcast from March, 2024. And it's all about the power of asking objective questions, right, to learn how unbiased questions

can unlock clarity and more. So let's get logged in and get locked on to this episode of the People Process Progress Podcast. On today's Fix It Friday, we're focusing on the power of asking objective questions. If you recall in this week's full episode, how to give and receive an effective project handoff, objective questions was one of the receiver's responsibility.

The art of the sender was update documentation, prepare your pitch, review the data, share those intangibles with the person you're handing the project off to. The receiver, we're gonna switch on receiver mode to take information in, familiarize ourselves with the case, ask these objective questions, and then start thinking of next steps.

So as we hone in on the objectivity piece, these questions should seek natural and verifiable information, right? Not be based on opinions or biases. Focus on facts, use neutral wording, be clear and concise. So how do objective questions differ from subjective questions, one may ask. So subjective question is, here's an example,

isn't this project management system the worst, right? It's filled with opinion, it doesn't give verifiable opinion, and you know, it's part of regular language talk, nothing wrong with it. An objective version might be, what about the project management system isn't working well for the team, right?

It's about information, reviews, critical response. This is kind of where we wanna be when we're handing off a project, particularly being as objective as possible, we need to get those facts, time may be a factor, right? as objective as possible, we need to get those facts. Time may be a factor. Another scenario leaders run into on subjectivity or objectivity is discussions that have to do with policies.

A subjective question maybe, isn't this new policy terrible? Well, if we can be a little more productive and a little more objective, we could maybe say, what are the specific goals of this new policy? So we get to how is this gonna help and less about commiserating things,

and there's a place for that in the workplace for sure, or outside of the workplace. But when we're given a handoff, we wanna provide the person with as much information and when we're asking questions, we really just want the facts. We can get lost in opinions and gossip and things like that. And so why ask these questions?

So to me, objective questions help us in three fundamental areas. One, they cut through emotional responses and biases that I mentioned, right? So someone might be handing off a project that they don't want to. Maybe they really like this project, maybe they're leaving, who knows?

But it helps kind of take that emotion out during the handoff piece. They gather, the second thing is they help us gather accurate information and make informed decisions. Data matters, right? And garbage in, garbage out. So if we don't have a lot of data to provide to the person, then they're gonna have garbage to go on

and have to start all over and find their own information. And number three, we ask because we wanna improve communication and our understanding with others, right? This is all about communicating information that has to do with a project that someone else is gonna need to do better. Here's a real life scenario to kinda talk through those and some questions I believe could be helpful

and this is let's say you're facing a career change. I've seen lots of folks on LinkedIn, Reddit, Facebook. It happens, right? We either decide or it's decided for us. But here's some objective questions that I think can help you, me, others, make the best choice when we're thinking about a career change. One, what are factual pros and cons of staying where I am?

Along the same lines, what are factual pros and cons about the new job I think I want to do? Asking ourselves this ownership piece, this pillar one right of ourselves, am I doing all I can in my current role, really, objectively? If I assessed myself as a candidate for my current job, would I hire me for what I'm doing right now? We know if we're putting in the work or not.

And another one is, are you doing all that you can outside of work, those seven pillars, to balance your life? Because if you're out of balance out of work, you're not gonna be as productive at work. And that means managing your stress and exercising and owning what you can, having those boundaries, right? Making connections or reestablishing them, focusing on that sleep and having some faith.

So how can you ask objective questions? We've talked about what they are, what's subjective or objective, you know, why ask them? I just touched on, now how do we do this? So focus on the who, what, when, where, and how. The why is helpful as well, right? It's in that business case. Avoid bleeding questions that suggest an answer,

such as starting, don't you, dot, dot, dot, or isn't it always dot, dot, dot, right? We want to be objective, like I mentioned earlier, what specifically does this new policy do for us? Another way to ask that or that's helpful, is phrase your questions neutrally, right, without judgment, so it's a balance of being a human and a robot, I think,

of just, say you're in a tough situation and someone has, or we're doing this handoff, and there's maybe not some clarity that I'll touch on here in a second, we can encourage elaboration and open-ended, so let's say we've gotten the handoff, we've gotten the briefing from the person that's outgoing and we're now in that receiver mode and we're listening.

I might ask, can you expand on what you mean by this, this, and that? Hearing the challenges that you stated, can you clarify this point or that point? And so that helps me get the clarity I need when I'm gonna take on this project and get the perspective, right? And so as we close this short episode,

I wanna have a call to action. So fellow fixers, let's challenge ourselves to be more mindful of the questions we ask ourselves and others. Are we truly being objective with ourselves and where we are personally and professionally? Are we asking objective questions of people or are we just getting their opinion?

Let's consciously plan to ask a co-worker or family member or friend some objective questions this week. Think about how I phrase those, right? Let's use facts. Let's have less emotion. In future episodes, I will share how being objective helps us escalate to leadership, how stating objective helps us maintain lower stress levels, honestly, and increase productivity by just not getting wrapped up in some of the things. That doesn't mean we need to go through work or home or wherever we are as an emotionless robots, not at all. But we don't have to get emotionally bound up in work things.

If a project's not going well or we're a little behind or we have to ask for more money, these are just facts, right? So as we part ways, stay objective when you can, focus on the facts, try not to get too emotional or gossipy. You can subscribe to the People Process Progress podcast on Apple, Spotify, wherever you want to listen. Go to the peopleprocessprogress.com website for more, for links to the books and tools and templates. You can follow me and the show on X and Instagram at PenelPNNLLKG. And I have a YouTube channel called The Penel Five Fitness Club,

where you can get fitness ideas 15 seconds at a time, cold plunge goodness, and jujitsu class after action reports. Because as I mentioned about getting on the fitness path, and that's one of the major pillars, pillar three of balance in my life, regular exercise is critically important. And it's important for all of us. Whether we're project managers handing off a project or someone that started the cookout, we had to leave and we're gonna hand off responsibility for the meat, the burgers, and the buns, and

the fries. It's all projects, right? Remember, everybody, hope is not a plan, but good plans will bring people hope. Stay safe everybody, wash those hands, Godspeed y'all.