Are you a Smart Ask? Do you have one in your organization?

A “smart ask” is a person who pushes the organization by asking tough and insightful questions. The Smart Asks helps you find holes in your thinking or challenges your deeply held assumptions.

Smart Asks are a valuable asset for an organization. Yet, they are often shunned or avoided. They make things harder. They don’t always appear to play well with others. They don’t give you the confidence of having unanimous votes for all of your ideas. But, they do keep you honest.

Asking questions is easy. Asking good questions is a skill. The Smart Ask knows how and when to ask just the right question. The smart ask usually doesn’t ask about facts – anyone can ask about those (and they don’t provide a lot of value). Smart Asks focus on meaning and purpose. They ask for the implication of the facts. They ask whether the facts matter. They ask whether the facts are even reasonable in the first place. That’s the role of a good Smart Ask.

While Smart Asks are hard to find, their nemesis, the Ask Hole is easy to find. Ask Holes are the people who use questions to shoot down ideas or silence people. Their questions are really statements with a question mark at the end. The Ask Hole focuses on facts and details at a time when you should be focused on possibility and opportunity. The Ask Hole uses question to embarrass or squelch others. Most importantly, the Ask Hole uses questions to make his or her point rather than to understand yours.

Which one are you? Are you a Smart Ask or an Ask Hole? Which one gets rewarded in your organization?

You might not be the Smart Ask but you’d better be sure you have one. And, under no circumstances should you take on the role of Ask Hole. There are already too many of them cluttering up your organization.