Asking Not Telling: Edgar Schein on Humble Inquiry

My professional community project is about fostering trust and respect within the relationships between my educational colleagues. Edgar Schein, in his book Humble Inquiry, shows that trust is built when colleagues share vulnerabilities with each other.

For instance, in an interaction, when one person takes a risk by disclosing something, and the other person reciprocates that risk by disclosing something back, then they may develop trust between each other. In short, trust forms: (1) in communicative interactions, (2) when one person gives something, and (3) when the other person gives something back.

Schein claims we live and work in a culture of task-accomplishment (e.g., identifying problems and solutions) rather than a culture of relationship-building (cultivating trust and respect for our colleagues). This claim makes intuitive sense to me because it seems institutional changes on campus occur by designating committees who collect data showing a need for change and implement policy programs that will mitigate, reduce, or eliminate those needs. Building relationships as an approach to institutional change is not the norm.

Humble inquiry, the subject of Schein’s book, is an alternative approach to institutional change. Our conventional culture of “telling” (i.e., speaking to others in order to influence them) presumes that the speaker (the one doing the telling) knows about the other (the one doing the listening). Humble inquiry (i.e., listening to others in order to align our common purposes), on the other hand, presumes that we do not know the other, and that it’s important to ask (inquire) with an attitude of humility.

Humble inquiry asks open-ended questions in order to learn about the other: the questions are not loaded, the interactions are neither scripted nor ritualistic, and the answers are not preconceived.

The challenge for me and my project is to determine ways to supplement the institutional culture of my campus with humble inquiry. The current program of policy committees is not entirely consistent with humble inquiry. But my goal is not to replace one with the other; instead, it is to enhance the current program with alternatives that might bring slow and steady improvements.

citation: Edgar H. Schein. Humble Inquiry: The Gentle Art of Asking Instead of Telling. Berrett-Koehler, 2013.