Who asks the important questions?

Dr. Rakesh Suri, MD, Chief Executive Officer and Chair of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery at Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi, took an unexpected approach to leading in the face of COVID. Apparently, when the pandemic hit, one thing he required was that a novice be added to every department.

Linda Hill told us about discovering Dr. Suri's insightful approach in the course of her research on the importance of diverse perspectives. Novices are particularly adept at questioning assumptions, and asking "stupid" questions, which often end up being better questions. (I've previously mentioned Linda's practice of including someone under 25 on every book project.) "'This is not business as usual. We need someone who's never seen an epidemic before, who will ask the important questions the experts in the room often miss', he said."

Folks are naturally skeptical of including bosses when trying new things. But according to Hill, "We need to worry about the experts as much as the bosses. They tend to be most committed to the status quo."

Richard Feynman recounts his refusal of a non-teaching post (and how Princeton eventually wooed him by offering a joint appointment that included teaching) by explaining that, “The questions of the students are often the source of new research. They often ask profound questions that I thought about at one time and then gave up on, so to speak, for a while. It wouldn't do me any harm to think about them again and see if I can go further now. The students may not be able to see the thing I want to answer, or the subtleties I want to think about, but they remind me of a problem by asking questions in the neighborhood of that problem. It's not so easy to remind yourself of these things.

So I find the teaching and the students keep life going, and I would never accept any position in which somebody has invented a happy situation for me where I don't have to teach. Never.” (from, “Surely You’re Joking…”)

To solicit diversity perspectives, however, a leader has to establish psychological safety so that folks feel free to share contrarian views. Sounds like a subject for a future post...

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