A new Gartner Maverick research note on the power of unasking

A new Gartner Maverick research note on the power of unasking [To be read whilst listening to “I know but I don’t know” by Blondie] How skilled are you and your team at unasking? Anyone who has had the misfortune to hang out with me for more than about five minutes will have heard me go on about the power of unasking. It is one of my conversational signature dishes/ mantras/ catchphrases/ pet phrases/ obsessions. The basic idea of unasking comes from Zen Buddhism, and like much of Zen, is both really simple and deeply complex. The core idea is that if someone asks us an unhelpful/ limiting/ biased question/ request, we shouldn’t immediately jump to answer it. We should instead influence the asker to unask it and ask a better question. In business we might say that great managers answer the questions they have been asked. Great leaders unask the questions, and answer better ones. Unasking is particularly important in uncertain times. I have finally written a piece of research at Gartner on this topic. It is one of this year’s crop of Maverick research notes. If you are a Gartner client, there is a link to it in the first comment below. (Behind the paywall, I am afraid.) In this note I have deepened the treatment of the topic of unasking, in terms of how to best do it. If you read it, I hope you enjoy it and find it valuable. Let’s all build our, our team’s and our organization’s unasking muscles. #unask #unthink #unlearn #leadership #gartner Frank Buytendijk Leigh McMullen