If you don’t care about improving communication or building a relationship with the other person, then telling or being impersonal in your questions, as above, may be just fine. But, if some of the goals of the conversation are to improve communication and build a relationship, then it is fair to generalize that telling is less effective than

Here-and-now Humility is how you feel when you realize that you are dependent on someone else in the situation.

Learn to see, feel, and curb the impulses to lash out; (2) Learn to make a habit of listening and figuring out what is going on before taking action; and (3) Try harder to hear, to understand, and acknowledge what others are trying to express to you.

Gratuitous telling betrays three kinds of arrogance: (1) that you think you know more than the person you’re telling, (2) that your knowledge is the correct knowledge, and (3) that you have the right to structure other people’s experience for them.

Are you willing to inquire and share with your peers (colleagues or competitors)? Are you willing to show vulnerability to those who share your rank?

Humble Inquiry works only if the attitude behind it includes the desire to really hear what the other person says, to develop an appropriate level of empathy, and to choose a response that shows interest and curiosity.

We know from our responses to disasters and pandemics that we are all capable and willing to help each other when help is needed.2 Yet building relationships between humans is an intricate adaptive process because it requires us to deal simultaneously with our biologically encoded impulses to both compete and cooperate in a cultural context that

If questions are not posed with Here-and-now Humility, silence, false telling, or spinning may be the more likely and exacerbating response.

Is this the result of employees lacking courage, or is this really the result of leaders and managers not asking humbly? Unfortunately, all too often what is missing is leaderships’ recognition that unless they really want to know what is going on, and inquire in a way that convinces others of their open and trusting intent, they will get only