Scenario: Group Question
As an Action Learning Coach how would you handle the following situation:
One of the participants asks a question of the entire team, after a single answer the team moves on to the next question.
Tags: Action Learning Coach
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Maro Chan
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I would alert the team of this situation, and ask them to discuss whether they are allright with it. Special attention would be put on the feeling of the one who raised the question to see if he/she is satisfied with the single answer.
Marco
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tman
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I would intervene and ask the participant that asked the question if they received enough responses to their question? If they respond ‘no’, I would ask the participant to repeat their question and clarify that is was directed to the entire team.
If they answer ‘yes’ I would let the discussion continue with the current question on the table. If this started to emerge as a pattern in the team I would weave it into a intervention around “what is the impact to the team when a question is directed to the team and only one person responds prior to moving to the next next question?
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gracetan
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Am assuming that the context of the question asked to the entire team was
1) intentional (wants responses from team not just one response)
2) team would benefit from exploring this topic from diverse perspectives
After asking the 3 standard questions,
I would ask:
How are we doing in getting a diversity of responses when question is asked to entire team ?
Why is it important to obtain multiple perspectives from the team on the question ?
How can we help each other to follow up and build upon the question ?
Who has the next question ?
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Chenglong
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I might ask the team: How do you think the quality of asking the question? From 1-10 points, 1 is worst, 10 is best. Then, ask all of them, how can we help each other to follow up and build upon the question ?
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Megha Awasthy
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I would intervene by asking “I have observed that questions are not being answered indepth.” then i would address the person who asked the question “Do you feel that your question was answered to your satisfaction?” if the answer is ‘no’ then i would further ask the group “what effect does this have on the group?” and after their replies, I would ask “so what is the group going to do about it?” and after the replies “Thank you. Now who has the next question?”
In case the person replies in the ‘affirmative’, i would say “thank you.” and then immediately address the team and say “what would be the impact on the group if it builds upon ideas masked in questions?”.
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Ben Yung
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I will ask the member raising the question “Has your question been replied by the team?” or “As you were asking the team a question, how do you want the team to help you?” To elicit more responses, follow-up questions can be “Team, how well do you understand the question?” or “Team, will further elaboration or clarification of the question help you give replies?” If the question is understood quite well, I will ask “Team, how will you utilize different resources to help the member deal with the question?”
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Narendra
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I would intervene and ask the problem presenter : would it help if he/she received more responses from the team members to the question being asked?
If the answer is affirmative, then my question to the team would be : how could we handle such situation better from now on wards?
If the problem presenter is ok with the lack of varied response, I would ask the team to continue…….who has the next question?
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wial_talk
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Great responses. I might let it go a time or two and see if the pattern persists (which it typically does) then
I’ve observed that when questions are asked of the entire team we move on after a single response is given, did anyone else notice that?
What is the impact on the team?
How do we want to handle it?
Happy Coaching
Bea
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Celine Sugay
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If it is the first time this happens, I will ask the team “to whom was the question addressed to?” This will likely allow the group to quickly remember that everyone needs to answer the question, and not just 1 person.
If it happens again, I would intervene by doing the following:
Surface: I recall that the question was asked to the whole group but only 1 person answered. Did you notice this as well?
Impact: What impact will this have on the team if not everyone is given the opportunity to answer the question?
Do: What can we do better?
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