July 1, 2025 • 55 mins
The CopDoc Podcast - Season 8 - Episode 155
What if the most powerful leadership tool isn't having all the answers, but asking the right questions? Dr. Michael Marquardt, after studying leaders across 50 countries for over five decades, discovered a surprising pattern—the greatest leaders in every field share one fundamental skill: they ask exceptional questions.
In this thought-provoking conversation with Dr. Steve Morreale, Marquardt challenges traditional notions of leadership, particularly in policing where command-and-control approaches have dominated. Drawing from his extensive research and bestselling book "Leading with Questions," he explains how the simple act of inquiry can transform leadership effectiveness and organizational culture.
For police leaders, the implications are profound. While officers excel at tactical questioning during investigations, leadership requires a different approach—one that uses open-ended questions to unlock creativity, build trust, and develop problem-solving capabilities throughout the organization. When leaders ask "What are you seeing?" or "How can we improve?" rather than issuing directives, they tap into collective intelligence and foster genuine engagement.
Marquardt introduces the concept of "action learning"—reflecting on experiences to continuously improve—and explains how questioning creates learning organizations that adapt and thrive amid complexity. He offers practical strategies for leaders to shift their approach, acknowledging that great questions often don't yield immediate answers but trigger deeper thinking that leads to breakthrough insights.
The conversation reveals how questioning is actually hardwired into human development—babies learn to walk and talk by asking subconscious questions—yet this natural learning approach gets suppressed in traditional organizations. By reclaiming the power of questions, leaders create psychologically safe environments where innovation flourishes and everyone contributes their best thinking.
Whether you're a police executive, front-line supervisor, or aspiring leader in any field, this episode provides a masterclass in how to lead more effectively by embracing curiosity and inquiry. Learn how to ask better questions, create reflective practices, and build a culture where continuous improvement becomes the norm.
Contact us: copdoc.podcast@gmail.com
Website: www.copdocpodcast.com
If you'd like to arrange for facilitated training, or consulting, or talk about steps you might take to improve your leadership and help in your quest for promotion, contact Steve at stephen.morreale@gmail.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Intro-Outro (00:19):
Welcome to The CopDoc Podcast.
This podcast welcomes guestsfrom policing academia and other
government agencies.
And now please join Dr SteveMorreale and industry thought
leaders as they share theirinsights and experience on The
CopDoc Podcast.
Steve Morreale (00:35):
Well, hello everybody.
This is Steve Morreale, comingto you from Boston,
Massachusetts, today, and we'regoing to Reston, Virginia, to
talk to a colleague, Dr.
Michael Marquardt.
He is an author, a formerprofessor, a pracademic, I would
say, like myself, and we'regoing to be talking about
leading with questions in thelearning, organization and
(00:55):
action, learning and all thosekinds of things and how that
might apply to policing,especially as you try to lead an
organization.
So, first of all, I'm thrilledto have you, a thought leader
yourself, mike.
Good morning, good morning, I'mdelighted to be with you.
Thanks so much.
I do appreciate it.
I have been following your workand I have been using doing
training from your work leadingwith questions to try to suggest
(01:19):
to police leaders and evensergeants at that level don't
answer people's questions, askthem questions, you questions.
Ask them questions, let themthink, draw out their creativity
, draw out their criticalthinking, make them find the
answer or maybe coach them tothe answer, but help them and
certainly asking people at alllevels what's going on, so that
(01:42):
a leader can not be an ivorytower but understand what's
going on at the worker level.
So I'd love you to talk aboutyour history in business and, of
course, your history inacademia and the writing that
you've done, mike.
Mike Marquardt (01:59):
Okay.
Yes, I've been in the field nowfor over 50 years.
For my first 30 years incorporate work business work,
government work I worked inclose to 50 countries around the
world in areas of leadershipdevelopment, organizational
change, team building, and then,when I reached the age of 50, I
(02:20):
became a professor at GeorgeWashington University.
I became a professor at GeorgeWashington University and we had
an executive doctoral programin which we trained executives
from around the world.
We took 25 students every year.
They came for weekends for twoyears and then worked on
(02:40):
dissertation.
Over my 25 years as a professor, I chaired 117 doctoral
dissertations.
One of them was a police chiefin New Jersey.
Really, he did a great researchon different personality types
and how they lead in the policeforce and I still stay in touch
(03:00):
with him.
He's become an academic as well, teaching at a university in
New Jersey.
So all my life I've beeninvolved in leadership
development, trying to developleaders, and an insight I gained
, and we had a center at GeorgeWashington University, a center
for organizational leadershipand learning.
And, being a new professor, Ihad to identify a.
(03:23):
And, being a new professor, Ihad to identify a research
agenda that would put me in thefield where I would start
writing in academic journals andbooks and so forth.
And the area I chose wasleadership and at the great
leaders from around the worldand what made them great leaders
.
And I also look at what madegreat leaders in the political
(03:58):
sphere.
I looked at a number ofarticles, journals, books, what
made leaders in the spiritualrealm in every field, leaders in
the spiritual realm in everyfield.
And my research led me to theconclusion that all the great
leaders, no matter what fieldthey were in, they asked great
questions.
When you asked who's a greatleader in your organization,
they would say, well, you know,bob in this department or the
(04:21):
CEO is a great leader.
And I would ask what made thema great leader?
And they said they askquestions.
Sometimes I had to probe alittle bit and say, well, I just
like being around him, I liketo follow him, he gives me
inspiration.
And I said, well, what causesinspiration?
What causes you to want tofollow him or to, you know, go
(04:43):
battle for him and with him, andso forth.
And it always led to the factthat they ask great questions.
And so my conclusion was thatall great leaders ask great
questions.
But the parallel of that isthat if you ask great questions,
you will become a great leader,and so the better your
(05:04):
questions are, the betterleadership you would have.
And so in this book, in earlierwritings, I asked people what
were some of the questions theyasked.
What were questions thatinspired you, that motivated you
, that caused you to be creative, and so forth.
And so in this particular book,you see a lot of stories forth.
(05:27):
And so in this particular book,you see a lot of stories,
examples of leaders and theactual questions they asked and
the purpose.
And then I went to the leadersthemselves.
I said you know, you've beenidentified as a great leader,
and one of the reasons you'vebeen asked, you've identified as
a great leader, is that you askquestions.
And sometimes they weren't soconscious of it.
They said, well, I just like toask questions, or I feel better
asking questions.
And so then I asked them well,what are the reasons you ask
(05:51):
questions?
When do you ask questions?
Why do you ask questions?
And so, as the book goes indepth, it says there's a number
of reasons that people, leaders,ask questions.
But it's a paradigm shift.
First, they have to realizethat in the past they felt they
had to lead through statementsthat their models for leadership
(06:12):
made statements, that if youdidn't make statements, you were
not a leader, you're not seenas being powerful or competent.
Steve Morreale (06:20):
Well, so let me interrupt you because that's
interesting to me, because itseems to me and we're talking to
Mike Marquardt, who is aretired professor and the author
of several books but it seemsto me that when you're asking
questions, you're becomingcurious and you're being
probative and you're trying tolearn yourself.
Also would guess that you foundthat most of the leaders that
(06:44):
you interviewed saw themselvesas lifelong learners, that they
didn't know everything, that theleader doesn't have to have all
of the answers, and I thinkthat's the mistake.
We were raised with autocraticleaders in a lot of ways, and
they dictated what you weregoing to do and then go follow
them.
And this is a change, thatparadigm shift, would you say.
Mike Marquardt (07:02):
Yeah, it's a change, although these were
leaders from 2000 years ago.
You know practice, the act ofquestions.
Whether it be any religiousleader Jesus, muhammad or
whatever, or a political leaderthey had that insight.
You know they weren't academics.
They had the insight that byasking questions they gained not
(07:23):
only a lot of valuableinformation, but they developed
good rapport, they developed thepeople around them.
They got a lot, you know.
It made life more enjoyable forthemselves and so forth.
Not many people chose that formof leadership over the years.
Now, in the last maybe 20 years, I think it's become the motto
(07:43):
that leaders realize that theydo not have all the answers.
Part of the environment haschanged.
You know, 50 years ago youmaybe could be knowledgeable
enough that you could directyour staff and organization with
your knowledge alone, but nowit's impossible.
The world is so complex, changeis so fast that even a fairly
(08:05):
incompetent leader would realizeI don't have all the answers.
I've got to get moreinformation, but I only have to
get much more information.
To be a leader, I have to get mypeople leading with me.
I cannot do it by myself.
I have to give them the skillsand them the motivation and
encouragement to lead and helplead and take responsibility.
(08:26):
These citizens can't wait for aday or week or a month to move
up to me.
They have to be made on thespot if we're going to compete
in any kind of environment orprovide the services that our
citizens expect of us.
So it has so many benefits.
When you ask questions, itmakes it much more comfortable
(08:47):
for you.
It's a much more warm,encouraging, supportive
environment to be withcolleagues whom are asking
questions of each other.
You're asking questions of them, so it makes it easier for you.
They are eager to you knoweveryone deep down wants to be
asked how they can help someoneelse.
That's one of the greatest joysin any culture, any person in
(09:09):
the world is to make that personfeel good.
You ask him or her for theiradvice, for their ideas, and
that instantly makes that personfeel better and they like you
immediately.
Steve Morreale (09:22):
Yeah, they feel valued.
And what I'm hearing you say isit strikes me in this way that
when we're I don't care whetherit's policing or in the private
sector we are generally hiringthe best people and in many
cases we have underutilizedthose people right, we haven't
taken advantage, we haven'tpiqued their curiosity, we
(09:43):
haven't tapped into their, wehaven't piqued their curiosity,
we haven't, you know, tappedinto their potential, creativity
and their ideas.
And what strikes me is thatpolice and I've said this before
we are trained.
Having been in it in 35 years,we're trained to ask questions
constantly.
But most of the questions we'reasking of people who were
called on because they've got acomplaint or someone has
(10:07):
committed a crime what happenedto you?
Where were you?
Who else knows about this?
In other words, it's the who,what, where, when, why and how
that it becomes so natural inpolicing.
But what I find is, as policemove up, they stop asking those
questions in the organization,about the organization, because
they haven't recognized in manycases the value of asking
(10:30):
questions of the front line.
What are you seeing?
What's going on?
How can we do it better?
How's it being received?
What do you think we should do?
What's your thought on that,mike?
Mike Marquardt (10:42):
Well, I think sort of at the lower level of
police work you tend to ask veryclear, closed questions.
You're trying to get veryspecific information that will
build your case or help yousolve the case.
As you move up, your questionshave to be more open-ended,
because you're trying to becreative, you're trying to look
(11:04):
at patterns, future, doingthings in new ways, and so those
kinds of questions they're notas good at.
Intro-Outro (11:13):
It's not natural for them.
Mike Marquardt (11:15):
And they've not been encouraged to ask those
questions.
Other questions are part oftheir training, part of the
natural process of doing policework, but police leadership you
have to ask more open-endedquestions that create
collaboration, encourage peopleto work with you, to take
(11:35):
initiative.
So it's a different type ofquestion and it's interesting.
We get trained in everything inlife, but the most important
skill of life is to ask greatquestions and we don't get that
kind of training, but it's atraining or it's a learning that
occurs from getting feedback.
You ask questions to developgreat leadership, great
(11:58):
questions.
You have to be open.
To saying I'm going to beasking questions, I realize to
be a better leader, I have toask better questions.
To saying I'm going to beasking questions, I realized to
be a better leader, I have toask better questions.
So I may occasionally ask aquestion that's not very helpful
or sounds judgmental.
So you have to let me know I'mgoing to ask you how was my
question?
Did it help us?
What are some better questionsI could ask at our meetings that
(12:22):
would help you do your work ina more, you know, efficient and,
you know, inspirational way.
So it's a great skill.
It's not.
You can't teach people how toask great questions, but you,
it's like it's one of the keythings of action learning.
Action learning, brieflydescribed, is you.
You do something and then youreflect on it, see how you could
(12:43):
do it better.
So every time you take anaction, you try to learn from it
, and you cannot learn from it.
We have this action.
Well, we learn from experience.
That's not true.
We learn from reflecting onexperience and you cannot
reflect on experience unless youask yourself a question how did
that work?
How can I do it better nexttime?
Steve Morreale (13:03):
We're talking to Mike Marquardt and he is the
author of, among other questions, leading with questions.
He is an expert in learning,organization action learning,
and that's what we're beginningto get into.
And it strikes me, because youhave that experience with this
police chief who's now anacademic, who was one of your
students I've come up from thesevents, when I was in the army
(13:25):
it was all about command andcontrol, right In a lot of ways,
command and control, andcommand and control certainly
has a place In LA right now onthe streets.
There's got to be some commandand control.
Don't question me.
We're going to do this unlesswe're going to fail.
Otherwise let's move forward.
But command and control is notsomething that can be and should
(13:46):
be used all of the time in veryminimal ways for tactical
situations.
There's no need for command andcontrol throughout the
organization.
But if you understand policingand the top-down mentality that
has evolved coming from themilitary mentality that has
evolved coming from the military, they're sort of resistant, I
(14:07):
think, to change policeorganizations in many cases
there's some culturaldifferences.
I look to you as the leader, sowhy don't you have the answer?
You know what's thebreakthrough moment that you
have when you've beenfacilitating conversations with
leaders to say give it a try,you don't have to know it all.
(14:28):
What comes to mind when I askthat question, mike?
Mike Marquardt (14:32):
Well, going back to your on your military, the
military has changeddramatically over the last 20
years.
It used to be command andcontrol.
Now they realize that officersin the field or privates in the
field, they have to make quick,on-the-moment decisions because
the battle is very differentthan it was when you marched in
(14:52):
precision and so forth.
So every soldier has to be ableto make at-the-moment decisions
and they cannot make wiseat-the-moment decisions if
they're not reading thesituation, asking the question
what's going on here and what'sthe best way for me to handle it
?
And so the key to all you know,whatever level you're at, the
(15:14):
key is to say what's happeninghere and how can I handle it
better?
Or, particularly, if I handleit this time, how can I handle
it better next time.
You always have to improve.
You never get a battlefielddecision or a police decision
like in Los Angeles, whatever.
Many of those officers have tomake an on-the-moment decision.
Interacting with some protester, they couldn't wait for what
(15:36):
should I do here?
They had to make a decision DoI push, pull, shoot, whatever
the case may be?
And they have to be able tolook at the situation and ask
themselves what would be thebest thing for me to do here,
and one of the powers of greatleadership and excellent is that
these questions need to becomeclear, automatic, and they're
(16:00):
inherent and they're in, they'reinside you, so you don't have
to formally ask what should I dohere?
But your mind has beenconditioned to say what's
happening here and what's thebest thing I can do, or what
happened a moment ago thatdidn't work.
How can I do it better?
(16:20):
So, unless your mind isreflecting and only can reflect
through questions that youeither directly ask yourself or
occur automatically within you.
So I think every police officerneeds to be aware of creating
questions in their mind asthey're interacting with any
situation, what's?
Steve Morreale (16:40):
happening here and how can I do it better, what
are my options, what's myexperience here, what do I need
to do differently?
And so we start talking alittle bit about the learning
organization.
And you know that the militaryand you're quite familiar with
that and certainly policeagencies, especially with large
scale events, they do sentinelreviews or after action reviews,
(17:03):
and that's the time to reflect.
You know what happened, whatwere we confronted with, what
did we do, what can we learnfrom this so that we don't
repeat it or we handle it in adifferent way?
So there's a cycle of thinkingand again reflection and
introspection on that.
And so what is your take aboutthe learning organization?
(17:25):
Why should police agenciesfocus on being learning
organizations, having activelearning approaches to virtually
everything they do, to staycurrent, to keep up to date and
to anticipate the future?
Mike Marquardt (17:42):
current, to keep up to date and to anticipate
the future.
Yeah Well, I think everyorganization, every police
organization as well, has tocontinually improve, because
they have more and moreresponsibility, more and more
people to serve, more and moresituations that are unique,
maybe with less resources to doit.
So the only way a policeorganization could be successful
(18:05):
is they continuously improve,they get better, they can do
more things in less time with ahigher result, and you can only
do that by reflecting whatyou're doing now and how could
we do things better.
So the the after action reviewis a perfect example of what
learning organizations need todo, because every time they have
(18:27):
a large situation, conflict,action, they say what happened
and how could we do it betterthe next time that we encounter
something similar to this.
Now, that's at theorganizational level, but a
learning organization has tohave learning individuals.
So what they do at theorganizational level but a
learning organization has tohave learning individuals so
what they do at theorganizational level has to be
done in groups as well asindividually.
(18:49):
So when a group of policeofficers are encountering the
situation in Los Angeles, theyhave some quick moments where
they have to say, okay,something has happened.
That's four of us.
What do we do?
How can we have this?
What can we do that willprevent this or keep the
momentum going in our direction?
And, of course, the individual.
So learning has to go with theindividual group and an
(19:12):
organization-wide level, but theorganization as a whole.
They can set the motto, theycan set the culture, because
individuals kind of behaveaccording to the culture.
So if you're in an organizationwhose culture is one in which
you encourage people to learn,you take time to reflect, you
ask questions about what'shappening and how it could be
(19:34):
improved, if there's thatculture in the organization,
then the teams and individualswill start behaving that way,
not only inside the organizationbut when they're outside the
organization.
Steve Morreale (19:46):
So one question that comes to mind and you've
been familiar and engrossed witha number of different
organizations, let's say abusiness organization what could
police leaders learn fromapproaches that businesses take
to stay current, to maintain, tostay ahead of the curve, to
(20:09):
meet market demand, whether it'scars or telephones or AI,
whatever it is?
Mike, what's your experiencebeen that these organizations
are in a constant state ofevolution?
Mike Marquardt (20:25):
Well, I think the ability to ask the right
questions is critical.
So, whether you're the chief ofthe top person in the
organization, top administrativeperson, or a chief of a unit or
whatever it would be, if youask the right questions then you
start getting the rightinformation.
And particularly now with AI,you know AI can be so valuable
(20:46):
to police departments.
But you have to ask the rightquestions.
Steve Morreale (20:49):
Yeah, well, you have to give it the right
prompts and context.
I understand Clearly you'vebeen using.
I'm trying.
Mike Marquardt (20:54):
AI.
It can only be as good as yourquestion is.
So if you start asking and youdon't get to the right questions
or great questions unless youdo it with each other, but
sometimes just ask the power ofquestions is you don't have to
have the answer, you just haveto have the right question.
The answer will emerge.
So the greater my question is,the more it causes me to think
(21:18):
and reflect.
I might immediately come upwith a response, but it might
come up with a response a day ora week later.
And so great leaders ask thegreat questions, some of which
you need an immediate response,but some of which you can get a
few days later or a week later.
And you're just saying whatwould be a great question for my
department to ask AI?
(21:38):
That's all you have to ask.
You don't have to have theright answer yet.
What would be a great question?
It gets everybody around you.
Their subconscious works andtheir subconscious is much more
creative, much more can do manymore things than your conscious.
So a great leader asks thequestions, not expecting
immediate answers, because youdon't get great responses
(22:01):
immediately.
You get great responses whenthe subconscious has done
reflection.
So a great leader could say tohis team of people around him we
need to get more informationfrom AI.
What would be three greatquestions we could ask AI next
week?
And so the people around him, ateam of five people.
They don't want answers.
(22:23):
The police chief does not wantanswers right away, he wants
them in a week.
Steve Morreale (22:25):
Think about it.
Mike Marquardt (22:26):
He wants you to think for a week, because your
subconscious works 24 hours aday, seven days a week, and so
if I plant a great question inyou and say in a week I'm going
to ask you for your response,you're going to have a lot of
great ideas that would not haveemerged if you hadn't given the
answer.
Steve Morreale (22:43):
I like what you're saying To me.
I call it planting seeds and Ithink that's exactly what you're
suggesting, that you know youhave a meeting, you're talking
with your command staff andyou're saying to them listen,
we're going to focus on thefuture, next week or at the next
meeting, and what I want you tobe thinking about is what
questions?
What's missing?
What do we have to do?
How can we use AI better?
How can we drive that?
(23:04):
It's those kinds of questions.
You know.
For me, it's about the curiosity.
I get excited by it.
I'm sure that you do.
You've seen it, You've watchedit, you've written about it,
you've studied it, you've taughtit.
But it is about, you know, askthe questions.
As a professor, I'm sure that'sexactly what you did in your
(23:25):
classes.
That's what I do all of thetime.
I'm constantly, I'll always sayI'm going to ask you a series
of what is unique about what Ido in the classroom and it's and
the kind of think about that.
You know, what am I doingdifferent than other professors
do?
And you know you've had plentywho lectured by PowerPoint, but
me and I presume you it's alwaysa derivative of who, what,
where, when, why and how thebasic questions we learn in the
(23:48):
fifth grade in writing.
Compositions, I think in a lotof ways are trying to suggest
that this is a much better wayof growing, of developing others
, of engaging others in theprocess of making our
organization better.
What do you think about that?
Mike Marquardt (24:04):
Yeah, I think, going back to my original point
is that we say great leaders askgreat questions.
Great social workers ask greatquestions, all the great police
officers ask great questions.
All the great teachers askgreat questions.
You can find I could go to anyschool and say who's the best
teacher in this building andI'll be the one who asks the
(24:27):
best questions in the classroom,and they're the same.
Who's the best police officeryou have?
It'll be the one who has thebest questions, because by
asking questions you changeyourself and you become a
different kind of leader and youdevelop the most critical
skills of being a leader.
So a great leader is someone whoinspires others, who builds
(24:50):
great teams, who displayshumility.
You can't ask great questionsabout humility because you
reckon I don't know it all.
I need your help.
Who is courageous?
Because sometimes it takes alot of courage to ask a question
.
That might cause some conflictor might show that you're not
the all expert you claim to be,but every single leadership
(25:14):
skill can be improved, developedand practiced through questions
.
So if you want to be, say okay,I want to be more systems
thinker.
That's important leadershipskill to be a systems thinker.
You ask questions, you become abetter systems thinker.
The greater the question, thegreater your systems thinker.
You want to show people youcare about the great leaders.
(25:36):
Show respect and caring.
Ask questions.
Steve Morreale (25:39):
That's every leadership skill.
Well, and what you just said isdead on, and that is, when I'm
asking questions of somebody,I'm actually honoring their
intellect, I'm asking them forinput, but it's not something
we've talked about.
It seems to me, when you ask aquestion, as we have been taught
(26:01):
for those of us who have totestify in court, is answer the
question and put a period on it,which means wait for the next
question.
But for me, as it relates toour conversation, how important
is listening after that question?
Mike?
Mike Marquardt (26:20):
Well, it's very important.
It demonstrates to the personyou've asked the question of
that you really are interestedin what you've asked.
So many of us we ask aperfunctory question or we ask
another question before theyrespond.
The person being asked thequestion will quickly be able to
feel and know that what you'reasking of him or her is
(26:43):
important to you.
You're curious enough, you wantto know that information can be
valuable to you or to theorganization.
And so all great questions aregreat listeners, because usually
you don't get a great questionunless you've listened to
previous questions you've asked.
So the great question rarely isthe first question you ask of
(27:03):
your team, it's the third orfourth.
So you ask the question and ifyou listen very carefully to the
response you get to thatquestion, you do a follow-up
question and based upon that youdo a third follow-up and I
oftentimes do an exercise whereyou have to ask seven questions
based upon what you've got fromyour first question.
So an activity where I say thefirst question what's your
(27:27):
greatest success in life?
And based upon what theyrespond, you ask the second
question.
Third, and you change thatperson and seven questions.
That person just has newconfidence, new awareness.
They take action they neverconsidered before.
So the more you listen, thebetter.
Your next question is Greatquestions are always the second
or third or fourth question.
Steve Morreale (27:49):
You know, as a very young, I guess, leader with
the Drug EnforcementAdministration, I took over the
asset forfeiture unit andfinancial investigation section.
I'll never forget that.
One of the first things I didI'm looking for your reaction to
this is to bring everybody in,and I thought it would be a 20
minute half hour conversation.
It turned out to be longer thanthat because people had never
(28:09):
been asked questions aboutthemselves.
But one of the questions Iasked that really stymied the
civilians who worked for me iswhat are you most proud of that
you have accomplished sinceyou've been here?
Now, some of them I love to usethe term think to talk and talk
to think.
Right, I have a tendency totalk to think.
(28:30):
I don't know what the hell I'mgonna say at the other end.
I'm hoping I'll make senselater, but so many people need
time to contemplate thatquestion so they can come back
with you at you with areasonable answer.
So very often I would give themtime.
You at you with a with areasoned, reasonable answer, so
very often I would give themtime.
Just like you said a little bitago, you're not ready for that
question.
I want you to ponder that andwe'll talk about that tomorrow,
(28:53):
and, and and I'm here to tellyou that my experience was when
they came back, they had greatanswers because I gave them the
time not to be defensive but tothink deeply about that question
.
What's your sense of that?
Mike Marquardt (29:06):
Well, we, as leaders, we have to know when
we've asked a great question,and many times we know it before
we ask it.
But oftentimes we know it whenwe don't get an immediate
response, because a greatquestion usually requires the
other person to say gee.
I never thought of that before Ilooked at it that way.
I never considered it or didn'trealize how important whatever
(29:30):
it was.
So you can oftentimes get asense that's a pretty good
question because this person hasto think about it for a while.
If they just give a response,it's usually a closed question
or it's not going to change them.
But because great questionsrequire reflection and
reflection always createsgreater responses.
So we got to know.
(29:55):
We want to keep improving ourquestions.
We have to know was that a goodquestion?
How could I prove it next time?
Steve Morreale (30:00):
And did it elicit a response and such, and
I think to myself too.
Your experience with leadingwith questions and obvious is
imagine.
Let me just go back in time.
So here you are, a newprofessor.
You've had a lot of experiencein the workforce, you have
trained and taught andinterviewed and asked questions.
(30:22):
You have trained and taught andinterviewed and asked questions
and now, at some point in time,there was this little thing
that arose, called, I think, thebasis.
Exactly what you said isleading with questions and
that's changed the trajectory ofyour life by identifying that.
Tell me when.
Mike Marquardt (30:41):
that moment was and what that meant to you.
Well, I think it came, you know, from talking to people when I
asked them who are the greatleaders in the organization.
So it was something I gainedthrough research and I said,
well geez, this is what a greatleader was.
And I was quite surprised whenI developed the title for the
book.
I was surprised that no one hadever written a book about
(31:02):
leading with questions.
You know lawyers we talk we usethat term frequently that
you're leading.
Particularly lawyers lead you.
They have lawyers, don't, arenot.
They should never ask questionswhich they do not already have
the answer for.
And that's just the for a courtcase.
That's appropriate, but it'stotally inappropriate outside
the legal profession, becauseyou should not be only asking
(31:25):
questions for which you alreadyknow the answer, because you
gain nothing from it.
But lawyers are not askingquestions for purpose of
changing whether they're askingquestions that lead people to
and the jury to a particularconclusion.
So leading with questions iskind of just the opposite of
what I said.
You lead by asking questionsfor which you do not know what
(31:48):
the answer will be.
You ask questions for almostevery other purpose than what a
lawyer asks questions for, andoftentimes the police officer
when he's getting data for hiscase somebody already knows, he
just wants to confirm it, or hewants to test the person how
honest he or she is et cetera.
(32:10):
So oftentimes some of thequestions they're asking, they
know the answer.
They just want to confirmwhether this person is telling
the truth or not, or whateverthe case may be, or lock them
into a lie.
Steve Morreale (32:20):
That's one of our tactics, right, right, lie
to me, no problem, I just wantyou to put that in writing.
Mike Marquardt (32:25):
But the inside?
It's innate because we growwhen we're born.
The moment we're born, oursubconscious asks questions, and
we ask two major questions themoment we're born.
One is how can I communicate tothose people around me so I get
what I want food, being takencare of, whatever and how do I
(32:48):
move around?
How do I get to move myself?
So your subconsciouscontinuously asks these
questions and you learn how towalk and talk within 18 months.
It's the two most importantskills of life and you only did
it because of your questions.
So the moment you could startspeaking life, and you only did
it because of your questions.
So the moment you could startspeaking, what do you start
doing?
You ask questions.
Children love to ask questionsbecause that's how they got to
(33:12):
learn how to walk and talk, andthey just love to ask questions.
It's innate.
It's an enjoyable experiencefor a two-year-old or
three-year-old, but then they'retold by their parents stop
asking so many questions, I'mtoo busy, or in the classroom.
Stop asking questions, have theanswers.
So the most important skill oflife, which is asking questions,
(33:32):
which is innate is stifled byparents and teachers and bosses.
Steve Morreale (33:56):
And now we realize that the best bosses and
the best teachers are thosethat encourage questions and
develop work with.
And the introduction was measking questions what about this
, what about that?
What are you most proud of?
And when's the last time thedepartment was evaluated?
And I'm here to tell you at onepoint in time, here I am
talking to three or fourhigh-level people and they
(34:17):
looked at each other like what'san evaluation?
What is a management evaluation?
They looked at each other likewhat's an evaluation?
What is a management evaluation?
And so at that moment I thought, well, okay, there's an opening
for me to help them herebecause it can be valuable.
We're talking to Mike Marquardt,dr Mike Marquardt, author and a
retired professor at GeorgeWashington University.
I ask police agencies if theydo surveys both internal and
(34:42):
external, you know for theirpeople, to understand what's on
their mind, and for the peoplethey serve.
What I find very often is manyleaders are afraid of those
answers, and I'd love you totalk about the value of that
feedback and what it can do foran organization if they accept
(35:03):
the answers and the feedbackfrom people as an opportunity to
improve.
What's your thought on that?
Mike Marquardt (35:10):
Well, again, I think it refers to the culture
in which the questions are beingasked and the expectations or
respect they have for theresults that will occur.
Some say, well, they're justasking questions and they're not
going to do anything without myopinion anyway.
Or if my opinion is different,my response is different.
(35:31):
I may get in trouble.
Steve Morreale (35:34):
Well, that's that culture of fear.
Mike Marquardt (35:37):
There's a fear and so there's not much value in
having surveys if there is afeeling of fear or a feeling
it's not going to be used.
So you have to create anatmosphere or culture around
that question, saying you knowsurveys in the past, you know we
may have not used them or youmay have been uncomfortable.
(35:59):
You have to kind of lay it outfront.
But now we're a differentorganization, we have different
leadership here.
We really need your best ideas.
We need you to be honest withhow you feel we're doing, but
also to give us ideas on how wecan improve.
And so I think if you createthat kind of context and the
(36:21):
opening of the introduction tothe survey, you indicate that
then you can get valuableinformation.
But without that, theinformation you get may not be
very helpful to the organization.
Steve Morreale (36:34):
Well, so what you're doing too and I love to
say this elephants in the roomall of the time.
You know you walked into afaculty meeting and something's
going on and nobody wants totalk about it.
I happen to open it up.
You know this is what's goingon.
I can't tell you everythingabout it, but here's what we
know, here's how it's going toimpact.
You know, even a policedepartment Think about COVID, or
during the Rodney King riots,or even, most recently, the
(36:58):
George Floyd riots, or thecurrent riots having to do with
no kings or immigration,whatever it is Someone has to
say stay the course.
We still have a responsibilityto serve people.
We want you to go out there anddon't get you know, don't
become downtrodden.
A lot of people are relying onyou to respond and it seems to
(37:20):
me and I want to move on fromleading with questions, with
other work that you have donebut I'd like you to sort of
reiterate what you feel thevalue is for a leader, new or
old, in a police agency to beginasking questions, model asking
questions, and begin to drivethat approach through the
(37:45):
organization.
So not just the big leader doesit, but all of the sub-leaders
are doing the same thing withtheir people to drag information
and to draw people into the,into the improvement process.
Mike Marquardt (37:58):
Well, I think the police leader has to be very
upfront and with his people, orpeople, saying that you know we
in the past we may have beentop down directive, making
statements, statements.
We realize now that to be asuccessful organization and be
(38:19):
successful with the people weserve, we have to be much more
creative.
We have to continuously improveand learn.
We have to ask questions.
So I'm going to spend more ofmy time when I'm with you asking
questions.
I encourage you to askquestions of me because together
we can do that.
And I'm occasionally going toask what do you think of my
questions?
How could I ask betterquestions?
(38:40):
That would help you.
So you have to create the wholenew culture, be humble, indicate
that you're going to bechanging your behavior for the
betterment of the organizationand the betterment of each
individual in that organization.
And initially it may bedifficult for you to ask me
questions because you're afraidthat I might respond to a
question or you should haveknown the answer in advance.
(39:01):
But I do not expect everyone tohave all the answers, to do
everything correctly.
So it's normal that we all haveto learn and make improvements.
So I'm going to try to becomfortable asking questions of
you and I want you to becomfortable asking questions of
me, and when we have meetings,we're going to spend a lot of
our time answering greatquestions of each other, so you
(39:26):
have to be the model saying,okay, I'm going to work at this.
I may not be the best at it, butI realize it's important for me
to be a powerful and valuableleader, to ask questions.
I'm going to do the best I can,but I have to keep improving.
I have to reflect on myself,but occasionally I'm going to
ask you.
You know what are some of thequestions I've asked over the
past six months, yet you havefound most valuable.
(39:46):
What are some questions I'venot asked that you think would
help our department organizationrun more effectively?
You think?
Steve Morreale (39:55):
would help our department organization run more
effectively.
That's great.
What I want to ask you to dowe've got a bit more time to
talk about the other areas thatyou began to morph into action
learning, the learningorganization, how that plays in.
I presume all of these areinterrelated, but talk about the
other books that you've writtenand how that came to pass.
Mike Marquardt (40:16):
Yeah, well, they're all interrelated.
My earlier books because I'dworked in 50 countries done a
lot of global work.
Much of my earlier work were onglobalization how to build a
global teams, how to communicateacross cultures.
Then, as I moved into becominga professor, I moved from doing
work in global to the leadershipand questions and everything's
(40:38):
kind of tied around questions.
The whole essence of actionlearning is the ability to ask
questions of yourself and othersfrom any experience that you
have had individually or thegroup has had or the
organization has had.
So the basics of actionlearning is that you have an
experience and you say whathappened here and how can I do
(41:00):
it better next time?
That's simple action learning.
But great action learning isthat I'm going to be meeting
with my staff tomorrow.
How can I make it a greatmeeting?
So action learning can you havelearning preparing yourself for
the event.
Much of the time we do actionlearning after an event has
occurred.
We met with a salesrepresentative or we had just
had an encounter in Los Angelesand after it's over, you ask
(41:25):
what happened and how can wehave done it better, what did we
do well and how can we do itbetter next time?
Now great leaders are able towhile they're in the environment
itself, while they'reinteracting with the protesters.
What is going well here andwhat can I do better?
You got to do it while it'shappening.
(41:45):
That's action learning.
It's premium, but we can doaction learning after the event
and before the event, but greataction learning is while it's
happening, during the event.
Yes, and so all greatsalespeople are action learners
because they're interacting withtheir customer and they're
reading the customer's languageand perspective and they sell
the product.
All great leaders are askedgreat questions.
(42:07):
All great salespeople, the bestsalespeople in the world, are
action learners because asthey're interacting, they're
changing their pitch, they'rechanging what they emphasize.
So the learning organizationobviously is built on questions.
The great learningorganizations are those that
number one have leaders askquestions, but it's a culture of
questions.
(42:28):
So in a learning organizationwhen you do a performance
appraisal, you ask the theperson what have you learned
over the past six months that we, or what have you learned that
will help the organizationimprove?
So when you come in for yourperformance appraisal, I don't,
I don't just ask you what you'vedone.
I ask what have you learnedover the last six months that
(42:49):
you have used to benefit theorganization?
Because learning is much morepowerful and valuable to an
organization than actions.
So the emphasis and when youmeet someone in the hallway and
say how are you doing, you don'tjust say how are you doing, you
say what have you learned thatmight help me?
You know so two police officers.
They come across how are youdoing?
What's happening In a learningorganization.
(43:09):
They start saying well, isthere anything you've learned in
your police work or interactingwith?
You know protests or what?
So if you ask each otherlearning questions, you get much
more than you just saying whatare you doing, what did you do?
Steve Morreale (43:20):
So that harkens back to myself and it may be
with you.
When I was the chair of thedepartment, one of the things I
started to do was talk aboutPedagogy Corner, what's working,
what's going on, and what Iwatched happen by saying who
wants to talk about somethingthey tried in the classroom that
worked, and maybe it didn'twork the first time that they
(43:41):
had sort of tweaked it a littlebit, and the first person out of
the gate came in and wasactually proud of what they had
accomplished.
And what I watched happen wereother faculty members or
independent contractors, butpolice officers are too.
I'm in my little silo and youunderstand that, right, but when
that happened, a couple ofthings was going on.
It was that, you know, somebodysaid, hey, can I get a copy of
that?
I love that idea and I havesomething similar, and so the
(44:04):
sharing began just by askingthat question Tell us about
something that worked, whatworked for?
Intro-Outro (44:10):
you.
Steve Morreale (44:11):
And I think that that can be used over and over
again.
You may have had that sameexperience well.
Mike Marquardt (44:15):
One of the most valuable questions you can ask
anybody in almost any situationwhat are you doing well or what?
What's happening here?
It's going well, but a keyfollow-up question is what could
be done better?
You don't have to get aresponse to that question
because the subconscious willwork and even though they said
(44:35):
well, it really went very well,I can't think of anything to do
better.
I can assure you, a week laterthey will have come up.
Geez, if we'd done that, thatwould have made it even more
effective.
Steve Morreale (44:45):
Yeah, I got another idea.
Well, I mean again.
What we're talking about is thecreative juices.
Drawing the creative juices outof people, I say over and over
again, and in many policeorganizations I know how it
works, having been there You'rethe new kid on the block and hey
, kid, just do what you're told,shut up.
I'm not looking for input,right?
I think that's a big mistake,because we hire the best and
then we underutilize them.
(45:06):
And when we engage them intoasking you've been on the job
for six months, what do youthink?
What could we do better?
What is working?
Have you tried something thatworks or something that doesn't?
Mike Marquardt (45:18):
And it begins exactly.
Steve Morreale (45:20):
It inspires ideas which I think become
important.
So we're talking to MikeMarquart and we're beginning to
wind down on the Cop Talkpodcast and I very much
appreciate all of the time thatyou're taking.
You know when somebody pushedback on you or you ask somebody.
You know when you ask aquestion and somebody says why
(45:41):
are you asking me?
You're the boss, how would onehandle that?
Mike Marquardt (45:47):
Well, I would say that, yes, in the past you
would expect the boss to havethe answers, and bosses never
asked you questions, and that'snot a way to run a police
department, particularly intoday's environment.
We have to run it differently.
We have to get more and moreideas from other people, and we
think there's ideas that youhave that I could never get
(46:07):
because I'm not in the frontline like you are.
I'm not in that part of thecity like you are, so you're the
only one that perhaps can giveme insight and help other people
in other departments insight.
So that's the reason I'm askingquestions.
I generally want to get yourideas, your experiences, that
you're the only one who maybehad that experience and can help
me and maybe help people inother parts.
(46:29):
So you have to recognize that,yes, it is a little bit
different than in the past, andnormally we've not asked you
questions and you've not, youknow, been able to give your
ideas.
But it's a new world and yourideas are important to me.
You may have done something inyour part of the city or your
department that could benefitother departments, and so a
(46:51):
great idea can be applied inmany places, and so I'm asking
if there's anything you've triedthat you think worked well.
Now that part of my job is toto maybe adapt that other parts.
But I'm not going to be able toget all the great ideas unless
(47:11):
I ask people, and and the factthat I asked you what you think
we should do should indicate toyou that I really care and I
appreciate the work you've donethus far.
Steve Morreale (47:20):
You know, one of the experiences I had recently
is that I was running a commandcollege and I was asking a
number of questions andobviously you have to break down
the barriers.
They're not sure they want totalk in front of other people.
They've never been with these20 people, you know.
I mean you've had.
And what I find is there'salways someone that will answer
(47:41):
and somebody will think aboutwhat somebody else answered.
And at the end, one of thethings that they said and I'm
sure you've had this experiencewas I didn't just learn from the
facilitator, I learned from my20 colleagues because they
opened their mind right.
Well, if he thinks that way,why shouldn't I?
And I find that very good,because part of this is about
(48:03):
getting them comfortable, aboutsharing with each other, right
Sharing and learning andevolving and constantly moving
on.
You said something, Mike, inthe book about the question
behind the question.
Can you talk about that?
Mike Marquardt (48:18):
Well, I guess when you ask a question it's
oftentimes based upon your wholelife experience that caused you
to ask that question of thisperson at that particular time.
But sometimes you have to getinformation that will explain or
help the person understand whyyou have your second question.
(48:38):
So you have to get some initialinformation and they say, well,
the reason I asked thatquestion.
I needed that information toask you this next question, just
like what has worked well inyour, your part of the city and
the reason I asked that question, because I want to use those
ideas you give me for that so Ican apply it to other parts of
the city.
Steve Morreale (48:58):
A very good illustration.
So talk about your books alittle bit and how people can
get them, because not everybodyhas read that book even though
it's been around for a long time.
I know in your third editionBob Teedy's joined you in some
of the writing and I've beenable to chat with him and how
they might get in touch with youif they're interested.
Mike Marquardt (49:20):
Okay, well, leading With Questions.
As you mentioned, it's thethird edition.
The first two editions I wroteby myself.
The third one, I asked Bob tojoin me and to use all of his
ideas and experience onquestions, so it's with Wiley.
It's a very large publisher and, like most people nowadays on
Amazon, if you either put in thewords leading with questions or
(49:40):
Marquardt or T-I-E-D-E, you canfind the book.
It's been out for two years now, so it's been almost 20 years
since the first edition.
Steve Morreale (49:54):
That's longevity , my friend.
Mike Marquardt (49:56):
Yeah, organizations all over the world
that use the book, and so I'mvery pleased and proud of it.
If you put my name into theAmazon inquiry, you'll see I've
written 27 books over my career,as you already mentioned.
I've written several onlearning organizations, how to
build a learning organization.
(50:17):
I have three editions of onebook on learning organizations
and I've done a lot of books onteams, how to build teams and
develop teams and so forth.
So those are, and then, ofcourse, the action learning.
The past 30 years that's beenmy passion, because action
learning has helped me todevelop and learn and write
(50:37):
better questions and to buildlearning organizations.
But I'm delighted to have thisopportunity of sharing some of
my ideas about questions andaction learning and learning
organizations.
I hope that people feelcomfortable in going on Amazon
and getting any of my books andcertainly feel free to contact
me if I can answer any questionsyou may have.
Steve Morreale (50:57):
And so you're involved with the World
Institute for Action Learning,right, that's one way for people
to get in touch with you, theWorld.
Mike Marquardt (51:02):
Institute for Action Learning was established
about 20 years ago.
It certifies coaches that canwork with teams to help the team
learn, and if the team learns,they tend to ask better
questions and get more results.
So it's a leadershipdevelopment, team building,
problem solving methodology thatI developed about 30 years ago,
(51:23):
and so the World Institute ofAction Learning has 500
certified coaches and affiliatesin countries all over the world
.
Steve Morreale (51:33):
Well, we have been very honored and I mean
I've been honored to be able tochat with Dr Mike Marquardt, who
has 50 years experience both inacademia and in the field.
A lot of the things that you'vebeen talking about, mike, have
been extremely valuable forpolice leaders in the future
that are looking for a betterway to understand this
(51:54):
generation and to engage thepeople who they employ and they
serve by asking questions sothat they can make better
decisions and provide betterservice.
As you leave, what are you mostproud of that you're still in
the game at this point.
That's just an amazing thing.
You must pinch yourselfsometimes to say people still
(52:16):
want me.
Mike Marquardt (52:17):
Well, I felt very fortunate, as I was a
consultant and advisor for manyyears.
You reach 10, 20, 30 people ata time and quite effectively
with them, but when you become aprofessional, you start writing
books, and books can reachthousands of millions of people,
and so I'm very proud that I'vedeveloped this methodology
(52:41):
called action learning, whichhas proved to be very powerful
for organizations andindividuals in over 150
countries.
So I'm very proud of that, andthe leading with questions, the
insight which I'm sure leadershad but they never were able to
publish.
I was able to take their ideasabout questions and leadership
and be known for that, whereasit's really the leaders
(53:04):
themselves who have done thisfor thousands of years and more
recently in the last 20 years,to become great leaders.
So I'm very proud of having theopportunity of being able to
influence people and make theworld a better place.
Steve Morreale (53:17):
So there's one turnaround question on you,
based on what you were talkingabout.
What question did I not ask youthat I should have?
Mike Marquardt (53:27):
I think you've asked a great question.
Steve Morreale (53:28):
I'm talking to the expert.
Mike Marquardt (53:30):
That's a great question, but one that requires
reflection.
Steve Morreale (53:34):
I'll get back to you.
Mike Marquardt (53:35):
Because I have to go through, which I felt.
You asked a lot of wonderfulquestions that enabled me to
describe my ideas, thoughts,experiences and questions,
particularly for the police, thefield of police work and so
forth.
So if I think of one I willsend it to you.
But it's a great question toask what could I have asked that
(53:57):
you did not ask?
I appreciate the question andhaving the opportunity of
responding to those questions.
Steve Morreale (54:02):
Well, mike, I'm so grateful I see you as an
extreme thought leader that hasmade some changes.
I'm trying to do my best tobring this concept, this idea
that you have born and growninto, policing, because I think
it has tremendous value, and, asI leave, I want you to know
that there's people who listento the podcast in 89 countries,
(54:24):
which just blows my mind.
But, more importantly, it isabout trying to help leaders in
policing that have a verydifficult job as it is, get
better, be their best selves,and to me, one of the key points
is to do exactly what you'resuggesting Start asking
questions.
Don't feel the need to have allthe answers because you don't
(54:45):
even know what you don't know.
So thank you so much and I verymuch appreciate it.
Mike Marquardt (54:50):
Thank you, best of luck to all and success to
all of your listeners.
Steve Morreale (54:54):
Thanks, very much.
That's another episode of TheCopDoc Podcast in the can, so
happy to have been talking toMike Marquardt Dr Mike Marquardt
, who is in Virginia and theauthor, as we've said.
So if you have any questionsanybody I should be talking to
have any thoughts about the show.
Please reach out to me.
You know how to get in touchwith me.
Have a good day, stay safe,take care of your people.
(55:15):
Thanks for listening.
Intro-Outro (55:19):
Thanks for listening to The Cop Doc Podcast
with Dr Steve Morreale.
Steve is a retired lawenforcement practitioner and
manager, turned academic andscholar from Worcester State
University.
Please tune into the Cop DocPodcast for regular episodes of
interviews with thought leadersin policing.
Welcome to The CopDoc Podcast.
This podcast welcomes guestsfrom policing academia and other
government agencies.
And now please join Dr SteveMorreale and industry thought
leaders as they share theirinsights and experience on The
CopDoc Podcast.
Steve Morreale (00:35):
Well, hello everybody.
This is Steve Morreale, comingto you from Boston,
Massachusetts, today, and we'regoing to Reston, Virginia, to
talk to a colleague, Dr.
Michael Marquardt.
He is an author, a formerprofessor, a pracademic, I would
say, like myself, and we'regoing to be talking about
leading with questions in thelearning, organization and
(00:55):
action, learning and all thosekinds of things and how that
might apply to policing,especially as you try to lead an
organization.
So, first of all, I'm thrilledto have you, a thought leader
yourself, mike.
Good morning, good morning, I'mdelighted to be with you.
Thanks so much.
I do appreciate it.
I have been following your workand I have been using doing
training from your work leadingwith questions to try to suggest
(01:19):
to police leaders and evensergeants at that level don't
answer people's questions, askthem questions, you questions.
Ask them questions, let themthink, draw out their creativity
, draw out their criticalthinking, make them find the
answer or maybe coach them tothe answer, but help them and
certainly asking people at alllevels what's going on, so that
(01:42):
a leader can not be an ivorytower but understand what's
going on at the worker level.
So I'd love you to talk aboutyour history in business and, of
course, your history inacademia and the writing that
you've done, mike.
Mike Marquardt (01:59):
Okay.
Yes, I've been in the field nowfor over 50 years.
For my first 30 years incorporate work business work,
government work I worked inclose to 50 countries around the
world in areas of leadershipdevelopment, organizational
change, team building, and then,when I reached the age of 50, I
(02:20):
became a professor at GeorgeWashington University.
I became a professor at GeorgeWashington University and we had
an executive doctoral programin which we trained executives
from around the world.
We took 25 students every year.
They came for weekends for twoyears and then worked on
(02:40):
dissertation.
Over my 25 years as a professor, I chaired 117 doctoral
dissertations.
One of them was a police chiefin New Jersey.
Really, he did a great researchon different personality types
and how they lead in the policeforce and I still stay in touch
(03:00):
with him.
He's become an academic as well, teaching at a university in
New Jersey.
So all my life I've beeninvolved in leadership
development, trying to developleaders, and an insight I gained
, and we had a center at GeorgeWashington University, a center
for organizational leadershipand learning.
And, being a new professor, Ihad to identify a.
(03:23):
And, being a new professor, Ihad to identify a research
agenda that would put me in thefield where I would start
writing in academic journals andbooks and so forth.
And the area I chose wasleadership and at the great
leaders from around the worldand what made them great leaders
.
And I also look at what madegreat leaders in the political
(03:58):
sphere.
I looked at a number ofarticles, journals, books, what
made leaders in the spiritualrealm in every field, leaders in
the spiritual realm in everyfield.
And my research led me to theconclusion that all the great
leaders, no matter what fieldthey were in, they asked great
questions.
When you asked who's a greatleader in your organization,
they would say, well, you know,bob in this department or the
(04:21):
CEO is a great leader.
And I would ask what made thema great leader?
And they said they askquestions.
Sometimes I had to probe alittle bit and say, well, I just
like being around him, I liketo follow him, he gives me
inspiration.
And I said, well, what causesinspiration?
What causes you to want tofollow him or to, you know, go
(04:43):
battle for him and with him, andso forth.
And it always led to the factthat they ask great questions.
And so my conclusion was thatall great leaders ask great
questions.
But the parallel of that isthat if you ask great questions,
you will become a great leader,and so the better your
(05:04):
questions are, the betterleadership you would have.
And so in this book, in earlierwritings, I asked people what
were some of the questions theyasked.
What were questions thatinspired you, that motivated you
, that caused you to be creative, and so forth.
And so in this particular book,you see a lot of stories forth.
(05:27):
And so in this particular book,you see a lot of stories,
examples of leaders and theactual questions they asked and
the purpose.
And then I went to the leadersthemselves.
I said you know, you've beenidentified as a great leader,
and one of the reasons you'vebeen asked, you've identified as
a great leader, is that you askquestions.
And sometimes they weren't soconscious of it.
They said, well, I just like toask questions, or I feel better
asking questions.
And so then I asked them well,what are the reasons you ask
(05:51):
questions?
When do you ask questions?
Why do you ask questions?
And so, as the book goes indepth, it says there's a number
of reasons that people, leaders,ask questions.
But it's a paradigm shift.
First, they have to realizethat in the past they felt they
had to lead through statementsthat their models for leadership
(06:12):
made statements, that if youdidn't make statements, you were
not a leader, you're not seenas being powerful or competent.
Steve Morreale (06:20):
Well, so let me interrupt you because that's
interesting to me, because itseems to me and we're talking to
Mike Marquardt, who is aretired professor and the author
of several books but it seemsto me that when you're asking
questions, you're becomingcurious and you're being
probative and you're trying tolearn yourself.
Also would guess that you foundthat most of the leaders that
(06:44):
you interviewed saw themselvesas lifelong learners, that they
didn't know everything, that theleader doesn't have to have all
of the answers, and I thinkthat's the mistake.
We were raised with autocraticleaders in a lot of ways, and
they dictated what you weregoing to do and then go follow
them.
And this is a change, thatparadigm shift, would you say.
Mike Marquardt (07:02):
Yeah, it's a change, although these were
leaders from 2000 years ago.
You know practice, the act ofquestions.
Whether it be any religiousleader Jesus, muhammad or
whatever, or a political leaderthey had that insight.
You know they weren't academics.
They had the insight that byasking questions they gained not
(07:23):
only a lot of valuableinformation, but they developed
good rapport, they developed thepeople around them.
They got a lot, you know.
It made life more enjoyable forthemselves and so forth.
Not many people chose that formof leadership over the years.
Now, in the last maybe 20 years, I think it's become the motto
(07:43):
that leaders realize that theydo not have all the answers.
Part of the environment haschanged.
You know, 50 years ago youmaybe could be knowledgeable
enough that you could directyour staff and organization with
your knowledge alone, but nowit's impossible.
The world is so complex, changeis so fast that even a fairly
(08:05):
incompetent leader would realizeI don't have all the answers.
I've got to get moreinformation, but I only have to
get much more information.
To be a leader, I have to get mypeople leading with me.
I cannot do it by myself.
I have to give them the skillsand them the motivation and
encouragement to lead and helplead and take responsibility.
(08:26):
These citizens can't wait for aday or week or a month to move
up to me.
They have to be made on thespot if we're going to compete
in any kind of environment orprovide the services that our
citizens expect of us.
So it has so many benefits.
When you ask questions, itmakes it much more comfortable
(08:47):
for you.
It's a much more warm,encouraging, supportive
environment to be withcolleagues whom are asking
questions of each other.
You're asking questions of them, so it makes it easier for you.
They are eager to you knoweveryone deep down wants to be
asked how they can help someoneelse.
That's one of the greatest joysin any culture, any person in
(09:09):
the world is to make that personfeel good.
You ask him or her for theiradvice, for their ideas, and
that instantly makes that personfeel better and they like you
immediately.
Steve Morreale (09:22):
Yeah, they feel valued.
And what I'm hearing you say isit strikes me in this way that
when we're I don't care whetherit's policing or in the private
sector we are generally hiringthe best people and in many
cases we have underutilizedthose people right, we haven't
taken advantage, we haven'tpiqued their curiosity, we
(09:43):
haven't tapped into their, wehaven't piqued their curiosity,
we haven't, you know, tappedinto their potential, creativity
and their ideas.
And what strikes me is thatpolice and I've said this before
we are trained.
Having been in it in 35 years,we're trained to ask questions
constantly.
But most of the questions we'reasking of people who were
called on because they've got acomplaint or someone has
(10:07):
committed a crime what happenedto you?
Where were you?
Who else knows about this?
In other words, it's the who,what, where, when, why and how
that it becomes so natural inpolicing.
But what I find is, as policemove up, they stop asking those
questions in the organization,about the organization, because
they haven't recognized in manycases the value of asking
(10:30):
questions of the front line.
What are you seeing?
What's going on?
How can we do it better?
How's it being received?
What do you think we should do?
What's your thought on that,mike?
Mike Marquardt (10:42):
Well, I think sort of at the lower level of
police work you tend to ask veryclear, closed questions.
You're trying to get veryspecific information that will
build your case or help yousolve the case.
As you move up, your questionshave to be more open-ended,
because you're trying to becreative, you're trying to look
(11:04):
at patterns, future, doingthings in new ways, and so those
kinds of questions they're notas good at.
Intro-Outro (11:13):
It's not natural for them.
Mike Marquardt (11:15):
And they've not been encouraged to ask those
questions.
Other questions are part oftheir training, part of the
natural process of doing policework, but police leadership you
have to ask more open-endedquestions that create
collaboration, encourage peopleto work with you, to take
(11:35):
initiative.
So it's a different type ofquestion and it's interesting.
We get trained in everything inlife, but the most important
skill of life is to ask greatquestions and we don't get that
kind of training, but it's atraining or it's a learning that
occurs from getting feedback.
You ask questions to developgreat leadership, great
(11:58):
questions.
You have to be open.
To saying I'm going to beasking questions, I realize to
be a better leader, I have toask better questions.
To saying I'm going to beasking questions, I realized to
be a better leader, I have toask better questions.
So I may occasionally ask aquestion that's not very helpful
or sounds judgmental.
So you have to let me know I'mgoing to ask you how was my
question?
Did it help us?
What are some better questionsI could ask at our meetings that
(12:22):
would help you do your work ina more, you know, efficient and,
you know, inspirational way.
So it's a great skill.
It's not.
You can't teach people how toask great questions, but you,
it's like it's one of the keythings of action learning.
Action learning, brieflydescribed, is you.
You do something and then youreflect on it, see how you could
(12:43):
do it better.
So every time you take anaction, you try to learn from it
, and you cannot learn from it.
We have this action.
Well, we learn from experience.
That's not true.
We learn from reflecting onexperience and you cannot
reflect on experience unless youask yourself a question how did
that work?
How can I do it better nexttime?
Steve Morreale (13:03):
We're talking to Mike Marquardt and he is the
author of, among other questions, leading with questions.
He is an expert in learning,organization action learning,
and that's what we're beginningto get into.
And it strikes me, because youhave that experience with this
police chief who's now anacademic, who was one of your
students I've come up from thesevents, when I was in the army
(13:25):
it was all about command andcontrol, right In a lot of ways,
command and control, andcommand and control certainly
has a place In LA right now onthe streets.
There's got to be some commandand control.
Don't question me.
We're going to do this unlesswe're going to fail.
Otherwise let's move forward.
But command and control is notsomething that can be and should
(13:46):
be used all of the time in veryminimal ways for tactical
situations.
There's no need for command andcontrol throughout the
organization.
But if you understand policingand the top-down mentality that
has evolved coming from themilitary mentality that has
evolved coming from the military, they're sort of resistant, I
(14:07):
think, to change policeorganizations in many cases
there's some culturaldifferences.
I look to you as the leader, sowhy don't you have the answer?
You know what's thebreakthrough moment that you
have when you've beenfacilitating conversations with
leaders to say give it a try,you don't have to know it all.
(14:28):
What comes to mind when I askthat question, mike?
Mike Marquardt (14:32):
Well, going back to your on your military, the
military has changeddramatically over the last 20
years.
It used to be command andcontrol.
Now they realize that officersin the field or privates in the
field, they have to make quick,on-the-moment decisions because
the battle is very differentthan it was when you marched in
(14:52):
precision and so forth.
So every soldier has to be ableto make at-the-moment decisions
and they cannot make wiseat-the-moment decisions if
they're not reading thesituation, asking the question
what's going on here and what'sthe best way for me to handle it
?
And so the key to all you know,whatever level you're at, the
(15:14):
key is to say what's happeninghere and how can I handle it
better?
Or, particularly, if I handleit this time, how can I handle
it better next time.
You always have to improve.
You never get a battlefielddecision or a police decision
like in Los Angeles, whatever.
Many of those officers have tomake an on-the-moment decision.
Interacting with some protester, they couldn't wait for what
(15:36):
should I do here?
They had to make a decision DoI push, pull, shoot, whatever
the case may be?
And they have to be able tolook at the situation and ask
themselves what would be thebest thing for me to do here,
and one of the powers of greatleadership and excellent is that
these questions need to becomeclear, automatic, and they're
(16:00):
inherent and they're in, they'reinside you, so you don't have
to formally ask what should I dohere?
But your mind has beenconditioned to say what's
happening here and what's thebest thing I can do, or what
happened a moment ago thatdidn't work.
How can I do it better?
(16:20):
So, unless your mind isreflecting and only can reflect
through questions that youeither directly ask yourself or
occur automatically within you.
So I think every police officerneeds to be aware of creating
questions in their mind asthey're interacting with any
situation, what's?
Steve Morreale (16:40):
happening here and how can I do it better, what
are my options, what's myexperience here, what do I need
to do differently?
And so we start talking alittle bit about the learning
organization.
And you know that the militaryand you're quite familiar with
that and certainly policeagencies, especially with large
scale events, they do sentinelreviews or after action reviews,
(17:03):
and that's the time to reflect.
You know what happened, whatwere we confronted with, what
did we do, what can we learnfrom this so that we don't
repeat it or we handle it in adifferent way?
So there's a cycle of thinkingand again reflection and
introspection on that.
And so what is your take aboutthe learning organization?
(17:25):
Why should police agenciesfocus on being learning
organizations, having activelearning approaches to virtually
everything they do, to staycurrent, to keep up to date and
to anticipate the future?
Mike Marquardt (17:42):
current, to keep up to date and to anticipate
the future.
Yeah Well, I think everyorganization, every police
organization as well, has tocontinually improve, because
they have more and moreresponsibility, more and more
people to serve, more and moresituations that are unique,
maybe with less resources to doit.
So the only way a policeorganization could be successful
(18:05):
is they continuously improve,they get better, they can do
more things in less time with ahigher result, and you can only
do that by reflecting whatyou're doing now and how could
we do things better.
So the the after action reviewis a perfect example of what
learning organizations need todo, because every time they have
(18:27):
a large situation, conflict,action, they say what happened
and how could we do it betterthe next time that we encounter
something similar to this.
Now, that's at theorganizational level, but a
learning organization has tohave learning individuals.
So what they do at theorganizational level but a
learning organization has tohave learning individuals so
what they do at theorganizational level has to be
done in groups as well asindividually.
(18:49):
So when a group of policeofficers are encountering the
situation in Los Angeles, theyhave some quick moments where
they have to say, okay,something has happened.
That's four of us.
What do we do?
How can we have this?
What can we do that willprevent this or keep the
momentum going in our direction?
And, of course, the individual.
So learning has to go with theindividual group and an
(19:12):
organization-wide level, but theorganization as a whole.
They can set the motto, theycan set the culture, because
individuals kind of behaveaccording to the culture.
So if you're in an organizationwhose culture is one in which
you encourage people to learn,you take time to reflect, you
ask questions about what'shappening and how it could be
(19:34):
improved, if there's thatculture in the organization,
then the teams and individualswill start behaving that way,
not only inside the organizationbut when they're outside the
organization.
Steve Morreale (19:46):
So one question that comes to mind and you've
been familiar and engrossed witha number of different
organizations, let's say abusiness organization what could
police leaders learn fromapproaches that businesses take
to stay current, to maintain, tostay ahead of the curve, to
(20:09):
meet market demand, whether it'scars or telephones or AI,
whatever it is?
Mike, what's your experiencebeen that these organizations
are in a constant state ofevolution?
Mike Marquardt (20:25):
Well, I think the ability to ask the right
questions is critical.
So, whether you're the chief ofthe top person in the
organization, top administrativeperson, or a chief of a unit or
whatever it would be, if youask the right questions then you
start getting the rightinformation.
And particularly now with AI,you know AI can be so valuable
(20:46):
to police departments.
But you have to ask the rightquestions.
Steve Morreale (20:49):
Yeah, well, you have to give it the right
prompts and context.
I understand Clearly you'vebeen using.
I'm trying.
Mike Marquardt (20:54):
AI.
It can only be as good as yourquestion is.
So if you start asking and youdon't get to the right questions
or great questions unless youdo it with each other, but
sometimes just ask the power ofquestions is you don't have to
have the answer, you just haveto have the right question.
The answer will emerge.
So the greater my question is,the more it causes me to think
(21:18):
and reflect.
I might immediately come upwith a response, but it might
come up with a response a day ora week later.
And so great leaders ask thegreat questions, some of which
you need an immediate response,but some of which you can get a
few days later or a week later.
And you're just saying whatwould be a great question for my
department to ask AI?
(21:38):
That's all you have to ask.
You don't have to have theright answer yet.
What would be a great question?
It gets everybody around you.
Their subconscious works andtheir subconscious is much more
creative, much more can do manymore things than your conscious.
So a great leader asks thequestions, not expecting
immediate answers, because youdon't get great responses
(22:01):
immediately.
You get great responses whenthe subconscious has done
reflection.
So a great leader could say tohis team of people around him we
need to get more informationfrom AI.
What would be three greatquestions we could ask AI next
week?
And so the people around him, ateam of five people.
They don't want answers.
(22:23):
The police chief does not wantanswers right away, he wants
them in a week.
Steve Morreale (22:25):
Think about it.
Mike Marquardt (22:26):
He wants you to think for a week, because your
subconscious works 24 hours aday, seven days a week, and so
if I plant a great question inyou and say in a week I'm going
to ask you for your response,you're going to have a lot of
great ideas that would not haveemerged if you hadn't given the
answer.
Steve Morreale (22:43):
I like what you're saying To me.
I call it planting seeds and Ithink that's exactly what you're
suggesting, that you know youhave a meeting, you're talking
with your command staff andyou're saying to them listen,
we're going to focus on thefuture, next week or at the next
meeting, and what I want you tobe thinking about is what
questions?
What's missing?
What do we have to do?
How can we use AI better?
How can we drive that?
(23:04):
It's those kinds of questions.
You know.
For me, it's about the curiosity.
I get excited by it.
I'm sure that you do.
You've seen it, You've watchedit, you've written about it,
you've studied it, you've taughtit.
But it is about, you know, askthe questions.
As a professor, I'm sure that'sexactly what you did in your
(23:25):
classes.
That's what I do all of thetime.
I'm constantly, I'll always sayI'm going to ask you a series
of what is unique about what Ido in the classroom and it's and
the kind of think about that.
You know, what am I doingdifferent than other professors
do?
And you know you've had plentywho lectured by PowerPoint, but
me and I presume you it's alwaysa derivative of who, what,
where, when, why and how thebasic questions we learn in the
(23:48):
fifth grade in writing.
Compositions, I think in a lotof ways are trying to suggest
that this is a much better wayof growing, of developing others
, of engaging others in theprocess of making our
organization better.
What do you think about that?
Mike Marquardt (24:04):
Yeah, I think, going back to my original point
is that we say great leaders askgreat questions.
Great social workers ask greatquestions, all the great police
officers ask great questions.
All the great teachers askgreat questions.
You can find I could go to anyschool and say who's the best
teacher in this building andI'll be the one who asks the
(24:27):
best questions in the classroom,and they're the same.
Who's the best police officeryou have?
It'll be the one who has thebest questions, because by
asking questions you changeyourself and you become a
different kind of leader and youdevelop the most critical
skills of being a leader.
So a great leader is someone whoinspires others, who builds
(24:50):
great teams, who displayshumility.
You can't ask great questionsabout humility because you
reckon I don't know it all.
I need your help.
Who is courageous?
Because sometimes it takes alot of courage to ask a question
.
That might cause some conflictor might show that you're not
the all expert you claim to be,but every single leadership
(25:14):
skill can be improved, developedand practiced through questions
.
So if you want to be, say okay,I want to be more systems
thinker.
That's important leadershipskill to be a systems thinker.
You ask questions, you become abetter systems thinker.
The greater the question, thegreater your systems thinker.
You want to show people youcare about the great leaders.
(25:36):
Show respect and caring.
Ask questions.
Steve Morreale (25:39):
That's every leadership skill.
Well, and what you just said isdead on, and that is, when I'm
asking questions of somebody,I'm actually honoring their
intellect, I'm asking them forinput, but it's not something
we've talked about.
It seems to me, when you ask aquestion, as we have been taught
(26:01):
for those of us who have totestify in court, is answer the
question and put a period on it,which means wait for the next
question.
But for me, as it relates toour conversation, how important
is listening after that question?
Mike?
Mike Marquardt (26:20):
Well, it's very important.
It demonstrates to the personyou've asked the question of
that you really are interestedin what you've asked.
So many of us we ask aperfunctory question or we ask
another question before theyrespond.
The person being asked thequestion will quickly be able to
feel and know that what you'reasking of him or her is
(26:43):
important to you.
You're curious enough, you wantto know that information can be
valuable to you or to theorganization.
And so all great questions aregreat listeners, because usually
you don't get a great questionunless you've listened to
previous questions you've asked.
So the great question rarely isthe first question you ask of
(27:03):
your team, it's the third orfourth.
So you ask the question and ifyou listen very carefully to the
response you get to thatquestion, you do a follow-up
question and based upon that youdo a third follow-up and I
oftentimes do an exercise whereyou have to ask seven questions
based upon what you've got fromyour first question.
So an activity where I say thefirst question what's your
(27:27):
greatest success in life?
And based upon what theyrespond, you ask the second
question.
Third, and you change thatperson and seven questions.
That person just has newconfidence, new awareness.
They take action they neverconsidered before.
So the more you listen, thebetter.
Your next question is Greatquestions are always the second
or third or fourth question.
Steve Morreale (27:49):
You know, as a very young, I guess, leader with
the Drug EnforcementAdministration, I took over the
asset forfeiture unit andfinancial investigation section.
I'll never forget that.
One of the first things I didI'm looking for your reaction to
this is to bring everybody in,and I thought it would be a 20
minute half hour conversation.
It turned out to be longer thanthat because people had never
(28:09):
been asked questions aboutthemselves.
But one of the questions Iasked that really stymied the
civilians who worked for me iswhat are you most proud of that
you have accomplished sinceyou've been here?
Now, some of them I love to usethe term think to talk and talk
to think.
Right, I have a tendency totalk to think.
(28:30):
I don't know what the hell I'mgonna say at the other end.
I'm hoping I'll make senselater, but so many people need
time to contemplate thatquestion so they can come back
with you at you with areasonable answer.
So very often I would give themtime.
You at you with a with areasoned, reasonable answer, so
very often I would give themtime.
Just like you said a little bitago, you're not ready for that
question.
I want you to ponder that andwe'll talk about that tomorrow,
(28:53):
and, and and I'm here to tellyou that my experience was when
they came back, they had greatanswers because I gave them the
time not to be defensive but tothink deeply about that question
.
What's your sense of that?
Mike Marquardt (29:06):
Well, we, as leaders, we have to know when
we've asked a great question,and many times we know it before
we ask it.
But oftentimes we know it whenwe don't get an immediate
response, because a greatquestion usually requires the
other person to say gee.
I never thought of that before Ilooked at it that way.
I never considered it or didn'trealize how important whatever
(29:30):
it was.
So you can oftentimes get asense that's a pretty good
question because this person hasto think about it for a while.
If they just give a response,it's usually a closed question
or it's not going to change them.
But because great questionsrequire reflection and
reflection always createsgreater responses.
So we got to know.
(29:55):
We want to keep improving ourquestions.
We have to know was that a goodquestion?
How could I prove it next time?
Steve Morreale (30:00):
And did it elicit a response and such, and
I think to myself too.
Your experience with leadingwith questions and obvious is
imagine.
Let me just go back in time.
So here you are, a newprofessor.
You've had a lot of experiencein the workforce, you have
trained and taught andinterviewed and asked questions.
(30:22):
You have trained and taught andinterviewed and asked questions
and now, at some point in time,there was this little thing
that arose, called, I think, thebasis.
Exactly what you said isleading with questions and
that's changed the trajectory ofyour life by identifying that.
Tell me when.
Mike Marquardt (30:41):
that moment was and what that meant to you.
Well, I think it came, you know, from talking to people when I
asked them who are the greatleaders in the organization.
So it was something I gainedthrough research and I said,
well geez, this is what a greatleader was.
And I was quite surprised whenI developed the title for the
book.
I was surprised that no one hadever written a book about
(31:02):
leading with questions.
You know lawyers we talk we usethat term frequently that
you're leading.
Particularly lawyers lead you.
They have lawyers, don't, arenot.
They should never ask questionswhich they do not already have
the answer for.
And that's just the for a courtcase.
That's appropriate, but it'stotally inappropriate outside
the legal profession, becauseyou should not be only asking
(31:25):
questions for which you alreadyknow the answer, because you
gain nothing from it.
But lawyers are not askingquestions for purpose of
changing whether they're askingquestions that lead people to
and the jury to a particularconclusion.
So leading with questions iskind of just the opposite of
what I said.
You lead by asking questionsfor which you do not know what
(31:48):
the answer will be.
You ask questions for almostevery other purpose than what a
lawyer asks questions for, andoftentimes the police officer
when he's getting data for hiscase somebody already knows, he
just wants to confirm it, or hewants to test the person how
honest he or she is et cetera.
(32:10):
So oftentimes some of thequestions they're asking, they
know the answer.
They just want to confirmwhether this person is telling
the truth or not, or whateverthe case may be, or lock them
into a lie.
Steve Morreale (32:20):
That's one of our tactics, right, right, lie
to me, no problem, I just wantyou to put that in writing.
Mike Marquardt (32:25):
But the inside?
It's innate because we growwhen we're born.
The moment we're born, oursubconscious asks questions, and
we ask two major questions themoment we're born.
One is how can I communicate tothose people around me so I get
what I want food, being takencare of, whatever and how do I
(32:48):
move around?
How do I get to move myself?
So your subconsciouscontinuously asks these
questions and you learn how towalk and talk within 18 months.
It's the two most importantskills of life and you only did
it because of your questions.
So the moment you could startspeaking life, and you only did
it because of your questions.
So the moment you could startspeaking, what do you start
doing?
You ask questions.
Children love to ask questionsbecause that's how they got to
(33:12):
learn how to walk and talk, andthey just love to ask questions.
It's innate.
It's an enjoyable experiencefor a two-year-old or
three-year-old, but then they'retold by their parents stop
asking so many questions, I'mtoo busy, or in the classroom.
Stop asking questions, have theanswers.
So the most important skill oflife, which is asking questions,
(33:32):
which is innate is stifled byparents and teachers and bosses.
Steve Morreale (33:56):
And now we realize that the best bosses and
the best teachers are thosethat encourage questions and
develop work with.
And the introduction was measking questions what about this
, what about that?
What are you most proud of?
And when's the last time thedepartment was evaluated?
And I'm here to tell you at onepoint in time, here I am
talking to three or fourhigh-level people and they
(34:17):
looked at each other like what'san evaluation?
What is a management evaluation?
They looked at each other likewhat's an evaluation?
What is a management evaluation?
And so at that moment I thought, well, okay, there's an opening
for me to help them herebecause it can be valuable.
We're talking to Mike Marquardt,dr Mike Marquardt, author and a
retired professor at GeorgeWashington University.
I ask police agencies if theydo surveys both internal and
(34:42):
external, you know for theirpeople, to understand what's on
their mind, and for the peoplethey serve.
What I find very often is manyleaders are afraid of those
answers, and I'd love you totalk about the value of that
feedback and what it can do foran organization if they accept
(35:03):
the answers and the feedbackfrom people as an opportunity to
improve.
What's your thought on that?
Mike Marquardt (35:10):
Well, again, I think it refers to the culture
in which the questions are beingasked and the expectations or
respect they have for theresults that will occur.
Some say, well, they're justasking questions and they're not
going to do anything without myopinion anyway.
Or if my opinion is different,my response is different.
(35:31):
I may get in trouble.
Steve Morreale (35:34):
Well, that's that culture of fear.
Mike Marquardt (35:37):
There's a fear and so there's not much value in
having surveys if there is afeeling of fear or a feeling
it's not going to be used.
So you have to create anatmosphere or culture around
that question, saying you knowsurveys in the past, you know we
may have not used them or youmay have been uncomfortable.
(35:59):
You have to kind of lay it outfront.
But now we're a differentorganization, we have different
leadership here.
We really need your best ideas.
We need you to be honest withhow you feel we're doing, but
also to give us ideas on how wecan improve.
And so I think if you createthat kind of context and the
(36:21):
opening of the introduction tothe survey, you indicate that
then you can get valuableinformation.
But without that, theinformation you get may not be
very helpful to the organization.
Steve Morreale (36:34):
Well, so what you're doing too and I love to
say this elephants in the roomall of the time.
You know you walked into afaculty meeting and something's
going on and nobody wants totalk about it.
I happen to open it up.
You know this is what's goingon.
I can't tell you everythingabout it, but here's what we
know, here's how it's going toimpact.
You know, even a policedepartment Think about COVID, or
during the Rodney King riots,or even, most recently, the
(36:58):
George Floyd riots, or thecurrent riots having to do with
no kings or immigration,whatever it is Someone has to
say stay the course.
We still have a responsibilityto serve people.
We want you to go out there anddon't get you know, don't
become downtrodden.
A lot of people are relying onyou to respond and it seems to
(37:20):
me and I want to move on fromleading with questions, with
other work that you have donebut I'd like you to sort of
reiterate what you feel thevalue is for a leader, new or
old, in a police agency to beginasking questions, model asking
questions, and begin to drivethat approach through the
(37:45):
organization.
So not just the big leader doesit, but all of the sub-leaders
are doing the same thing withtheir people to drag information
and to draw people into the,into the improvement process.
Mike Marquardt (37:58):
Well, I think the police leader has to be very
upfront and with his people, orpeople, saying that you know we
in the past we may have beentop down directive, making
statements, statements.
We realize now that to be asuccessful organization and be
(38:19):
successful with the people weserve, we have to be much more
creative.
We have to continuously improveand learn.
We have to ask questions.
So I'm going to spend more ofmy time when I'm with you asking
questions.
I encourage you to askquestions of me because together
we can do that.
And I'm occasionally going toask what do you think of my
questions?
How could I ask betterquestions?
(38:40):
That would help you.
So you have to create the wholenew culture, be humble, indicate
that you're going to bechanging your behavior for the
betterment of the organizationand the betterment of each
individual in that organization.
And initially it may bedifficult for you to ask me
questions because you're afraidthat I might respond to a
question or you should haveknown the answer in advance.
(39:01):
But I do not expect everyone tohave all the answers, to do
everything correctly.
So it's normal that we all haveto learn and make improvements.
So I'm going to try to becomfortable asking questions of
you and I want you to becomfortable asking questions of
me, and when we have meetings,we're going to spend a lot of
our time answering greatquestions of each other, so you
(39:26):
have to be the model saying,okay, I'm going to work at this.
I may not be the best at it, butI realize it's important for me
to be a powerful and valuableleader, to ask questions.
I'm going to do the best I can,but I have to keep improving.
I have to reflect on myself,but occasionally I'm going to
ask you.
You know what are some of thequestions I've asked over the
past six months, yet you havefound most valuable.
(39:46):
What are some questions I'venot asked that you think would
help our department organizationrun more effectively?
You think?
Steve Morreale (39:55):
would help our department organization run more
effectively.
That's great.
What I want to ask you to dowe've got a bit more time to
talk about the other areas thatyou began to morph into action
learning, the learningorganization, how that plays in.
I presume all of these areinterrelated, but talk about the
other books that you've writtenand how that came to pass.
Mike Marquardt (40:16):
Yeah, well, they're all interrelated.
My earlier books because I'dworked in 50 countries done a
lot of global work.
Much of my earlier work were onglobalization how to build a
global teams, how to communicateacross cultures.
Then, as I moved into becominga professor, I moved from doing
work in global to the leadershipand questions and everything's
(40:38):
kind of tied around questions.
The whole essence of actionlearning is the ability to ask
questions of yourself and othersfrom any experience that you
have had individually or thegroup has had or the
organization has had.
So the basics of actionlearning is that you have an
experience and you say whathappened here and how can I do
(41:00):
it better next time?
That's simple action learning.
But great action learning isthat I'm going to be meeting
with my staff tomorrow.
How can I make it a greatmeeting?
So action learning can you havelearning preparing yourself for
the event.
Much of the time we do actionlearning after an event has
occurred.
We met with a salesrepresentative or we had just
had an encounter in Los Angelesand after it's over, you ask
(41:25):
what happened and how can wehave done it better, what did we
do well and how can we do itbetter next time?
Now great leaders are able towhile they're in the environment
itself, while they'reinteracting with the protesters.
What is going well here andwhat can I do better?
You got to do it while it'shappening.
(41:45):
That's action learning.
It's premium, but we can doaction learning after the event
and before the event, but greataction learning is while it's
happening, during the event.
Yes, and so all greatsalespeople are action learners
because they're interacting withtheir customer and they're
reading the customer's languageand perspective and they sell
the product.
All great leaders are askedgreat questions.
(42:07):
All great salespeople, the bestsalespeople in the world, are
action learners because asthey're interacting, they're
changing their pitch, they'rechanging what they emphasize.
So the learning organizationobviously is built on questions.
The great learningorganizations are those that
number one have leaders askquestions, but it's a culture of
questions.
(42:28):
So in a learning organizationwhen you do a performance
appraisal, you ask the theperson what have you learned
over the past six months that we, or what have you learned that
will help the organizationimprove?
So when you come in for yourperformance appraisal, I don't,
I don't just ask you what you'vedone.
I ask what have you learnedover the last six months that
(42:49):
you have used to benefit theorganization?
Because learning is much morepowerful and valuable to an
organization than actions.
So the emphasis and when youmeet someone in the hallway and
say how are you doing, you don'tjust say how are you doing, you
say what have you learned thatmight help me?
You know so two police officers.
They come across how are youdoing?
What's happening In a learningorganization.
(43:09):
They start saying well, isthere anything you've learned in
your police work or interactingwith?
You know protests or what?
So if you ask each otherlearning questions, you get much
more than you just saying whatare you doing, what did you do?
Steve Morreale (43:20):
So that harkens back to myself and it may be
with you.
When I was the chair of thedepartment, one of the things I
started to do was talk aboutPedagogy Corner, what's working,
what's going on, and what Iwatched happen by saying who
wants to talk about somethingthey tried in the classroom that
worked, and maybe it didn'twork the first time that they
(43:41):
had sort of tweaked it a littlebit, and the first person out of
the gate came in and wasactually proud of what they had
accomplished.
And what I watched happen wereother faculty members or
independent contractors, butpolice officers are too.
I'm in my little silo and youunderstand that, right, but when
that happened, a couple ofthings was going on.
It was that, you know, somebodysaid, hey, can I get a copy of
that?
I love that idea and I havesomething similar, and so the
(44:04):
sharing began just by askingthat question Tell us about
something that worked, whatworked for?
Intro-Outro (44:10):
you.
Steve Morreale (44:11):
And I think that that can be used over and over
again.
You may have had that sameexperience well.
Mike Marquardt (44:15):
One of the most valuable questions you can ask
anybody in almost any situationwhat are you doing well or what?
What's happening here?
It's going well, but a keyfollow-up question is what could
be done better?
You don't have to get aresponse to that question
because the subconscious willwork and even though they said
(44:35):
well, it really went very well,I can't think of anything to do
better.
I can assure you, a week laterthey will have come up.
Geez, if we'd done that, thatwould have made it even more
effective.
Steve Morreale (44:45):
Yeah, I got another idea.
Well, I mean again.
What we're talking about is thecreative juices.
Drawing the creative juices outof people, I say over and over
again, and in many policeorganizations I know how it
works, having been there You'rethe new kid on the block and hey
, kid, just do what you're told,shut up.
I'm not looking for input,right?
I think that's a big mistake,because we hire the best and
then we underutilize them.
(45:06):
And when we engage them intoasking you've been on the job
for six months, what do youthink?
What could we do better?
What is working?
Have you tried something thatworks or something that doesn't?
Mike Marquardt (45:18):
And it begins exactly.
Steve Morreale (45:20):
It inspires ideas which I think become
important.
So we're talking to MikeMarquart and we're beginning to
wind down on the Cop Talkpodcast and I very much
appreciate all of the time thatyou're taking.
You know when somebody pushedback on you or you ask somebody.
You know when you ask aquestion and somebody says why
(45:41):
are you asking me?
You're the boss, how would onehandle that?
Mike Marquardt (45:47):
Well, I would say that, yes, in the past you
would expect the boss to havethe answers, and bosses never
asked you questions, and that'snot a way to run a police
department, particularly intoday's environment.
We have to run it differently.
We have to get more and moreideas from other people, and we
think there's ideas that youhave that I could never get
(46:07):
because I'm not in the frontline like you are.
I'm not in that part of thecity like you are, so you're the
only one that perhaps can giveme insight and help other people
in other departments insight.
So that's the reason I'm askingquestions.
I generally want to get yourideas, your experiences, that
you're the only one who maybehad that experience and can help
me and maybe help people inother parts.
(46:29):
So you have to recognize that,yes, it is a little bit
different than in the past, andnormally we've not asked you
questions and you've not, youknow, been able to give your
ideas.
But it's a new world and yourideas are important to me.
You may have done something inyour part of the city or your
department that could benefitother departments, and so a
(46:51):
great idea can be applied inmany places, and so I'm asking
if there's anything you've triedthat you think worked well.
Now that part of my job is toto maybe adapt that other parts.
But I'm not going to be able toget all the great ideas unless
(47:11):
I ask people, and and the factthat I asked you what you think
we should do should indicate toyou that I really care and I
appreciate the work you've donethus far.
Steve Morreale (47:20):
You know, one of the experiences I had recently
is that I was running a commandcollege and I was asking a
number of questions andobviously you have to break down
the barriers.
They're not sure they want totalk in front of other people.
They've never been with these20 people, you know.
I mean you've had.
And what I find is there'salways someone that will answer
(47:41):
and somebody will think aboutwhat somebody else answered.
And at the end, one of thethings that they said and I'm
sure you've had this experiencewas I didn't just learn from the
facilitator, I learned from my20 colleagues because they
opened their mind right.
Well, if he thinks that way,why shouldn't I?
And I find that very good,because part of this is about
(48:03):
getting them comfortable, aboutsharing with each other, right
Sharing and learning andevolving and constantly moving
on.
You said something, Mike, inthe book about the question
behind the question.
Can you talk about that?
Mike Marquardt (48:18):
Well, I guess when you ask a question it's
oftentimes based upon your wholelife experience that caused you
to ask that question of thisperson at that particular time.
But sometimes you have to getinformation that will explain or
help the person understand whyyou have your second question.
(48:38):
So you have to get some initialinformation and they say, well,
the reason I asked thatquestion.
I needed that information toask you this next question, just
like what has worked well inyour, your part of the city and
the reason I asked that question, because I want to use those
ideas you give me for that so Ican apply it to other parts of
the city.
Steve Morreale (48:58):
A very good illustration.
So talk about your books alittle bit and how people can
get them, because not everybodyhas read that book even though
it's been around for a long time.
I know in your third editionBob Teedy's joined you in some
of the writing and I've beenable to chat with him and how
they might get in touch with youif they're interested.
Mike Marquardt (49:20):
Okay, well, leading With Questions.
As you mentioned, it's thethird edition.
The first two editions I wroteby myself.
The third one, I asked Bob tojoin me and to use all of his
ideas and experience onquestions, so it's with Wiley.
It's a very large publisher and, like most people nowadays on
Amazon, if you either put in thewords leading with questions or
(49:40):
Marquardt or T-I-E-D-E, you canfind the book.
It's been out for two years now, so it's been almost 20 years
since the first edition.
Steve Morreale (49:54):
That's longevity , my friend.
Mike Marquardt (49:56):
Yeah, organizations all over the world
that use the book, and so I'mvery pleased and proud of it.
If you put my name into theAmazon inquiry, you'll see I've
written 27 books over my career,as you already mentioned.
I've written several onlearning organizations, how to
build a learning organization.
(50:17):
I have three editions of onebook on learning organizations
and I've done a lot of books onteams, how to build teams and
develop teams and so forth.
So those are, and then, ofcourse, the action learning.
The past 30 years that's beenmy passion, because action
learning has helped me todevelop and learn and write
(50:37):
better questions and to buildlearning organizations.
But I'm delighted to have thisopportunity of sharing some of
my ideas about questions andaction learning and learning
organizations.
I hope that people feelcomfortable in going on Amazon
and getting any of my books andcertainly feel free to contact
me if I can answer any questionsyou may have.
Steve Morreale (50:57):
And so you're involved with the World
Institute for Action Learning,right, that's one way for people
to get in touch with you, theWorld.
Mike Marquardt (51:02):
Institute for Action Learning was established
about 20 years ago.
It certifies coaches that canwork with teams to help the team
learn, and if the team learns,they tend to ask better
questions and get more results.
So it's a leadershipdevelopment, team building,
problem solving methodology thatI developed about 30 years ago,
(51:23):
and so the World Institute ofAction Learning has 500
certified coaches and affiliatesin countries all over the world
.
Steve Morreale (51:33):
Well, we have been very honored and I mean
I've been honored to be able tochat with Dr Mike Marquardt, who
has 50 years experience both inacademia and in the field.
A lot of the things that you'vebeen talking about, mike, have
been extremely valuable forpolice leaders in the future
that are looking for a betterway to understand this
(51:54):
generation and to engage thepeople who they employ and they
serve by asking questions sothat they can make better
decisions and provide betterservice.
As you leave, what are you mostproud of that you're still in
the game at this point.
That's just an amazing thing.
You must pinch yourselfsometimes to say people still
(52:16):
want me.
Mike Marquardt (52:17):
Well, I felt very fortunate, as I was a
consultant and advisor for manyyears.
You reach 10, 20, 30 people ata time and quite effectively
with them, but when you become aprofessional, you start writing
books, and books can reachthousands of millions of people,
and so I'm very proud that I'vedeveloped this methodology
(52:41):
called action learning, whichhas proved to be very powerful
for organizations andindividuals in over 150
countries.
So I'm very proud of that, andthe leading with questions, the
insight which I'm sure leadershad but they never were able to
publish.
I was able to take their ideasabout questions and leadership
and be known for that, whereasit's really the leaders
(53:04):
themselves who have done thisfor thousands of years and more
recently in the last 20 years,to become great leaders.
So I'm very proud of having theopportunity of being able to
influence people and make theworld a better place.
Steve Morreale (53:17):
So there's one turnaround question on you,
based on what you were talkingabout.
What question did I not ask youthat I should have?
Mike Marquardt (53:27):
I think you've asked a great question.
Steve Morreale (53:28):
I'm talking to the expert.
Mike Marquardt (53:30):
That's a great question, but one that requires
reflection.
Steve Morreale (53:34):
I'll get back to you.
Mike Marquardt (53:35):
Because I have to go through, which I felt.
You asked a lot of wonderfulquestions that enabled me to
describe my ideas, thoughts,experiences and questions,
particularly for the police, thefield of police work and so
forth.
So if I think of one I willsend it to you.
But it's a great question toask what could I have asked that
(53:57):
you did not ask?
I appreciate the question andhaving the opportunity of
responding to those questions.
Steve Morreale (54:02):
Well, mike, I'm so grateful I see you as an
extreme thought leader that hasmade some changes.
I'm trying to do my best tobring this concept, this idea
that you have born and growninto, policing, because I think
it has tremendous value, and, asI leave, I want you to know
that there's people who listento the podcast in 89 countries,
(54:24):
which just blows my mind.
But, more importantly, it isabout trying to help leaders in
policing that have a verydifficult job as it is, get
better, be their best selves,and to me, one of the key points
is to do exactly what you'resuggesting Start asking
questions.
Don't feel the need to have allthe answers because you don't
(54:45):
even know what you don't know.
So thank you so much and I verymuch appreciate it.
Mike Marquardt (54:50):
Thank you, best of luck to all and success to
all of your listeners.
Steve Morreale (54:54):
Thanks, very much.
That's another episode of TheCopDoc Podcast in the can, so
happy to have been talking toMike Marquardt Dr Mike Marquardt
, who is in Virginia and theauthor, as we've said.
So if you have any questionsanybody I should be talking to
have any thoughts about the show.
Please reach out to me.
You know how to get in touchwith me.
Have a good day, stay safe,take care of your people.
(55:15):
Thanks for listening.
Intro-Outro (55:19):
Thanks for listening to The Cop Doc Podcast
with Dr Steve Morreale.
Steve is a retired lawenforcement practitioner and
manager, turned academic andscholar from Worcester State
University.
Please tune into the Cop DocPodcast for regular episodes of
interviews with thought leadersin policing.
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