Question

What is advocacy and inquiry approach in decision-making process?

Answer 1

Advocacy and Inquiry are two key communication behaviors with critical implications for interpersonal, group, and organizational effectiveness. Advocacy refers to stating one’s views; inquiry refers to asking questions

In conversations on complex and controversial issues, when there is a high degree of advocacy and little inquiry, people are unable to learn about the nature of their differences. People may feel the speaker is imposing a view on them without taking into account their perspective, which can lead to either escalating conflict or withdrawal. When there is a high degree of inquiry, but no one is willing to advocate a position, it is difficult for participants to know where the other stands, and the lack of progress can lead people to feel frustrated and impatient. As a participant in a conversation, being aware of the balance of advocacy and inquiry can help you determine how best to contribute at a given time. If you hear that people are advocating but not asking questions, inquire into their views before adding your own. If you hear people asking questions for information but not stating an opinion, advocating your view may help the group move forward.

hile the balance of advocacy and inquiry is important for a productive conversation, so is the quality. High quality advocacy involves stating your view while being open to influence. Others can only influence your reasoning if you make your reasoning steps explicit. To advocate effectively, you need to provide the data you see as salient, and state how you go from the data to your conclusions. It is also useful to make your points one at a time. Asking others for their reactions after you have layered several points can leave them unsure where to start.

Even when the quality of advocacy is high, it needs to be balanced with inquiry or people are likely to feel they are being pushed. However, not all inquiry is equal. Closed questions that evoke a yes or no answer are useful for establishing facts, but do not elicit rich information. A rhetorical or leading question, designed to get the other person to comply, is a form of disguised advocacy and tends to elicit defensiveness. Other types of low quality inquiry include forced choice questions that limit the response to predetermined options, and questions that imply that others are at fault.

High quality inquiry, in contrast, includes questions that are open-ended, that test your understanding of others’ meanings, that probe how they arrive at their views, that solicit the views of everyone at the table, and that encourage challenge of your own view. High quality inquiry expands rather than limits the range of responses, and promotes action rather than eliciting excuses. It requires a willingness to reflect on how your own actions contributed a problem rather than focusing blame on others.

Conversations that involve a high degree of advocacy often move quickly from point to point. While inquiry can slow the pace of the conversation, it increases the rate of learning. In conversations characterized by advocacy, people may state what they think, but not what they think about each other’s thinking. At the end of such a meeting, participants may feel that the conversation lacked focus and depth, and that little progress was made on any one issue. You can counteract this risk by coupling advocacy and inquiry. For example, you might say, “Here is what I think about XYZ… What are your reactions to my reasoning? Do you see any gaps? Are there data that I am unaware of, or additional data we should collect?”

Encouraging others to question your views, and checking to ensure you have understood others’ meanings accurately, are the types of inquiry that help keep a conversation focused, produce deeper understanding, demonstrate your openness to learning, and reduce defensiveness. They help people make progress on the substantive issue, and they build relationships.

People are often reluctant to ask questions because they worry they will be perceived as either uninformed, lacking initiative, or challenging the other’s credibility and authority. Leaders can minimize these concerns of subordinates by: emphasizing the importance of learning from mistakes, acknowledging their own errors, and rewarding others for doing the same. People can minimize the risk that they are perceived as challenging others’ credibility or authority by explaining that the purpose of their question is to learn. For this to be credible your mindset has to be that the other might be right, and that you have something to learn by understanding their logic.

Productive advocacy and inquiry are both informed by using the ladder of inference – a model of the reasoning steps people take as they size up situations and decide what action to take. Below are examples of using the ladder of inference as a guide for productive advocacy and inquiry in different situations: facilitating a substantive conversation, managing your own and others emotional reactions, and providing feedback.

When you facilitate a conversation you can determine what inquiry is useful by paying attention to the quality of people’s reasoning. Ask yourself whether you are hearing data, interpretations, or conclusions. The purpose of your inquiry should be to help all parties involved make their reasoning explicit so they can learn from their different perspectives. Before you begin asking questions it is helpful to explain your purpose. High quality advocacy and inquiry are useful when we have strong emotional reactions. Our emotions do not just happen to us; they are a function of the assumptions we hold, the inferences we make – the story that we tell ourselves - about what has happened. For example, in your performance review, your boss says to you, “You’ve been doing well this quarter, but there are things you need to improve.” If you feel confident and like your boss, you may focus on “you’ve been doing well,” hear it as a compliment, and feel good. If you see your boss as overly critical, and not open to disagreement, you may focus on “there are things you need to do to improve,” hear it as an unfair criticism that you can’t contest, and feel upset. In either case, if your emotional experience leads you to focus on only one part of the message, you may end up with a distorted view of your performance. Use your emotions as a window on your reasoning.

Combining high quality advocacy and inquiry is important when giving others feedback. You need to be willing to disclose your assessment, explain the consequences of the person’s behavior without attributing bad motive, and be ready to change or expand your interpretation based on what you hear.

People are often concerned that if they advocate their views they will be seen as controlling. Yet, if they only inquire they won’t be able to influence their desired outcomes. By combining high quality advocacy and inquiry, people can create organizational cultures of mutual learning and action. They can express strong views that are helpful and persuasive, while also being open to influence and discovering where they might be wrong.