Humble Inquiry

This book might be challenging beginning with the title, as we do not have an adequate translation into Romanian of the word “humble”. It took some years, at the beginning of my career, to befriend in me the concepts of leadership and humbleness. Let alone gentleness. In our culture, having all the answers and sharing them with the subordinates portrays a strong and powerful leader. Schein’s perspective nurtures the opposite view and practice.

I used to inquire a lot, but this book helped me consciously differentiate between humble inquiry, diagnostic inquiry, confrontational inquiry and process-oriented inquiry, so that I can choose to deploy the best approach for the outcome I intend. Needles to say, the humbleness paradigm was most impactful not only to what I wanted to get but especially to whom I wanted to become and help others become while getting it. The question for deciding to read this book or not is if one really wants to learn how to ask better questions, if one sees more value in the question than in the answer.

Cosmin Alexandru

Co-founder Teamology Institute