Inquiry and Advocacy
Effective communication is vital for managers and employees in organizations to perform the required management functions such as organizing, leading, controlling, and planning. Communication involves all means by which information is passed across the network of employees and managers in businesses. Thus, effective communication is a building block for successful companies. Inquiry and advocacy are two primary communication behaviors with vital implications for organizational, individual, teams, and interpersonal effectiveness. An inquiry is actively seeking clarification and information from colleagues and other resources, while advocacy stating one’s views, perspectives, concerns, and ideas to other people to get them on the same page and enhance situational awareness (Warren, 2017). This paper discusses the features of both productive and unproductive inquiry and advocacy, and the impact of the behaviors on overall strategies of the organization and individual performance.
Team projects can be complex and require the contribution of every team member for success. Controversial issues arise in team discussions, and a high level of advocacy and fewer inquiry results in people learning little or nothing about their differences. Team members could feel that their team leader is imposing ideas on them without considering their perspective, which leads to withdrawal or conflict. When there is a high level of inquiry during a team discussion or meeting, and the leaders do not take an advocating position, it is difficult to know where others stand, resulting in impatience and frustration due to lack of progress. Thus, it is essential to understand the balance of inquiry and advocacy to determine the best way to contribute at a given time. If people ask questions without stating their ideas, advocating one’s views helps the team move forward. Therefore, in team discussions or board meetings, organizations put aside some time for question and answer sessions to ensure every person is on the same page.
While the balance of inquiry and advocacy is vital for production discussions, so is the quality. Quality inquiry and advocacy are non-confrontational, timely, clear, respectful, and direct. Managers and employees should state their views and be open to influence to maintain high-quality advocacy. Advocating effectively requires one to provide the information they see as salient and explain how conclusions were made. It is essential to make points one at a time, as asking people for their reaction after several points confuse. High-quality inquiry comprises open-ended questions that seek to test one’s understanding of other people’s views, that probe how others got to their opinions, that solicit everyone’s perspectives in a team, and that encourage the challenge of one’s ideas positively. An inquiry should expand and not limit responses, and promote actions instead of eliciting excuses. Quality inquiry facilitates insights, generates information for informed choices, increases commitment, and enhances adoptions of new opinions.
In my opinion, I feel inquiry should involve questions such as “what is your view to what I just explained,” “in what ways is your idea different,” “what was your thinking on the view you shared,” “what do you feel it takes to complete the project,” as opposed to “do you understand what I said,” “don’t you agree with the idea,” “was your thinking because of A or B,” or “why don’t we do Y.” The questions show the difference between high and low-quality inquiry used in teams and meetings. Having high-quality inquiry ensures every person within the organization gives their perspectives, and the team can choose the best options for the desired results. Therefore, quality inquiry improves individual performance as one share their opinions and learn from the views of others. As such, organizations can include training and education sessions for the employees, where they ask questions regarding general work performance or specific roles to ensure they are well equipped for their tasks.
Conversations with a high level of advocacy move quickly from one point to the other. While inquiry may slow a meeting, it improves the level of learning. In advocacy characterized discussions, people often state their opinions and not what they think about each other’s ideas. Such meetings lack depth and focus and make little progress on any one problem. Effective communication should couple inquiry and advocacy by encouraging members to question ideas, ensure they have understood meanings accurately. Encouraging inquiry produces a deeper understanding of concepts, reduce defensiveness and conflict, and demonstrate openness to acquiring new knowledge. As such, inquiry and advocacy may influence organizations to implement strategies that require active listening. For instance, when a company wants to propose new policies, managers conduct meetings with their employees to tell them their views and ask for their opinions on implementing the strategies.
Workers may be reluctant to ask questions for fear of being perceived as lacking initiative, uninformed, or challenging the credibility of colleagues and the management. To minimize such concerns, leaders implement rewarding systems that help in emphasizing the importance of acknowledging mistakes and learning from them by rewarding those who perform exemplary or show improvement in their performance. Therefore, individuals can use the concept of inquiry to gain more information about a task to improve individual performance. In contrast, managers can use advocacy to ensure people do their duties as required, thus enhancing organizational performance.
Inquiry and advocacy affect individual performance and organizational strategies, both negatively and positively. When individuals ask questions during meetings, it enhances their understanding of the issue and other people’s opinions but could slow down the task at hand. When people ask a few or no questions, then they might not understand the topic, and the person giving opinions is not aware if people are on the same page with the views. Consequently, when advocating, one may be too aggressive rather than assertive, and others may fear to ask questions, even in areas they do not understand. Lack of advocacy, on the other hand, result in scattered opinions with no one to bring the ideas together for better progress. As such, organizations have to implement the most suitable strategies to ensure that both inquiry and advocacy are balance, for instance, training programs, reward programs, and question and answer sessions during meetings.
Conclusion
Inquiry involves asking questions while advocacy giving opinions. Both communication behaviors are essential for improved individual and organizational performance. Quality inquiry and advocacy should facilitate acquiring knowledge, sharing of ideas, and understanding the meanings of each other’s perspectives. Asking questions ensures all team members give their view about an issue providing better solutions to a problem. Aggressive advocacy makes people afraid of inquiring about essential topics that influence the organization. Advocacy should be assertive and show openness to influence. Inquiry affects the overall strategies of the organization since leaders need to implement policies that balance both communication behavior to produce the best results.