Doubting Thomas -When questioning is good for change and continuous improvement

Since my father in law baptized me as Doubting Thomas I have taken my nick name as a strength that I have to use effectively in my personal and professional life. I suggest all my subordinates to question me and question everything they read, because this exercise will drive them to gain confidence in what they do and also to create innovative ideas that improve old ones.

Make questioning and positive debate a routine in your daily work. And make it not only with your subordinates but also with yourself.

There are clear advantages:

1. You get better explanations and defense from ideas discussed

2. You find ways to improve possible weaknesses

3. You create a better team environment that drive the organization to enrich from the team member's point of views and team members to be better prepared when they present their works.

Just a story to illustrate this idea:

- Henry Kissinger, Secretary of State in the Nixon Administration asked once to one of his employees if he could improve the document he just gave him.The employee doubted and said: - yes if I have more time.

Next time when he returned to Kissinger's office he was asked about the same subject: - can you do it better? This time he said that it will be almost impossible but with more time he could improve it. Kissinger asked him to do it.

The third time the employee did not doubt and delivered the report saying it was not possible to improve it.

Many times in my projects I question team member's point of views to look for new approaches that make my team to defend their ideas with new and stronger statements or to look for out of the box ideas that finally improve our proposals and solutions.