He hijacked a school bus. 

Five months ago a young man boarded a school bus in South Carolina and, at gunpoint, demanded the driver take him to a neighboring city. In the back of the bus, 18 elementary kids.

As a parent of kids who ride school buses, this is absolutely horrifying. To my relief, this event ended as well as it could. To my surprise, it wasn’t local law enforcement who ended it. It was the kids. 

Shortly after the incident, Good Morning America interviewed the bus driver. The driver noted that the kids were scattered around the bus, some in the back of the bus, when the incident began. The young man who hijacked the bus made a tactical mistake after boarding. He directed the kids to take seats at the front.

The kids, now closer to the young man, started peppering him with questions. Are you going to hurt us? Are you going to hurt the bus driver? Where are we going? The questions kept coming and coming. If you have young kids, you know what this is like. A river of simple questions. Questions that the bus driver believes ultimately annoyed the young man enough that he stopped the bus and ordered everybody off.

Here’s the point: Often our thinking alone isn’t thorough enough to hold up under the scrutiny of questions. Especially simple questions. 

If you are leading people, you don’t have to be the smartest person in the room. You don’t even have to be “smart” per se. You do have to have the guts to ask simple questions. Questions that you might think make you look foolish. 

Questions lead to talking. And, talking is thinking according to author and psychologist, Jordan Peterson. The more questions we respond to the better our thinking becomes on any topic. 

If simple questions can deescalate a hijacking, they will also help your team member work through their proposal, presentation, report, or decision.

Ask more simple questions.