Humble Inquiry, 3rd Edition: The Gentle Art of Asking Instead of Telling (The Humble Leadership Series) - Softcover

Schein, Edgar H.; Schein, Peter A.

Softcover

ISBN 13: 9798890570956

Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2025

Synopsis

Most leaders assume they're good communicators. What they're actually doing—most of the time—is telling. And telling, even when well-intentioned, is a subtle power move that shuts people down, withholds critical information, and quietly erodes trust.

Humble Inquiry makes the case for a different approach: asking questions you genuinely don't know the answers to, from a posture of curiosity rather than authority.

What you'll find inside this fully updated third edition:

• The ORJI cycle—why conversations go wrong in a split second, and how to interrupt the pattern
• A levels-of-relationship model to diagnose where your team is—and how to move toward real openness and trust
• Why hierarchy and “tell” culture actively undermine psychological safety—and what to do about it
• A new chapter on humble inquiry in remote and hybrid work (spoiler: it works—and may work better)
• Reader exercises, twelve mini case studies, and a discussion guide for teams

Best for: managers, leaders, coaches, healthcare professionals, and anyone navigating complex, interdependent teams. This is a mindset shift, not a script.

Foreword by Michael Bungay Stanier. Based on Edgar H. Schein's fifty years of research at MIT. Over 300,000 copies sold.

About this title

About the Author

Edgar H. Schein was chairman and cofounder of the Organizational Culture and Leadership Institute (OCLI). He was the Society of Sloan Fellows Professor of Management Emeritus at the MIT Sloan School of Management and has received multiple lifetime achievement awards from associations such as the American Society of Training Directors, the Academy of Management, and the International Leadership Association. 

Peter A. Schein is the cofounder and COO of the OCLI. He has thirty years of industry experience in marketing, strategy, and corporate development at technology pioneers such as Apple and Sun Microsystems Inc. (Oracle).

Edition details

• Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
• Publication date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 13: 9798890570956
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 3
• Number of pages: 176