Key Questions to Stay Curious

photo of Rusty by Judi Madigan

How curious are you?

In my workshops on communication and achieving your goals I point out how important it is to listen with curiosity. We are most attentive when we are most curious. Instead of jumping to conclusions or judging before it's necessary, high performance leaders center their listening around staying curious.

How do you do that?

One way is by asking relevant questions. One of my mentors, Lester T. Shapiro (who wrote the book The Training Effectiveness Handbook) once said that the primary role of leaders is to ask relevant questions.

Here are some questions that I've found extremely relevant and that help me to remain curious:

What is your case?

We are always building a case and not always aware of the case that we're building or why. It might not even serve our best interests, and yet we can talk ourselves into anything. Stay curious about what you really want, what you think you want and (most importantly) is what you think is true really true?

What is your goal?

What do you want to achieve? Are you sure? Are you committed? Is your goal in this situation compatible with who you want to be known as?

What is your agenda?

What are you doing, consciously or unconsciously, to create the environment you just operate in? Is that what you want? What might you need to change to create your best possible world? Who can help? When will you begin?

What are your assumptions?

Interrogate your truth (as Susan Scott would say. For more on this see her great book Fierce Conversations). Identify possibilities, fallacies, misdirections, lies, hallucinations, dreams, rationalizations, and all fuzzy thinking. Stop making shit up!

What is unknown?

Identify the missing pieces. What's happening in the background? What has led to the current situation? Know what you don't know so that you can learn it. What do you need? Figure out what other people are looking for in the situation and if you can all reach a mutually beneficial outcome. Sometimes we're drawn into a competition that isn't even needed.

What do you need?

What do you need and where can you find it ini order to achieve your goals? Who can help? Be very honest about what resources you must have, and which are simply desirable but not critical. The first step to getting what you need, in order to get what you want, is to know what you need.

What are you curious about?

Stay open and curious no matter what. Consider wild, fun, miraculous possibilities. Stop judging and simply accept. You can always evaluate later on. That inner judge or inner critic is not gone for good, just on a break. Make the most of it. Challenge assumptions. Challenge limitations. Challenge imperfections. Smile.

That last point, to smile, is not a humorous throwaway. I mean it. Smile. See what a difference it makes. And for heaven's sake -- stay curious!

-- Doug Smith

Comments

Better Feedback

The trouble with feedback is that we don't want it, or if we do we don't know how to give it, and don't know when to start or stop it. Ah, but what if we did? What if we could build a high-feedback culture where people were open to feedback and knew how to put it to immediate use? We can. It takes practice. It takes experience. It takes caring about how we do feedback and who we share it with. Here's one thing you can change immediately that will dramatically improve the feedback frequency on your team: ask for advice more often...and then really listen. Don't even call it feedback. Ask for advice and not only will everyone have some, once you show that you're open to it, they'll ask for advice in return. What's your best tip on giving and receiving feedback? -- doug smith

Avoid the Trap

It's easy to fall into it. A juicy bit of information about someone you know hits the air. Do you comment? Do you defend? Do you ignore the situation? Gossip is a trap that tricks our tongues into poisoning ourselves. Honor the absent, don't talk about them. If you wouldn't say it TO them, keep it to yourself. Gossip is a trap; don't fall in. -- doug smith

Success Is Learned

Success is learned, as well as achieved. We learn by striving, studying, practicing, planning, performing -- all the many ways to learn in order to approve. Each successful goal achieved teaches us more about success. What works best for us, what gets other people involved, what we'd best plan and what we need to improvise. Turn by turn, goal by goal, we learn how to do better. What have you learned today about achieving your goals? -- doug smith

Think It Through and Ask About it, too

The best leaders solve more problems than they cause. That may be more obvious than common. I've kept a journal for most of my life. In that series of journals are accounts of decisions made by leaders often without consulting the constituents they involve, usually with a sense of urgency that distorts all common sense. Lives disrupted, business interrupted, customers stranded -- all in the name of profit and expediency. Of course profit is necessary. Naturally, we share a sense of urgency to get things done before everything changes. But it is ever so easy to cause more problems than we solve if we don't stop to think them thru. Do the proper analysis. Create mutually beneficial solutions. Engage everyone involved. I never met a leader who wanted to be remembered as terrible, but I sure have met plenty who are. -- doug smith

What's Possible

Problems that seem unsolvable at the micro-level may be manageable at their macro-level. Check your perspective. Gauge your distance. Focus on what is possible. Ask the questions you'd ask about any mystery. What's going on? How did we get here? Where do we want to go? What other questions do you ask in order to move from impossible to possible? -- doug smith

Reasonable

Leaders love stretch goals. It does make sense to help our team members grow, through ambitious projects and next-level assignments. But if you've ever had a leader take that too far you know it doesn't motivate anyone to frustrate them. It's not empowering to crush under an impossible task. Set reasonable expectations or face disappointment. Whether it's with someone else, or even yourself. Isn't an outrageous promise a kind of lie? Let's do what we can do, and be careful about promising the unreasonable. -- doug smith

Show Me The Data

Some leaders like to say that they rely on their gut instincts. "I'll just know when it's right," they'll say. Experience can tell us that we know what we're doing because of how we feel. How we feel, though, might not be our best guide. If gut instincts are right, they are right about remembering a similar circumstance and what you decided. It's worth asking "is this circumstance really the same?" and "how sure am I about this?" and most importantly, "am I really listening to intuition or is it something else -- like a hidden bias?" One company I've worked with had a phrase to rely on: "show me the data." What do the facts say? What are we missing? Is the information we are relying on reliable? Does it say what we think it says? Unless you are deciding what to eat, you probably should not rely on your gut. Find the facts. Test your instincts. Interrogate your assumptions. If it's important why not be sure? -...

Consensus on Change

Which is harder to accomplish, change, or consensus on the change? With most people agreeing and supporting a change, the change would certainly be easier. But is it really easier to achieve that consensus? Isn't it faster to just impose the change whether people like it or not? No. Consensus for change is tougher to achieve than change. If you take the time and make the effort to achieve that consensus, the chances are that you are making a better, more resilient change. There's no need to manipulate people who see the value of the change. -- d oug smith

Decisions and Solutions

The decisions you make during problem solving are as important as the solutions you develop, even if they do not lead to solutions. Decisions around relationships, around results, around permanence and transition. Do you want everyone to be better off because of the resolution of the problem, or do you just want a quick fix? Do you value how people respond to your efforts? Do you really know more about the impact and urgency of the situation than the people who will be most affected by your solutions? Decide carefully. You know that, and I know that, but sometimes we do forget, don't we? -- doug smith

Are We Perfect Yet?

I've said it often and it is still true: there are no perfect people, there are no perfect processes, and there are no perfect products. Nothing in this life is perfect. In a way, isn't that perfect? It means that it is completely up to us to make things better. It is within our need to improve processes, to develop people, to create new products. If we don't do it, who will? That means we might need to overcome our ego's need to feel perfect by examining exactly where we stand. How are we doing? What does the feedback say? Where are we on this road of improvement? Critical thinking requires some self-evaluation. Not to hurt our feelings, but to develop our capacity. Are we perfect yet? Of course not, but it's ever so much fun to be on the road headed in that direction. -- doug smith

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