A few weeks ago, I shared 15 questions that drive innovation, and y’all loved them. (If you missed them, you can check them out here) I wanted to share more powerful questions that will change perspectives, challenge assumptions, instill trust, and get you out of trapped thinking.
Whether you’re a leader or a team member, these questions will pull your organization forward.
In this episode, I’ll give you questions to add to your innovation bank, so you can be the leader people describe as “the leader who ask the best questions!”.
When we are at work and we feel successful, more success will come. - Jen Thornton
0:00:00.6 S1: Back by popular demand, 15 questions that drive thought-provoking conversations.
0:00:09.3 S2: Well, comeback friends, this is your place or cutting edge tools, exercises, best practices and modern leadership strategies, because in the world is changing, it's time to bring our leadership styles along for the right, whether you're a company leader, a corporate visionary and entrepreneur. This show gives you new insights into the neuroscience and a language of leadership, plus practical steps and tips to lead your team in a car Poway, but also help you keep your people happy, can engage all while achieving your biggest goals. I'm your host, Jen thorn in the talent strategist, the brain-based executive coach, speaker and the founder of the O our coaching. Now, let's fix leadership.
0:00:50.8 S1: A few episodes back, I released a podcast of 15 questions that sparked innovation and you all loved it. In the episode, I talk about why Why questions make us feel like we are three-year-olds who just cut our brother's hair off with parasites, we found... My profound apologies to my brother on that one, I also get into the adult version of the why question that we have all been taught to say, and that has helped me understand... It makes me cringe when I think about how many times I said that early in my career, so in today's developments and in research, all in the neuroscience of leadership, we can ask questions, I actually drive openness and thought. So today, my gift to you is 15 questions that drive discovery, grab your pen and paper and let's start working through them. So the first category I'm gonna offer is assumptions, and when you're trying to look into discovery and discover something, you've gotta get honest with assumptions, so here's two questions in this category, question number one, What assumptions do you hold about the team? Oh, that's a big one. Ask someone that question and see what they have to say, that will be an interesting answer, it's also a brave question to ask, so...
0:02:13.6 S1: Go be brave too. The next question under assumption is what the situation be like If your assumptions were not true, that's a good one, that's a great way to kinda stop someone in their track and get them to kind of look at things a little different and change their perspective. What about situations? How do you discover what's going on with situations... One of the things you can ask is who is impacted by this situation than who is important, what else is important is the what? So the next question you could ask is, What is important in this situation? I love this question for about 10001 reasons, but one of the reasons I love it so much is we too often think about a situation and we lose sight of what's important about it, and we're solving the wrong thing, but when you start a discovery around a situation with a question of what is important in this situation, it helps you get to that bottom line really quickly and helps you start to move through it. What about discovering someone's feelings or the implication of those feelings... Here's a couple of questions in that category, what can we do to build trust in this situation, and I can't tell you how often I get requests to do trust workshops.
0:03:37.1 S1: How do you instill trust? How do you build trust? One of the ways you can do it is by asking the question, What can we do to build trust in this situation, because that gets to the heart of why we're not trusting each other. The next question is, what feelings can you share that would help us understand your perspective, understanding someone else's perspective, discovering what their perspective is, helps you understand where they're coming from, it's that discovery that we're working on these discovery questions, and that discovery helps you probably learn something new or maybe look at it in a different way. What about... You want to share facts and experiences, you wanna discover someone's facts and experiences, here's a couple of questions in that category, what are the facts as you see them? Oh, I love that, because all of us see facts in a different way, so asking someone what the facts are, the way they see them again, helps you discover their perspective, what situation influenced your thinking? This starts to get into the root of things, maybe someone's had this situation in the past and it didn't go well, so they're in deep fear or they're in deep protection mode, and that's holding them back, a question like that would help discover what's holding them back and help you move them forward.
0:05:02.1 S2: Let's take a quick break from the conversation, do you have new leaders on your team and you could see their potential, you can see their runway, but you can not figure out how to get them across the finish line, reach out to three or four coaching and learn more about our brain-based competency-focused executive coaching.
0:05:21.8 S1: Another one of my favorite coaching questions, and it's a great discovery question, is, what led you to believe this? Too often, someone makes assumptions over something they've heard or something they've seen, and so they believe something that may not be true, it's their current fact, but through conversation and discovering what their current fact is or what made them believe something is true, when you discover that again, you can help move them forward, what about ideas and exploring the possibility of ideas, a question you can ask in this category is, what is the problem, this idea, a dresses... There is a joke inside of 304 with our team, and our joke is we have more ideas than time and money, because we could sit there for days and come up with a million ideas, but then the hard part happens, we start to have to act on those and start to solution those and actually make those ideas come to life. And so one of the things we talk about is, Here's 20 amazing ideas, but what are we addressing? What problem are we addressing and which one of these ideas actually makes that happen? How attached are you to this idea...
0:06:38.8 S1: I love this for her high level executives because they are so busy, their brains are so full, they get attached to something really quickly, and sometimes they have to really work on slowing down and recognizing why they're attached to an idea and does it even matter? And this question is a great one to ask anyone at any level, but really asking some of your high-level executives or if you are a high level executive, asking your peers, how attached are you to this idea... It'll be interesting to see the response. It's one of those questions. It'll stop people in their tracks. What about desire? Discovering someone's desire. So I have several questions in this category, how would you describe success in this situation? I love having a group of people describe something individually and then putting it all on the table and recognizing that no one describes anything the same way, which is why it's really hard to get team alignment, but this starts to help you get team alignment and discover what that alignment is really early in the game, how can we guide this situation to a new positive outcome? Sometimes we get stuck in what's negative and people just wanna re-hash and rehash and re-say it, and rehash it, and re-say it all makes me crazy.
0:07:57.3 S1: And so to stop that kind of track thinking, ask the question, How can we guide this situation to a new or positive outcome that stops the thinking and creates an opening for a different thought, how about in the best of all possible worlds, what is our desired outcome and it kinda goes back to that question a couple of questions ago, where it comes around really discovering everyone's desire and discovering how to get people aligned on the same page. And the 15th question I have for you today on how to create more discovery is what would give us the feeling we were successful, and when we were at work and we feel successful, success comes more success comes as we have success. It is one of those things that builds on and build on and build on, so knowing what would give a team the feeling of success, not only helps that project succeed, but every project after it. So add these discovery questions to your bank of innovation questions, and again, if you don't have that bank, go back a few podcast and get the podcast where I offer 15 innovation questions. And when you're using these types of questions, you'll become that leader that people talk about, and when they talk about it behind their back, they're like, Man, I love conversations with that leader because they always ask the best questions, so be the leader who has the best questions and go out there and fix leadership.
0:09:40.0 S2: Thanks for listening to Les big leadership. By hanging out with me today, you're a party on your path, if you're looking to learn more and to see if your company is a good fit for our coaching and leadership education and Hey, visit 304 2nd Cam if you got value on this podcast, share it with a friend. And it would mean the world to me if you leave a buffalo review and a rating on iTunes, thanks again for listening, and I appreciate your work in fixing leadership.
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