4100weeks

What is your sentence?

This is a great 2 minute piece on motivation and what motivates you. It is based on Dan Pink's great new book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us.

Just Ask Leadership - Interview with Author Gary Cohen

Just Ask Leadership - Why Great Managers Ask the Right Questions

Gary, what experiences inspired you to write the book?

In growing our business from 2 to 2,200 employees, Rick Diamond and I were continually reinventing ourselves. It is said that every time you double in size you need to replace every system and process that you use. We grew 50% compounded annually for our first 12 years. You can imagine the amount of learning we had to do as owners/leaders of the business. In an effort to keep up, I attended Covey Leadership Institute, Disney Leadership Institute, Harvard  Business School, and the Aspen Institute (as a Crown Fellow). I had some incredible instructors, who asked terrific questions that motivated and challenged students, but I was never taught question-asking as a leadership skill. Growing up with learning differences (relating to poor graphomotor skills, low active working memory, and inattention), I relied on questions to succeed in school and build social connections. As a business owner, I used questions as much, if not more. I suspected there was a connection between question-asking and leadership, so I interviewed more than 100 successful leaders. They confirmed that I was onto something and inspired me to write a book. Just Ask Leadership is a compilation of these leaders’ question-asking wisdom and an effort to inform readers about a skill that is practiced by the best leaders in this country and rarely, if ever, taught. 

From your research and experience why do find that many leaders are "tell" rather than "ask" oriented in their communications?

As kids, we have an insatiable curiosity. Every parent knows this with the “why, why, why” coming from their toddlers. Over time, parents grow tired of explaining and their response becomes “because I said so!” Telling of this sort is also favored in schools. Our school system was originally designed for the industrial age with the intention of preparing students for factory jobs. The goal was not to teach about the art of the question, but to learn the right answers. Whatever the teacher said was what students were supposed to copy down and internalize. When they entered the workforce, these teenagers followed instructions and were rewarded for doing it well. Even today, we’re rewarded far more for providing good answers than asking good questions. So it’s not surprising that many leaders are oriented toward telling rather than asking. We also have a neurological inclination toward telling. Our brains are wired for two main functions: storing information based on invariant patterns and predicting what will come next. These two functions lead the brain to want to believe it has the answer. When you are finishing someone’s sentence, you are using both of these key functions. First, you are associating what the other person is saying with some past stored memory, and then you predict an answer based on where you think the person is going with their thoughts. If you are extraverted, you might finish the sentence out loud; if you’re introverted, you’re more likely to finish it in your head. Either way, you want to believe you know what the person is going to say—rather than revise your beliefs and memory-storage system. Everyone wants to provide answers, including leaders. To do otherwise requires considerable self-discipline.    According to a survey I conducted, only about 30% of leaders say that they ask more than tell. And yet 97% of these same leaders prefer to be asked rather than told what to do. I think leaders need to think deeply about these results.

What is the most interesting feedback you have received from readers and leaders after completion of the book?

Of the 100 or so leaders I interviewed for the book, only two had thought deeply about the subject of questioning beforehand. Some of the leaders I interviewed called to thank me later for making them consciously competent about a technique they have been doing for years unconsciously. It requires a different mindset to succeed as a leader (asking questions in order to motivate others) vs. the one needed to rise up the ranks of an organization as an answer-provider. If leaders realize this early enough in their careers, they can keep from burning out—which is what commonly happens to leaders who try to provide all the answers for their organizations (a near impossibility with the pace of business and information today).

I think that you make a good point that some leaders do ASK questions, however their misguided intent is manipulation as opposed to gaining insight and buy-in.  What advice do you give in this situation?

Just Ask Leadership should not be confused with the Socratic Method. According to Plato, Socrates did not know the answers to the questions he asked, but that’s hard to believe. I have had many teachers use the Socratic Method and I know if the class diverted them from their learning target, we would quickly learn that there was a right and a wrong answer. Often for leaders, there are no right answers only different choices. Smart educated employees don’t want to be manipulated into a cat-and-mouse game of finding your answer. If you have the answer and aren’t willing to explore other possibilities, TELL your employees. To ask under these circumstances is to play games, and your employees will resent you for it.  

Why do some leaders roll their eyes when building a great CULTURE is suggested as a means to performance improvement and building a great company?

Mike Harper, who built ConAgra from $500 million to $20 Billion in 17 years, said to me that the greatest tool in the CEO’s tool bag is the culture. The reason less successful leaders roll their eyes is that they don’t understand that some “soft skills” are essential to creating lasting, hard results. By asking more and better questions, leaders will create a culture that is engaged, aligned, and accountable. And there will be far less eye rolling in that culture.

In addition to the advice you provided here, what is the greatest failure of leadership in businesses?

Leaders don’t recognize that leadership is not about being trusted; it is about trusting those that work for you. It is about having the courage to be vulnerable enough not to know the answers, but to move others to their answers. Leaders often position themselves as teachers and, in the process, forget to engage in new learning. We all have blind spots and, as leaders, they’re not often corrected, unless we seek counsel. My partner and I hired coaches from the onset, and they made more than we did for the first three years. We continued with coaches even after we enjoyed considerable success. Leaders who assume they’ve learned all they need to know and get complacent often get surprised (if not undone) by blind spots. They can’t expect friends and colleagues to give them the objective feedback they need.  

Are you working on another book or do you have plans to do so in the near future?

For the moment, I have put the idea of another book on hold and continue to promote the book and concept Just Ask! 

What Got You Here - Won't Get You There

I have used the book What Got You Here - Won't Get You There by Marshall Goldsmith for executive/managerial  development with several companies and find it to be a great resource. Used correctly it's like hiring an executive consultant but for less than $20.

The book contains several exercises that allow you to identify your weaknesses and then it provides the step by step means to convert those issues into strengths.  If you are working on your personal leadership skills or developing a team you should utilize this book by Marshall Goldsmith.

10 broad strategies that were used to build multimillion-dollar businesses

Author Rene Martin asks  . . . "Is launching a business today a high-stakes risk?" The answer she gives to her own question . . . "Of course. But it's never been easy to build a successful business, in any era or in any economy." She goes on to say that many recently unemployed individuals are avoiding "quietly joining the ranks of the unemployed." Instead they are taking control of their careers by becoming their own boss. they're resolving to seize control over their career and become their own boss.

Here are the 10 broad strategies taken from the entrepreneurs profiled in Martin's book The Risk Takers: 16 Women and Men Share Their Entrepreneurial Strategies for Success that were used to build multimillion-dollar businesses:

1. Go on a treasure hunt and find an under-served niche
2. Spot a new trend and pounce
3. Just start!
4. Buck the conventional wisdom
5. Exploit your competitors' weakness and make it your strength
6. Hit 'em where they ain't
7. Save your bucks and get noticed without expensive advertising
8. Trust your gut
9. Never let adversity or failure defeat you
10. Never stop reinventing your company

You can read the full article here at CNN.com

10 minutes of Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us

Below is a fantastic 10 minute multimedia overview of Dan Pink's outstanding book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us (narrated by Dan). The book explains how intrinsic motivation works and how each of us can find the surest path to high performance, creativity, health and well-being.

Shhhh . . . listen

How important is listening to your personal and professional success?

Here's what Tom Peters has to say from his book The Little Big Things: 163 Ways to Pursue EXCELLENCE . . .

A few additional takeaways from the book's section called Self . . .

#21. You Are Your Product—Develop It.

#22. Job One: Amuse Yourself!

#23. Fitness Power = Staying Power.

#24. Mental Gymnastics, Urgency Of.

#25. You Are Your Story! So Work on It!

#26. Develop Your R.POV8—ASAP!

What is R.POV8? It means remarkable point-of-view captured in in 8 words or less. It's based on the quote from marketing guru Seth Godin "If you can't describe your position in 8 words or less, you don't have a position." Peters interprets this not as a marketing strategy, but as a "profound statement." He suggests you ask yourself, "is what I'm up to doing remarkably different. And can it be captured in simple compelling language. Four, six, eight, ten, no more than 15 words. Consider, working on your R.POV8 is far more important than any "strategic planning" exercise.