Are you hanging on to a familiar way of doing your work or leading your team because it’s comfortable? If it’s been a year or more since you experienced a significant change for yourself or your team, you might be missing out on great opportunities to build morale, build your career, and enjoy your work. Managing change is critical for your success—too much change, too quickly creates instability. But resisting natural, healthy change will prevent growth and stagnate your team.

Resisting Natural Change

Off the east coast of North Carolina and Virginia, a set of barrier islands known as the Outer Banks stretches over a couple hundred miles, guarding the inner sound from the worst of Atlantic storms. On a recent visit, our brother-in-law Steve, who’s visited these beaches and dunes for decades, took me on a driving tour and pointed out some changes he’s seen over the years.

He pointed across the road at a five-foot rise of sand you could walk across in a few steps. “To climb that dune, you used to have to work at it and scramble on all fours. It was huge.” We drove a little further and earth-moving equipment worked to keep blown sand from obliterating the narrow strip of asphalt road as the wind seemed to fight to reclaim and reshape the island.

Then he showed me the Oregon Inlet where private deep-sea fishing boats enter and leave the sound. “In the early 1800s the inlets all closed up and there weren’t’ any islands at all. It was a straight stretch of sand. Then, in 1846, a hurricane carved out the inlet. These days, sand keeps filling it in, and they have to dredge it out regularly so the fishing boats can get in and out.”

The Outer Banks are a land of change. And it takes an incredible amount of work to prevent that change. And some day, given a big enough storm, the change will probably happen anyway.

The visit reminded me of the mountain west where I grew up. In the mountains, lodgepole pine forests evolved to burn periodically. Quick burns opened the forest floor to new plants, refreshed the soil, helped cones to disperse seeds, and prevented disease or insect infestations. Decades of fire prevention along with climate change, created huge, intense burns and stands of diseased dead trees. Resisting that natural change came at an enormous cost.

Resisting Business Change

You’re certainly familiar with companies like Blockbuster and Kodak who resisted change and faced extinction. It’s easy to shake your head and wonder how those leaders could have let that happen.

But the CrowdStrike bug that crashed Windows PCs, snarled airlines, and interfered with hospitals’ ability to access patient records had a similar cause. Microsoft tried to shift its approach to security two decades ago, but regulators prevented them from doing so.

Why?

Because the software giant had always allowed open access to their computers’ kernel and some companies had built their entire business model on that access. (Access that Apple and Linux have never allowed.)

When Microsoft tried to do what Apple and Linux have done, the companies who relied on kernel access went to regulators who ruled in favor of the status quo, rather than allowing developing technology to address the situation. And that decision created the conditions that allowed the CrowdStrike crash to happen. (For a full analysis, check out Ben Thompson on Stratechery: Crashes and Competition.)

Again, it’s easy to point the finger at regulators who get stuck in time and cling to the way things are.

But intentional change isn’t easy.

Build Your Ability to Lead Change

In our research for Courageous Cultures, 67% of respondents reported that their manager was stuck in “that’s the way we’ve always done it” thinking.

And you don’t have to look very hard to find places you might be stuck. I’ve been guilty of these at times:

• Holding on to a team member that you should promote or give other opportunities outside your team—because you don’t know what you’d do without them.
• Hanging on to team member that you really should move off the team—because then you’d have to find someone new and train them.
• Continuing the stale team-building activity everyone loved five years ago—because it always worked before.
• Refusing to decide—because going one way or the other will take effort.
• Resisting new ideas from team members—because hearing them out might mean you don’t have the answers you thought you did or will require you to act.
• Hoping against all evidence that the recent changes you’ve experienced will “go back to normal” – because acknowledging the change will require energy and effort to explore a new path forward.

But ignoring or resisting these moments of natural change won’t work forever.

The status quo’s comfort and ease are illusions. If you don’t invest in managing change, the changes will happen to you.

That team member will leave. Or they’ll stay and everyone else will leave.

Your credibility suffers. Your career lags. And you’re stuck frantically trying to do what used to work, working harder, with more stress, and missing out on what’s possible.

Two Questions to Find the Flow and Know What’s Next

One of the easiest ways to lean into natural change is to ask yourself this question:

What are you up to?

As a team leader, manager, or executive—what are you getting up to?

• Is there a problem you’re trying to solve?
• Are you helping your team to grow?
• An opportunity to explore?
• Some improvement or process you’re implementing?
• What are you learning?

When you’re up to something, you’re managing change. You can’t help it. You’re moving, flowing, and growing. Once you’re up to something, you can start managing change:

• Challenge yourself and your team to answer strategic or these UGLY questions to uncover possibilities:
• Ask your team for their I.D.E.A.s.
• Consider competing values and priorities.
• Make decisions about what matters most.

When you get up to something, you collaborate with natural change and create the future, rather than have it happen to you.

A second question you can ask yourself to find the flow of natural change is:

What’s happening in my industry?

No matter what kind of work you do, there’s something new to learn. Technology changes. Trends shift. Someone somewhere is innovating. And it’s easier than ever to learn what’s happening.

You might not apply what you learn immediately. Changes in the business environment, shifting tastes, or new AI applications may not affect your work tomorrow (though they could).

But knowing what’s happening and being informed will give you the perspective to be better at your work and be a better leader for your team.

What if My Boss Isn’t Managing Change and Doesn’t Want To?

If you want to get up to something or start learning more about what’s happening in your industry, but you worry that your boss just wants you to “focus on doing what needs to be done,” there are two possibilities:

You need better results.

We’ve worked with many leaders who were eager to get up to something new, but weren’t succeeding at their current work. You’ll be much more influential in selling a new idea or approach if your current work is solid. Master that, then build on your success.

You’re doing well and your manager fears change.

If you can objectively show your success, but your manager still wants you to limit your focus to doing what you’re asked, they might be the one hanging on to what they know.

In this case, keep doing your work well—and get up to something anyhow. You’ll have opportunities—the world needs more thoughtful, innovative problem solvers than ever. “Just shut up and do your work” isn’t a path to the future. What you learn will serve you and your team.

And you don’t need permission to learn.

Your Turn

Managing change is a critical leadership skill. Sticking with what’s familiar feels safe and comfortable, but change is inevitable. You can lean into change and become a more innovative, creative, and adaptable leader by taking initiative to move and actively learning.

How about you? We’d love to know one of your favorite ways for managing change and leaning into the future.

And if you want to help your team or organization drive innovation and improve results:

The post Managing Change: How to Cultivate Forward Thinking Leadership appeared first on Let's Grow Leaders.

In our Courageous Cultures research, 67% said their manager operates around the notion of “this is the way we’ve always done it.” That’s not just a lack of imagination. It’s hard to solve a problem differently when you’re holding on to outdated assumptions. If you want your team to get better at strategic thinking, start by helping them challenge assumptions.

Here are seven of our favorite questions to help your team reframe problems and consider alternative perspectives

7 Questions For More Strategic Thinking

1. How would our competitors approach this problem?

This assumption-buster nudges your team to consider overlooked opportunities. Understanding a competitor’s angle can be incredibly insightful, sparking creativity and perhaps, a bit of that winning spirit.

This is one of our favorite questions to ignite strategic thinking because it’s not only an “I wonder” question. Because guess what? Your competitors probably ARE faced with a similar problem. And these days, it’s not that hard to poke around and see what they’re doing.

This question also promotes strategic thinking, as you consider why your competitors might approach problems differently.

In Courageous Cultures terminology, this is a great question to ask as part of the Y- in Own the U.G.L.Y. Where are we missing the Yes?

2. How would we handle this issue if our budget was cut in half?

This provocative question is a call for efficiency and prioritization. This question encourages your team to think lean and imagine scrappy, cost-effective solutions. Sometimes, a little budgetary pressure can hatch the most brilliant ideas.

3. If we had unlimited resources, how would we solve this problem?

This strategic thinking question is the flip side of the one above. When constraints are lifted, the sky’s the limit for creativity. It allows the team to think without barriers and then work backward, scaling grand visions to match our resource constraints.

4. What would happen if we did the opposite of our initial plan?

This question invites the team to view the problem from an entirely different angle, potentially revealing unexpected solutions. It’s about challenging the norm and the beauty of 180-degree thinking.

Encourage your team to think past the sunk costs and consider a do-over. This kind of strategic thinking is remarkably liberating. A related question is “What if we DIDN’T do it this way?”

5. What would future generations criticize about our current approach?

This assumption buster instills a sense of legacy and responsibility. It encourages your team to think beyond the immediate and into the long-term impact of their decisions. It’s about making decisions that our successors will thank us for.

This is a great way to expand your team’s thinking to more sustainable, inclusive solutions.

6. If we could only choose one aspect of our project to succeed, what should it be and why?

This is a great way to get your team thinking about the MITs (most important things). Identifying the core element that defines the success of the entire project can help the team focus on what truly matters. It’s like finding the keystone in an arch; without it, everything else crumbles.

A related question, “Which elements of this project should we say “no” to? Note: We have an entire chapter in our upcoming book, Powerful Phrases for Dealing With Workplace Conflict about how to say no, for a more strategic yes.

7. What would we do differently if we were to start over with the knowledge we have now?

This is a look down the mountain question. Help your team reflect on the journey. This strategic thinking question is a recognition that wisdom today results from yesterday’s lessons.

When you’re working hard and moving fast, it’s not always easy to take a step back and challenge assumptions. When you’re feeling stuck in a rut, or results are suffering, invite your team to show up more curious and with these strategic questions.

What would you add for #8? What’s your favorite question to foster strategic thinking?

See Also: Year in Review: 7 Questions to Help Your Team Reflect on Success and Key Learnings

The post Assumption Busters: 7 Questions to Propel Your Team’s Strategic Thinking appeared first on Let's Grow Leaders.

Help Your Team Solve the Right Problem

00:54
How do we solve the right problem quickly and get ourselves and our team back to work? When people are confronted with problems, a lot of times you get one or two reactions from managers. They’ll get frustrated and lash out at their people or run back and forth searching for answers that are going to get their boss, customer, or employee off their back.

01:40
Of course, neither of those is productive. So what are we after? How are we going to take responsibility for solving problems, solving the right problems, determining the best person to own the problem, and working to resolve it? I want to give you a quick example when we talk about solving the right problems. Poncha was a respected nurse manager who treated her staff well, ran an efficient unit, and was good with patients, but her staff was upset because patient satisfaction scores had declined over the past two months. So Poncha does a little digging. Tracked down what was a relatively minor issue. Patients were cold and Frank, the manager responsible for inventory and equipment wasn’t getting the blankets washed and distributed every morning. This was clearly a part of his job description. But when Poncho spoke with him about it, she discovered that the surgery center administrator, Don, whom they both reported to, had given Frank other priorities for his early morning work.

02:43
Frank was a pleaser manager type and didn’t want to question his boss. So now Poncha and her employees were being held accountable for the consequences of a problem they could not solve directly. Does this sound familiar? Everybody runs into these kinds of situations and there are these kinds of inefficiencies and the potential conflicts that happen in every organization. A decision by one person affects the results and the welfare of employees in other areas in unforeseen ways. It’s a reality of organizational life and it can frustrate even the most common and unflappable managers. So in this case, Poncha let Frank know that she would be speaking with Don and invited him to come along. When they had the conversation, Poncha framed the issue in terms that resonated with Don. She said we have an issue that can negatively impact revenue by five to 10% over the next six months.

03:43
Once she captured Don’s attention with something that he cared about, she was able to explain the situation and propose solutions. Don agreed, Frank was happy to do what he was told to do and the patients got their blankets. I want to break this down a little bit in terms of this being a real-life situation, changed Poncha’s name, but the situation actually happened and there was some coaching along the way. So a real real-life situation, Poncha demonstrated this problem-solving principle of taking responsibility without owning other people’s problems. When you take responsibility, you ask, how can I make this better? Then determine who actually owns the problem. In this case, Frank could have owned the problem, but it wasn’t Poncha’s job to change Frank. She didn’t own someone else’s problem when she asked herself, how can I make this better?

04:35
It was clear that she needed to talk to Don. She took responsibility, located the problem with its proper owner phrased the problem in terms that were meaningful to the person who owned it, and then shared possible solutions. So it’s a good way to approach these things in terms of how you take responsibility, how you own a problem without taking responsibility for someone else’s problem. Asking that question, how can I make this better than finding the real owner now? So that’s finding the real owner and taking responsibility. Now let’s talk about finding the real problem because it’s very common for managers will waste tons and tons of time in these vain attempts to solve the wrong problem. So part of the key is when you’re first presented with a problem, you don’t just want to jump right in and reactively try to go to solutions right away.

05:30
You want to pause, ask questions, and then figure out the real issue. So imagine if when Poncha first heard that her nurses were upset and she immediately responded the way that many managers do saying something like, satisfaction scores are down. Alright, let’s work on that. Move faster, and be nicer. Her solution would frustrate her staff and mask the actual problem. Scores might even briefly improve, but they wouldn’t be sustainable. And then that would exacerbate everything. So when you’re presented with a problem, avoid the inclination to react immediately when what people bring you is likely a symptom of the problem, not the problem itself. So pause, get curious, ask questions, and get all the relevant facts. Here are some specific questions you can ask to solve the right problem and not waste your time, which you don’t have enough of, to begin with addressing symptoms.

06:28
The first question is, what is different than expected? And I learned this from an old book, but really good book called The Rational Manager by Charles Kepner and Benjamin Trigo. They define a problem as a deviation from some standard of performance. Okay, there’s a way we expect things to be, there’s a deviation from that. We’ve got a problem. What didn’t go the way you expected? So when Poncha asked what was different than expected, it was obvious that the overall patient satisfaction scores were lower than they had expected. Alright? So that’s what’s changed. Second question, what has not changed? And this is a critical step that most managers will skip altogether. When you identify a problem, it’s helpful to know what has not changed. This helps you eliminate issues that you don’t need to concern yourself with. For example, when Poncha understood the scores had dropped, she asked which scores.

07:29
Is it all of them or just a few? As she examined all the data, it was clear that most of the scores had held steady and just those around comfort had changed. This helped her narrow her problem-solving. The issue wasn’t speed or quality of care, but comfort. And then question three, why? Once you’ve limited the problem to what it is and what it is not, then you look for causes by asking why. And yes, you’ll often have to ask several times. So Poncha asked, why patient comfort scores declined over the past two months. When she asked her staff for their thoughts, no one could come up with an answer that fit the problem, changes that only impacted comfort and occurred only in the past two months. From there, she pulled the patient surveys for the previous four months and examined every form that rated comfort as average or below and discovered that in the two months prior to the drop, low comfort scores had a wide range of issues, all with low frequency.

08:32
But starting two months ago, 50% of the low comfort scores mentioned coldness or the lack of a blanket. Now, she had a lead notice that she still didn’t know the actual problem. What she discovered was a symptom. Patients weren’t receiving blankets. She had to ask why. Again, in order to figure out that Frank wasn’t supplying them the way he used to, she had to ask why one more time to determine that Don had given Frank competing priorities and that Frank wasn’t willing to speak up about it himself. Only at that point did Poncha find the real problem.

09:09
So now you’ve identified the real problem. You’ve taken responsibility, you’ve taken ownership, you’ve figured out what the real problem is. Now you’ve got another choice to make bu asking yourself is this the right problem to solve? Because not every problem needs a solution. And so again, resist the urge. One of those push-pause moments as a leader here resists the urge to immediately jump in with solutions. You can do some quick analysis and figure out whether or not you should spend any more time on it at all. So what do I mean by this? Well, just some quick back-of-the-napkin kind of math here. When you’re looking at problems, the first question you want to ask is, how likely is this problem to occur in the future if it’s an unlikely event that no amount of planning could have changed?

09:59
Or is it something that is clearly 100% going to happen again? So if you had to put a percentage chance on the probability that the problem will happen again in the next week or quarter or a year, what is that probability? So for Poncha, it’s a hundred percent. If nothing changes, it’s a hundred percent that patients are going to continue to be cold. Question two, what’s the magnitude of the damage if the problem does happen again? You can start with a qualitative type of measure. If the problem happens again, what’s the impact on your group or the organization? Negligible, not good, bad, very bad, or disastrous. So you can try to quantify the label you use. So if you say bad, for example, what does that mean in terms of your metrics, money, time, people, customer, client impact, and so on? So once you know the likelihood that the problem will recur and the magnitude of the impact when it does multiply the two.

10:56
For instance, Poncha had determined the problem was 100% likely to happen again, and the impact was bad to the tune of five to 10% lost revenue over the next six months. And that would only get worse as the problem continued. So that’s the math that she shared with Dawn and looking at their revenue and applying that against, she came up, this is a 7.57 and a half million dollars potential problem over the course of six months. Well, that’s significant. Dawn decided that math made sense to address, they’re going to address it. And then the third question is, you’re looking if the problem really is something that you can directly address or not, then you got to figure out is it best to prevent the problem or to mitigate the impact of the problem.

11:47
In this instance, let’s say that the problem was that patients were cold, right? They could have mitigated the impact of the problem by maybe having staff call the patients and apologize for the lack of blankets, but that’s not going to be sufficient. So mitigating in this case wouldn’t make sense. Another approach, maybe they could have turned up the heat, but that has consequences too. So it’s going to cost more. You’re going to make other patients uncomfortable. It reduces the customization. So you have choices to make here. The only solution possible was not only that, Frank does more blankets, but there are a number of different options. So is it best to prevent the problem? In this case, they said yes, it’s going to make more sense to solve the problem and reassign priorities to free up Frank for blanket duty. This is an easy example that as you’re looking at problems, take a look at how you can take responsibility, figure out the real problem, and then decide whether or not it needs a solution. And if that solution is preventing or mitigating the problem itself. And this kind of just taking a moment, taking a beat to sit there and think through these three categories, these three questions will help you and your team solve the right problems quickly, make the biggest difference for yourself, your results, and ultimately get back to work.

13:15
As we wrap up this episode, I want to thank Poncha again for bringing this workplace challenge to our attention and looking for help as she was figuring out how to approach it, and how to deal with it, we all are able to learn and grow with Poncha. So thank you, Poncha. Appreciate your leadership in this situation. And listeners, figure out how you can take responsibility. What is the right problem to solve? What does the successful resolution of that problem look like? Does it need to be solved? Can it be mitigated? Do you need to bother? Or is it such a low likelihood or a low impact that you can just ignore it? Sometimes that’s the right answer. So take responsibility, define the real problem, figure out the solution, and be the leader you’d want your boss to be.

The post Help Your Team Solve the Right Problem appeared first on Let's Grow Leaders.

• Reframe
• Own the UGLY
• Collaborate
• Win with Values
• Choose a Different Time Frame
• Take Action
• Leave If You Must

A No-Win Scenario?

Recently, we had one of our global leadership development participants ask how we would lead through a no-win scenario. He faced a challenging product request that he believed would either overtax his team or disappoint the client. He concluded his question by asking: “What is your Kobayashi Maru?”

For the non-Trekkies, this is a classic Star Trek reference to a no-win scenario that everyone in Star Fleet Academy would face. You receive a distress call from a damaged ship (the Kobayashi Maru) that’s stranded in enemy space. If you choose to ignore it, they die. If you choose to attempt the rescue, you risk your ship and crew (and in the actual test, an attempted rescue is met with overwhelming enemy force).

Captain Kirk is the only one to have “beaten” the scenario in that, on his third attempt, he reprogrammed the simulation.

Business No-Win Scenarios

You might not have to rescue a damaged ship, but lead long enough and you will certainly face situations where you don’t like the alternatives. These circumstances can feel like no-win scenarios. Here are just a few examples that we’ve faced in our careers:

• Decreasing insurance benefits or eliminating positions.
• Taking a promotion with the explicit task of closing job sites and laying off people.
• Overworking staff to keep someone else’s misguided promise.
• Being told to fire someone who’s been loyal to the company and worked hard to qualify for their next role.
• Relying on a “brilliant jerk” who gets results, has protective relationships with senior leaders, but makes life hell for their team.

Those are just a few examples, and you could certainly add to the list. The critical factor is that you face outcomes that feel equally miserable, unfair, or wrong. Sometimes it’s not just feelings – they might objectively be unfair or wrong.

Leading Through a No-Win Scenario

The key to successfully leading through no-win scenarios is to understand that these moments switch us into victim mode. To lead well, you need to re-empower yourself and your team. Captain Kirk rejected the no-win scenario and reprogrammed the scenario. Here are seven ways you can also find a win for yourself, your team, and your customers.

Reframe the Problem

Reframing is a powerful mental technique that allows you to see a situation differently. People naturally tend to follow into either-or thinking – and it’s often “either this horrible outcome or that miserable one.” Reframing helps expand your thinking to avoid getting stuck.

One of the easiest ways to visualize reframing is to look a picture in one frame (say a pure white frame) and then place it in a different frame—perhaps a deep blue. Your perception of the picture changes. The blue frame brings out the blues in the picture and may give it a calmer feel. The white frame might give more contrast and an energetic feel.

To reframe a problem, you choose to look at it differently. There are several ways you can do this. In my (Karin’s) recent interview of reframing expert Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg, he shares several options including:

• Is there a better problem to solve than the one you first perceive?
• Are you looking at the real problem or is there a root cause?
• What does success really look like? Clarify the outcomes that would feel good – they’re not always the outcomes we first assume.
• Is there an alternative path to achieve success?

Often, just the act of looking at a challenging situation through a different frame will re-energize you and reveal solutions.

Own the U.G.L.Y.

Another technique to help reexamine no-win scenarios for alternative paths is our Own the U.G.L.Y. technique. UGLY is an acronym representing four questions that you can answer yourself—but it’s even more powerful to discuss with your team:

• U – What are we Underestimating? What resources have we not considered? What headwinds are we not taken into account? What’s changed in our environment?
• G – What’s Gotta Go? What are we doing that no longer makes sense? What’s more habit than value? What’s wasting time? Can we remove a needless outcome, process, or criteria that will help us be remarkable?
• L – Where are we Losing? Are we genuinely underperforming? If so, where? If not, what’s causing the perception? Are we losing ground somewhere? If so, how?
• Y – Where are we missing the Yes? What are the opportunities hiding in plain sight? Are there different paths to success haven’t we tried or considered? What new opportunities exist that we didn’t have before?

A team discussion of these four questions can quickly help you and your team find a new way forward.

Collaborate

Problems for one group are frequently opportunities for someone else. Collaborating is one of the most overlooked ways to lead through no-win scenarios. Is there someone with a complementary problem to yours? Do you have a solution they can use? For example, if you have a short-term loss in demand, rather than lay people off, is there a short-term labor need elsewhere in your organization—or even with another business?

Win with Values

There are times where the choice you face are truly unjust and there is no easy answer. In these situations, what are your values? What matters most and how can you live out those values? Sometimes, that’s the win in a no-win scenario.

One of my (David’s) favorite examples of choosing a values-win, is from the movie Glory.

Set during the US Civil War, Colonel Shaw, played by Matthew Broderick, is asked to lead one of the first regiments of African American soldiers. He leads his men with dignity and genuinely cares for his troops. However, at one point in the story, he receives orders to have his men set fire to a town. He refuses the order as unlawful.

Shaw’s commanding officer, who mistreats, disrespects, and even shoots his own men, tells Shaw that he can either follow the order or protest it through normal channels. In the meantime, Shaw would be relieved of duty and his men would be transferred to the dishonorable leader where they would certainly face mistreatment and needless cruelty.

Now that’s a no-win scenario.

Shaw finally chooses to care for his men and orders them to burn the town.

This is an example of finding a win with your values. When you face a decision where there are truly limited outcomes and they all stink, what are your most important values? For Shaw, it was the dignity and care of his men. It was a hard choice and did real damage to the town and the people who lost their homes. But it was the choice he could live with.

Choose a Different Time Frame

One way to find the win in a no-win scenario is to focus on the bigger picture. In the short-term, the options available may be distasteful, but is there a path that helps you and your team achieve your longer-term goals?

Sometimes this plays out in interpersonal relationships where the long-term relationship matters more than fighting for a win in the short-term at the expense of the other person’s dignity. In other scenarios, looking at the bigger picture can give you a foundation to renegotiate terms by emphasizing what matters most to your supervisor, your customer, or your partners.

Take Action

Once you’ve reflected, reframed, or centered yourself in your values, it’s time to act. Your information will never be perfect. The scenarios will never play out perfectly. But informed action builds momentum.

Committing to action also energizes and empowers you and your team. You’re not sitting there as a hapless victim of circumstance.

“When choosing between two evils, I always like to try the one I’ve never tried before.” -Mae West

Leave If You Must

Finally, there are times when the no-win scenarios you face are immoral, illegal, or unethical to such an extent that you are better off finding another place to work.

Your Turn

No-win scenarios can demotivate you and sap morale, if you let them. Or, you can get creative, tap into your values, and empower your team for a strategic future.

We would love to hear from you: how have you or another leader you respect navigated seeming no-win scenarios?

Are you ready to accelerate team performance?

Increase communication, connection and trust while driving results. See our Team Accelerator Program page and sign up for the free demo to learn how.

The post How to Lead Through a No-Win Scenario appeared first on Let's Grow Leaders.

Particularly during times of uncertainty and change, one of the easiest ways to know what’s really going on is to (1) get clarity about what you don’t know and (2) ask your team some courageous questions.

Courageous questions are specific, vulnerable questions that get right to the root of the matter. Courageous questions help eliminate FOSU (fear of speaking up) and create the psychological safety your employees need to speak up and ask for what they need.

In this article, we share insights to help you prepare better courageous questions to gather the insights you need.

• Why Courageous Questions Matter
• What is a Courageous Question? (What makes a courageous question useful and how to craft your own)
• Sample Courageous Questions (Specific courageous questions you can ask your team),
• How to “Respond With Regard” to what you’ve heard

Why Courageous Questions Matter

Laura, an IT vice president, was excited to spend some time with her teams, hold a few skip-level meetings, and see their new system in action.

Her team had been holding user experience calls each week and the feedback had been great! Psyched to gather a few success stories, she couldn’t wait to tell the CEO how the new system was making things easier for the customer service reps and, ultimately, for their customers.

Before her first skip-level meeting, Laura sat down with a rep and asked, “Can you show me your favorite part of the new system?”

The rep attempted to pull up the first screen. But after five minutes they were both still staring at an hourglass and waiting for the page to load. She looked apologetically at Laura and said, “I’m sorry to waste your time. This usually takes a while.”

Laura’s jaw dropped. The vendor had promised the new system would be seven times faster—not slower.

Wait, What?

“Can you show me another page?” Laura asked.

She sat through another slow load time. Laura turned to the rep. “Is it always like this?”

“Oh, yeah. We’re used to it at this point, but the system has some other nice features.”

Laura thanked her and hurried to a quiet conference room where she could call her team. After ten minutes of testing, they realized that the center’s servers didn’t have the capacity to run the new system. Hundreds of reps had been suffering through a ridiculous wait that wasted their and their customers’ time.

What happened?

The user experience calls had asked lots of questions, but not courageous questions.

Week after week, supervisors had sat in on user-experience calls, fully aware of the issue, and hadn’t said a word. No one had ever raised the issue!

After replacing the server and ensuring everything was back on track, Laura went back to the reps on the user experience team and asked why they had never brought this up.

Well, no one ever asked us about the speed. Our boss told us that we needed to be “change agents” and model excitement for the new system—no matter what. Under no circumstances were we to be negative.

So we just smiled, sucked it up, and dealt with it.

Have you ever felt like Laura?

The “no one asked” reply might be frustrating, but it is one of the biggest reasons employees say they withhold ideas.

Before you dive into this reflective article, download our free I.D.E.A. Incubator Guide. This is your free guide to a power-packed team innovation session that will mobilize courage and increase team engagement.

What is a courageous question?

A courageous question differs from a generic “How can we be better?” question in that they’re specific and humble (assume that improvement is possible).  You ask courageous questions to get curious about what’s really going on. Not to respond immediately.

When you ask a courageous question, you:

1. Get specific.

A courageous question focuses on a specific activity, behavior, or outcome.

For example, rather than ask “How can we improve?” ask “What is the number one frustration of our largest customer?”

Or, “For the next two quarters, our most important priority is customer retention. We need every idea we can get to help keep our best customers. What is THE NUMBER ONE REASON you see customers leave? What’s THE GREATEST OBSTACLE to keep our best customers? What’s NUMBER ONE LOW-COST ACTION we can take to improve our customer’s experience?”

2. Be humble.

Next, a courageous question creates powerful vulnerability.

When you ask any of these sample questions, you are implicitly saying “I know I’m not perfect. I know I can improve.” This is a strong message—if you sincerely mean it.

You send the message that you are growing and want to improve. This, in turn, gives your team permission to grow and be in the process themselves. It also makes it safe to share real feedback. When you say, “What is the greatest obstacle?” you acknowledge that there is an obstacle, and you want to hear about it.

Humility is at the heart of the question that Don Yager, Chief Operating Officer of Mural Corporation, consistently asks his frontline team: “What are our policies that suck?” That humble question quickly identifies anything that’s getting in the way of a great customer experience.

3. Process before responding.

Finally, courageous questions require the asker to listen without defensiveness. This is where well-intentioned leaders often get into trouble. They ask a good question, but they weren’t prepared to hear feedback that made them uncomfortable or challenged their pet project. They leap to explain or defend.

Asking for feedback and ignoring it is worse than not asking at all. When you ask a courageous question, allow yourself to take in the feedback. Take notes, thank everyone for taking the time and having the confidence to share their perspective. With many courageous questions, you’ll get conflicting perspectives. That’s okay. Describe the next steps.

If you need to process and then respond, tell them when that will happen.

Click to download courageous questions samples, and write your own!

Sample Courageous Questions

You can download our Courageous Cultures tool for FREE here. 

Courageous Questions to Improve The Customer Experience

• What’s one policy that really annoys our customers?
• If you could make one change to improve the customer experience, what would that be?
• When customers call, what’s their number one complaint?
• What is the most important action we take to delight our customers? How would you recommend we do that more consistently?

Courageous Questions to Improve Productivity

• What is the biggest roadblock to your productivity right now?
• When you think of missed opportunities to be more effective or efficient, what’s the problem no one talks about?
• If we could do one thing differently next time to help this project (or person) succeed, what would that be?
• What’s one task or project you’re spending time on that you think is not worth the time? Why?
• Do you have a best practice that really helps you be more efficient and effective in your work? What is it?

Courageous Questions to Improve Culture

• What is the biggest source of conflict you’re having working with X department? (How might we be contributing to the issue?)
• We’re working to build a courageous culture where everyone speaks up and shares their ideas. As your leader, what’s one area of my leadership I could work on to make that easier?
• What’s one reason you choose to work here?  How can we build more of that into our culture?
• What’s one reason people hold back their ideas here?
• Can you think of one practical idea that would help our team find more joy and meaning in their work?

And don’t forget to Respond With Regard.

Once you’ve asked your team courageous questions, gather your themes and be sure you respond with regard.

The first time you ask a courageous question, your team may be skeptical. But when you build a reputation of asking important courageous questions and responding with regard to what you hear, you’ll go a long way in building trust, and innovation on your team.

We would love to hear from you.

Where do you most need a great idea? What is one courageous question that would (or has) encouraged deeper thinking, problem-solving and great ideas?

Ready to rally YOUR team for breakthrough results with Let’s Grow Leaders?

Establish a Courageous Culture of critical thinkers, problem solvers and customer advocates in your organization with live leadership training and a Team Innovation Challenge or Executive Leadership Workshop. These strategic innovation events – in person or virtual – will help shape the culture of your organization, skyrocket employee engagement and clear the path for increased team innovation.

Let’s Grow Leaders programs are highly customized to your organization’s needs, hands-on and interactive. Get ready for leadership development that sticks.

Other Articles Related to Courageous Questions:

How to Help Your Team Think Bigger

How to Respond to Employees’ Wacky Ideas

The post Courageous Questions: How to Make It Easier to Get Better Insights appeared first on Let's Grow Leaders.

The other day we were chatting with a group of senior leaders deeply committed to building a courageous culture. They shared a frustration we hear all the time: “Our managers think too small! How do we help people REALLY CONSIDER what they’re doing–to look for better ways to work smarter? They do their work, but we can’t seem to help them think bigger.”

“We’re encouraging people to share their thoughts,” they continued. “They must have ideas that would make their work easier or help our customers but so far, no one’s said anything.”

Help them think bigger by engaging.

Helping your team think bigger will take time, so you want to start by engaging them in the process.

When you have a team of “the best damn doers” it’s not realistic to expect an overnight change in their thinking or behavior. They’ve had success doing what they know how to do, they feel competent at it, and it’s comfortable. For many people, competence and contentment are significant motivators.

It’s also what’s been expected. Many organizations have invested lots of time identifying the critical behaviors that everyone must do it achieve success. Asking teams or leaders to consider deviating from those activities naturally causes concern. And yet, the dance between clarity and curiosity is critical to continued relevance and growth.

Why do we do what we do?

You can start helping a team of doers think bigger by engaging in conversations that redefine what success looks like. Success isn’t completing a task, it’s achieving an outcome. Engage the team in these conversations to build shared ownership about the outcomes.

A note here: this conversation doesn’t undermine the importance of leading indicators or success behaviors. The goal is to pull back the curtain and reconnect what everyone does to why it matters. In our effort to make success easier, a tunnel-vision focus on success behaviors can shut down curiosity and creativity.

Finally, a critical part of this “what success looks like” conversation is that we regularly examine what we’re doing to see if there might be better ways to achieve our outcomes.

How do we do what we do?

Once you and your team have clarified what success looks like in terms of the outcomes you want to achieve, then it’s time to turn the focus back to tasks and activities.

Engage the team in a conversation about how they achieve those outcomes. What are they doing now that works? Is there anything they’re doing right now that doesn’t work?

This is a great time to introduce a courageous question. Choose one specific area of work and ask for a single way to improve. For example, “Thinking about our customer service experience, what is one way we might get our customer an accurate answer faster than we do today?”

Help them think bigger by equipping.

Once you and the team have re-examined and aligned on your critical behaviors, everyone will get back to work and back to “doing.” Now it’s time to equip the team to think bigger in the course of their normal work.

There are two ways to equip your team to think beyond “doing.”

1. Give them time to think.

Look at people’s schedules and the number of tasks (including meetings) that occupy their day. Will it take all the self-discipline and willpower they can muster to barely succeed at what’s on their plate?

It’s almost impossible to think bigger when you’re in survival mode. Thinking takes time.

If swamped is the norm for your team, think about small ways to introduce more white space and margin in your days. (And be aware of your example here – you may need to lead yourself before you can help your team.)

You might create structured thinking time through a regular “Why Week.” Introduce a process or task at the beginning of the week. Schedule 30 minutes each day for the team to discuss one question:

• Why do we do this?
• Who is it for?
• What is it for?
• Is it working?
• What’s one way we could improve it?

2. Give them tools to think.

You can also equip people to think bigger by giving them specific ways to do it. The “Why Week” is one example. Other tools include:

• Own the U.G.L.Y. conversations that reveal opportunities
• The I.D.E.A. Model to think through and qualify ideas
• Strategic Empowerment to help people know where to focus their creativity and solutions
• An invitation to take the customer’s perspective.

Does your company need practical tools to build a Courageous Culture – with higher engagement and a results-oriented approach to innovation? Where your employees speak up, share their ideas and drive quality performance and productivity? Be sure to check out our Strategic Leadership and Team Innovation Challange programs to learn more. 

Help them think bigger by encouraging.

When you first ask your team to think about how to improve processes or make things work better, you might not get an answer right away. It can take time for people to process and then take the risk of speaking up.

What they need now is continuous encouragement to think bigger.

Eventually, someone will make a suggestion. Everyone is watching to see if you really meant it and you’ll get more of what you encourage and celebrate. Thank them for their idea. Follow up and encourage them to elaborate, ask if anyone can expand on it, add to it, or if it sparks another thought.

As you and your team go about daily work, be on the lookout for opportunities to encourage bigger thinking. For example, if there’s an outcome you didn’t achieve despite the team doing all the “right” things, it’s an opportunity to examine what happened.

Was it the right goal? Are these the right activities to get there? Was it perhaps a successful failure (where you didn’t achieve the outcome for a healthy reason)?

As you reinforce the opportunities for bigger thinking and celebrate when it happens, you’ll build momentum and your team’s confidence in thinking beyond their immediate tasks.

Your Turn to Help Your Team Think Bigger

Helping your team or organization stay relevant and effective requires an elegant dance between clarity and curiosity.

For teams who have found success in clarity, it will take time to help them develop a regular cadence of curiosity. You can help your team think bigger by engaging in conversation about what they do and why they do it, equipping your team with time and tools, and encouraging everyone as they contribute.

We’d love to hear from you—how do you help your team to look beyond that task at hand?

The post How to Help Your Team Think Bigger appeared first on Let's Grow Leaders.

Better problem solving starts with reframing the problem.  Karin Hurt talks with Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg, author of What’s Your Problem in this edition of Asking for a Friend.

1:11 Source of inspiration: meeting people who are also into idea exploration was wildly invigorating

Reframing Problems

2:22 To get better at problem-solving, start with reframing the problem.
Are you solving the right problem?
We are trained to think only in two components: analyzing the problem and applying a solution.
Add a third component: framing – decided what the REAL problem is (i.e. is the elevator too slow, or are people frustrated by waiting?) It’s not “What’s the real problem?” but “Is this the right problem to solve?”

Solving Problems

5:47 The process of solving the right problems
Create a team habit of asking “What’s the problem? Is this the problem to solve?”
If you come up with too many problems, remember that you don’t have to be super-systematic for every problem.
Notice the things that are unusual and surprising.
Keep the momentum going.
Divide and conquer (i.e. assign to two of the team members.)
Get into the habit of reframing in just a few minutes, to avoid becoming paralyzed by analysis.
Look for the bright spots. We tend to focus on the negative.

Strategies

12:13 Strategies to solve the right problems.
Look outside the frame.
Rethink the goal.
Look for the bright spots.
Look in the mirror.
Take their perspective.

Looking in the Mirror

13:08 Looking in the mirror
What are you doing that contributes to the problem?
Manage the guest list of who is in the discussion.

Considerations

14:44 Visuals
Problems we are good at solving vs. problems we really have.
Period of time we are focused on vs. something that happened earlier.
Original goal statement vs higher-level goal
Your unique problem vs the large group of people with the same problem

Final Thoughts

22:21 Last bits of wisdom
Make people understand what you are doing.
People are used to trying to find solutions quickly.

The post Better Problem Solving: How to Solve the Right Problems (Video) appeared first on Let's Grow Leaders.

Help Your Team Make Better Decisions

0:00 – Do your meetings go in circles and you’re never able to make a decision?

0:22 – Make your meetings productive, efficient, and something people want to attend.

0:50 – If you’ve ever heard someone say, “I don’t know why you ask my opinion, you’re just going to do what you want anyway,” the tools we cover today will eliminate that morale-sucking complaint.

1:30 – The first mistake is a lack of clarity in the problem or decision being discussed.

2:10 – To make better decisions and have better meetings, focus your discussion on one of two topics: where are we going and how are we going to get there.

3:10 – So define the goal, then talk about the means to get there.

3:36 – An example of how to keep your team focused on the goal, then the means, and not allow discussion to bog down with both simultaneously.

4:32 – Then, the second mistake is a lack of clarity about who owns the decision.

5:53 – There are only four ways for a group of people to make a decision (and you normally only use three of them in business).

7:12 – The critical step to engage your team and help them make better decisions is to clarify before discussion begins: who owns this decision. Now they know how to participate, who to influence, and what decisions they need to make.

8:28 – How to combine these techniques.

The post Lead Your Team to Make Better Decisions, Faster appeared first on Let's Grow Leaders.

The more you can get your team to solve problems on their own, the more time you have to do the work that only you can do. This 9 What’s Coaching method works like magic to develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills on your team. It also works as a human-centered coaching tool, to help guide any team member (e.g. a direct report, co-worker, project team member, or mentee) who is working to achieve a specific goal. 

Effective Problem Solving: The Struggle is Real

“David, I just don’t have time. My team constantly needs my help, but I need them to do more and solve problems on their own. There’s so much to do that some days I just want to give up!”

Lynn was a mid-level manager in a mid-sized healthcare company. She’d sought out coaching because the demands of her job were nearly unbearable. Between the needs of her team members and her supervisor’s expectations, she’d been working 60-hour weeks, her health was suffering, and she’d reached the end of her rope.

Have you ever felt like Lynn? If you feel overwhelmed, you’re not alone.

If you ever struggle with feeling like you’re doing your team’s thinking for them and don’t have time to do your own work, these are signals that your team needs help to think and solve problems more effectively.

Hero or Harassed?

Most managers respond to these signals one of two ways: they get upset or they dive in to “help” by offering solutions. Unfortunately, neither response gets you what you want: more time for your work and more responsibility from your team.

On the one hand, if you get upset and chastise your team for coming to you to solve problems, they will stop bothering you.

They’ll also resent you and begin dragging their feet rather than solve problems that need attention. But hey, they’re not bothering you anymore, right?

On the other hand, if you play the hero and jump in with answers, the immediate problems get solved and work continues. But next time an issue comes up, your team still can’t solve problems on their own, and, worse, you’ve now taught them that if things get difficult, you’ll just figure it out for them. Yes, you’re the hero, but say goodbye to your own productivity!

The good news is that there’s a better way.

9 Questions For Better Problem Solving 

When a team member comes to you for help (assuming they’ve been trained and this is a problem they should be able to solve on their own), rather than jumping in with the answer, you have an opportunity to develop their critical thinking and problem-solving skills.

The following nine questions will help you to free up your own time and increase your team’s ability to think and problem-solve on their own.

GOAL

1. What is your goal?

Start here to check for understanding and ensure that the team member has a good grasp on defining the problem.

REFLECTION

2. What have you tried?

This question ensures you don’t spend time covering the ground they’ve already explored to solve the problem. It also requires your team member to make some effort before requesting help.

3. What happened?

Finish gathering facts by asking them to talk about the consequences of the solutions they’ve already tried. Sometimes just the act of talking about it will help them figure out a new solution.

4. What did you learn from this?

With this question, you ask them to reflect on their experience. Often, the act of examining what happened and what learning they can draw from it will spark a new approach to solving the problem.

ANALYSIS

5. What else do you need?

This is a check to see if there is additional training or equipment they need. Sometimes your team member will say something like: “You know, if I knew how to use pivot tables, I think I could do this.” Great – connect them to a spreadsheet guru for a quick lesson and get them moving.

6. What else can you do?

Now it’s time to have them generate some new options. When you ask this question, one of two answers usually happens. Your team member might say, “I don’t know” or they might offer some options, eg: “Well, I was thinking I could try option A or I could try option B.”

If they say, “I don’t know,” we’ll come back to that with question #9. Let’s assume for now that they offer some options.

7. What do you think will happen if you try option A? What about option B?

You’re asking your team member to explore the potential consequences of their proposed solution. This gives you insight into their thinking and helps them think through what makes their choices viable or desirable.

If they are missing a critical piece of information, you can supply it here without telling them what to do. Eg: “One additional factor you will want to know is that the customer considers that a vital feature.”

COMMITMENT

8. What will you do?

This is the critical step that you’ve been leading up to. As you helped them review the facts, reflect on what they learned, explore alternatives, and the consequences of each choice, the goal is for your team member to choose their solution.

When they choose it, they own it. If they choose something that seems to be a clearly inferior option, you can ask them to help you understand why they think that’s their best option. If they don’t understand some of the other issues affecting the decision, you can also add those to the mix.

Enter The Super Bonus Question to Help Your Team Solve Problems

9. Super-Bonus Question

You might be wondering what to do if the person replies to one of your questions with, “I don’t know.”

“I don’t know” can mean many things. Rarely does it mean the person has zero thoughts about the issue.

More often, “I don’t know” translates to:

1. • “I’m uncertain.”
   • “I don’t want to commit before I know where you stand.”
   • “I haven’t thought about it yet.”
   • “Will you please just tell me what to do?”
   • “I’m scared about getting it wrong.”

Your job as a leader is to continue the dialogue – to ease the person through their anxiety and train their brain to engage. This is where the super-bonus question comes in.

With one question you can re-engage them in the conversation and move through “I don’t know” to productivity.

When someone says, “I don’t know,” your super-bonus question is: “What might you do if you did know?”

Why The Super-Bonus Question Works Like Magic

The person who was stymied two seconds ago will start to share ideas, brainstorm solutions, and move on as if they were never stuck. It’s amazing and hard to believe until you try it.

The super-bonus question works because it addresses the source of the person’s “I don’t know.” If they were anxious or fearful, it takes the pressure off with tentative language: “If you did know…” Now your team member doesn’t have to be certain or look for your approval and they’re free to share whatever they might have been thinking.

If he or she hadn’t thought about the issue or didn’t want to think about it, you’ve lowered the perceived amount of energy they have to spend. You’re not asking for a thesis on the subject, just a conversational “What might you do?”

Our brains can do amazing work when we remove the emotional blocks. When you do this for your team, you train their brain to engage, to push through their ordinary blocks, and increase their performance. Ultimately, they will be able to have these conversations with themselves and will only need to bring the very serious issues to you.

Celebrate Success

You’ll know you’re succeeding when a team member tells you: “I had a problem. I was going to come and talk it over with you, but then I thought, you’re just going to ask me all these questions. So I asked myself all the questions instead and I figured it out.”

Celebrate those moments and encourage them to start asking those questions of the people around them. You’ve just increased your team’s capacity for problem-solving, freed up time to focus on your work, and…you’ve built a leader!

Does your company need a Courageous Culture – with higher engagement and a results-oriented approach to innovation? Where your employees speak up, share their ideas and drive quality performance and productivity? Check out our Strategic Leadership and Team Innovation page to learn more about our programs. 

See Also: How to Provide More Meaningful Performance Feedback

Stop Asking How Can We Improve: New Research Says the Best CEOs Do These 3 Things When Asking For Feedback (CNBC)

Your Turn

Remember, when a team member can’t solve problems, good questions are your best solution.

We’d love to hear from you: Leave us a comment with your questions about this business coaching process or share your best practice for helping team members improve their critical thinking and problem-solving.

The 9 What’s Coaching model is just one of the popular tools in our leadership training programs.  For more information, contact us at info@letsgrowleaders.com.

click image to download a PDF!

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How to Help Your Team Vet Their Ideas and Bring You Solutions

You don’t just want ideas—you want GOOD ideas. There’s no time for half-baked solutions to trivial problems. But if you stop listening, they’ll stop sharing, and you’ll miss the good ones.

How you respond to incomplete, off-base, or inelegant ideas makes all the difference in whether or not you’ll get the contributions you do need the next time. Several executives, when they heard about our research on Courageous Cultures and FOSU (fear of speaking up), told us “Oh, that’s not our issue. Our problem is these damn millennials can’t stop speaking up. They complain about everything.”

“And do you listen?” we ask.

“Some of the time, but after a while, you can only take so much.”

Which begs the question: What happens next after you’re tired and they’re ignored? It’s only a matter of time before they stop trying or find someplace else to work that will listen.

It’s worth the time investment to help your team know a good idea when they see one and to learn how to vet it for viability.

This simple tool works wonders.

4 Questions to Help Your Team Vet Their Ideas

In our research, 40% of the participants said they don’t feel confident to share their ideas and 45% say they haven’t been trained to think critically or solve problems.

If you want better ideas, help your employees know what differentiates a good idea by giving them a few criteria. Tell your team you’re looking for interesting, doable, engaging actions.

I-Interesting

Why is this idea interesting? What strategic problem does it solve? How will results improve from this idea (e.g. customer experience, employee retention, efficiency)?

D- Doable

Is this idea something we could actually do? How would we make it happen? What would make it easier or more difficult?

E- Engaging

Who would we need to engage to make this happen? Why should they support it? Where are we most likely to meet resistance?

A-Actions

What are the most important actions needed to try this? How would we start?

Of course, after you ask, how you respond to ideas, even if they are wacky really matters too.

Be sure you respond with gratitude for thinking about how to make things better. Information that will help them understand what’s going to happen next (and why). And, an invitation to contribute more.

Your turn.

What are your best practices to help your team bring you better ideas?

Does your company need a Courageous Culture – with higher engagement and a results-oriented approach to innovation? Where your employees speak up, share their ideas and drive quality performance and productivity? Check out our Strategic Leadership and Team Innovation page for more info.

See Also: Entrepreneur: Have a Killer Business Idea? Here’s How to Vet It

The post How to Help Your Team Bring You Better Ideas appeared first on Let's Grow Leaders.