Skip to main content

Make Every Answer Count

Do your people ask you a lot of questions?

I remember as a supervisor getting tons of questions, so many in fact that I appointed my number two (who was smarter than me at the technical details anyway) in charge of any question focused on the technical details. That freed me up to answer questions about discipline, vacations, team orientations, training, or the occasional rambling series of questions meant to just spend some quality time with the boss. I'm thinking of you, Carl.

It feels flattering to get so many questions. I must be smart, and I must have answers if so many people ask. That is only partly true, but I did learn that how I answered each question mattered.

How the supervisor answers questions largely determines how valued each team member feels. There's a line wide enough to park your car on between answering too much and answering too little. Supervisors have lots of attitude. They also have lots of work to do, so it's tempting to give the briefest of brief questions, even as our team members ponder the wisdom that falls from our busy lips.

I learned to give a thoughtful, provocative answer that lead the team member to the direction of learning and still encouraged them to develop answers of their own. I'm not sure if that's an art or a science and sometimes I didn't manage it to anyone's satisfaction ("Hey, Earl -- what do you think?") but my answers got better the more I did it and once people realized that the heavy lifting to a question is asking the right question, I received fewer silly or easy questions and more deep and probing ones. Which was fine for me and better for the team.

High performance leaders encourage their team members to ask great questions. Leave the easy questions for online research or the break room. Encourage your people to ask you the tough questions, the fascinating questions, the questions that make you stop and think.

Then as a leader, step up to the challenge. Give answers that change days, change habits, change lives.

Make every answer worthy of the question.

You'll get better questions, and you'll amuse yourself with the answers.

-- Douglas Brent Smith

I guarantee that every question will be better if your people learn the CLUES to Communication Success. Contact me today about scheduling a webinar for them.

doug@dougsmithtraining.com


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

At the Root

Why would a happy person ever harm anyone? I don't think that they would. When we are happy, content, and at peace any effort to disturb or harm anyone else will just disturb or harm ourselves as well.  When we experience someone trying to disturb or harm us we can be sure that they are already in pain. Fighting back might seem valid, but will it help? What if we helped heal the pain at the root?  Difficult people did not become difficult randomly. Something, in need of healing, caused it. -- doug smith

Learn Beyond The Point Of Discomfort

Do you always learn things the first time you try them? If you do, please teach me how you do that! Learning takes the right attitude, the right tools, and the right repetition of trials. We fall off that bike the first time we get on it. We hit a sour note the first time we pick up a horn. We learn by degrees, even when we earn a degree. We seldom learn anything perfectly the first time we try it. Or the second, or the third... Yet we so often stop at the point of competency. That's when the learning has just begun! There is a huge range of learning ahead of and beyond competency. It's the road to mastery. We do not need to master everything. But imagine the joy of mastering what matters to you most. Wouldn't that be great? Wouldn't that be life-enhancing? And (most important) won't that take more learning than you've already done? -- Doug Smith

Thriving Teams

  Thriving leaders thrive as their teams thrive. It's a partnership. It's a deal. It takes constant support and service to sustain a high performance team. Thriving leaders recruit with the enthusiasm they show for their team. People can tell when your team is cohesive, cooperative, and collaborative and people crave that for themselves. Create and support a team that supports each other and others will rally to the cause. You have no weak links. You have no poor performers. You have no superstars. You do have team members who need your guidance and support. That's the role of a leader. -- doug smith

Of Course It's Not Easy

It's not the problem that upsets you, it's not getting what you want. Get clarity about what you REALLY want, and then work relentlessly to get it. If it was easy, how much fun would it REALLY be? -- doug smith  

Money Isn't Everything

The profit motive is a poor substitute for genuine value. Money isn't everything. It's not even the most important thing. Oh, sure it's incredibly important. As a person who has many times wondered if there would be enough cash to pay the bills, I have come to respect mightily the value of money. But money is transactional. People are more than transactions. What we value most is more than money can buy, is more than a transaction, is a character of depth and peacefulness, and yes, love that is earned, not bought. Think about that for a minute.  -- doug smith  

Love Leadership

Can you be a high performance leader without loving your gig? I've know some great leaders in my life. Some were happy. Some were not. The ones who seemed to live the happiest of lives not only worked harder than anyone else around them (the price of leadership) they also loved what they did. They loved their field of play, their work, their calling, with  an unrelenting passion. When a leader can give all there is to give out of love, it makes the hard work and service of leadership more than worth it -- it makes it a joy. Leaders do need more than love. They do need ambition, hard work, discipline, education, and sometimes a little luck comes in hand. But they do need love. Love isn't always enough, but it always belongs in the mix. -- doug smith

Enjoy AND Improve

Do you enjoy success? If that seems like a silly question (Of COURSE I enjoy success!) think about it from another perspective.  Sometimes we can taper down our enjoyment and appreciation of something because we know it's not perfect yet, and how can we be happy if it's not perfect? I do that somethings. It's not helpful. OF COURSE  it's not perfect: nothing else and nothing ever will be. There are no perfect people, processes, performances, or plan. If we wait for perfection, we'll just keep waiting (and probably without gaining ground...) Let's do both. Let's enjoy our current level of success and achievement while also working to improve it. Performance must constantly improve, AND we can enjoy our exiting improvements. -- doug smith