High Performance Leadership

Do you remember how it felt to be a young child filled with curiosity? I probably forgot until I became a parent and saw how curious my own children were. Everything was something to be explored and discovered. And then, when I became a grandfather, I felt a curiosity recharge as it surrounded me with the enthusiasm of young children. Curiosity is powerful. It opens up possibilities. It wards off our inner judge long enough to truly explore, without bias, what's going on. When we can keep that level of curiosity alive we learn, we grow, we discover. Stay curious. Curiosity is more powerful than rhetoric, dogma, or unquestioned truth. Stay curious. -- doug smith

In every workshop I facilitate - every one - I share this important piece of wisdom from one of my mentors, Andrew Oxley: "if you don't like the answer to a question, ask a better question." That's profound. That's powerful. That's endlessly useful. Often, people will struggle with that. Sometimes they ask, "How do you ask better questions? What if you can't think of one?" Here's the answer. Ask with curiosity and you'll think of better questions. Stay curious, my friend. -- doug smith

Four types / Four strengths Since about three-quarters of the world sees things differently than you, doesn't it make sense to stay curious about their views? Three-quarters? Where does that come from? If you've ever taken a personality quiz, chances are that it plotted your personality in one of four types. Some use colors, some use words, some even use animals, but you get the picture. At one fairly simple level we subdivide into one of four types. If you fit one of the types, that means that three other types are different. Three-quarters of the world. While it might seem like a simplification, time after time it holds true. And whether it's three-quarters or some other portion, it does make sense that there are different types and different views out there. Without staying curious we miss the possibilities. When our minds are always made up -- based on our own sketchy and incomplete view of the universe -- we can miss massive opportunities. We can stay bli...

How far can we go? How much more can we do? What else can we achieve? There is always more growth in us. Without growth, we decay. Without growing, we're slowing down. I don't have time for slowing down, how about you? What we can be is more than we've ever been. But we must move forward. When it's too hard to move forward, get some help but keep moving. There's a new you that you haven't even met yet. Are you curious? I am. I am getting ready to meet a new me I've never met before. Someone stronger. Someone more resilient. Someone whose bruises look like medals. Someone whose scars look like beauty marks. Someone who can take trouble and turn it into something bright, useful, and helpful. Who knows what we'll be next? Who knows what we can be? It can be more than we've ever  been before. Let's get started. -- Doug Smith

Are you telling the truth? Don't you feel like asking that sometimes when the person you are talking to seems to be spinning the truth? Sometimes we are so close to our version of the truth that we fail to see it could be only our version of the truth. It might not be true at all -- certainly not for others. The best way around that is to stay curious. Stay curious about what other people say. Stay curious about what we say. Even stay curious about what we think. Every idea we clutch in our tight little hands comes to us filtered by factors we've forgotten about long ago: culture, ego, gender, parenting, schooling, experience, ethnicity...so many details strained thru lenses we don't even know are there. Let's work a little more to stay curious. Sometimes we're so good at spinning the truth that we don't even know it's not true anymore. That's not helpful or useful. It doesn't have to take long but it does take some serious mindful awaren...

Do you ever argue from a sense of certainty? Do you state your position from a place that couldn't possibly be wrong so it simply is a matter of convincing the other person? Except, it isn't so easy to convince that other person that you're right, is it? Curiosity will usually take you further than certainty. When you need the support of other people, it makes sense to first find out how they feel about it. What is their version of the facts? What are their feelings? Because, why should they care about how you feel until you care about how they feel? This doesn't always lead to agreement, but it has a better chance than closed certainty. After all, what if you're wrong? When it comes to communicating for results, it helps to discover what the best results would be. Sometimes, it catches us by surprise. -- Douglas Brent Smith