CMD 031: How To Connect Mobilize and Deliver When You Love Schools – Brandt Wilson

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CMD 025: The Remarkable Story Of The Wichita Flag Campaign’s Start

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Hosted by: Greg Harrod

In This Episode

What does the Wichita Flag have to do with the Connect Mobilize Deliver podcast?

The city of Wichita, Kansas and the fans of this great community proudly display the flag today because of the work of Angie Prather and Courtney Sendall to connect and mobilize a team of people to deliver the results of a united and inspired city.

Angie and Courtney tell the story of how they did it with basically no budget but filled with passion, enthusiasm, and commitment. And, supported by a team of volunteers who caught the vision they had.

The techniques they used to build the Wichita Flag’s social media campaign and engage enthusiasts around the world are applicable to any project you’re working on.

And, they share their memories of their adventure with joy and laughter.

This is a fun episode you don’t want to miss.

Today’s Guest

Angie Prather

Angie Prather is currently the Vice President of Marketing and Chief Community Engagement Officer at the United Way of the Plains.

Prior to this role, Angie served as the Vice President of Marketing and Communications for the Wichita Regional Chamber of Commerce.

In this position, Angie played a pivotal role in launching the Wichita Flag movement along with today’s second guest, Courtney Sendall.

Courtney Sendall

Courtney Sendall served at the Wichita Regional Chamber of Commerce as the Director of Marketing and Communications. There she partnered with Angie to transform the Wichita, Kansas community through the Wichita Flag grassroots community pride-in-place campaign.

Now Courtney is the Director of Foundation for WSU Tech.

You’ll Learn

Why Wichita, Kansas now has a growing community pride that was sparked and built by the Wichita Flag

How to get things done even if you don’t have a budget

The keys to being a leader who takes action instead of just talking

The power a symbol, like the Wichita Flag, has to unite a community and inspire people to be a part of something greater than themselves

How enthusiasm and a positive, “can do” attitude can fuel a movement and change a community

The critical role passion plays in mobilizing a team and delivering results

The importance of collaborating and helping others shine

Tips on how to start a low budget grass roots social media campaign that can outperform expensive branding strategies

3 Fundamental Career Skills from Today’s Guest

1. Community building

Highlight, magnify, and amplify other people.

Lift them up and give them a platform to shine and display their talent.

Giving others the opportunities to be their best will boost your own career as well.

2. Collaboration

Getting others involved and bought into what you are trying to accomplish is critically important.

Especially when you don’t have a budget for your project!

3. Creativity

Think about situations in new ways.

When you courageously approach situations differently, you will deliver results when others can’t.

Images of The Wichita Flag

The Wichita Flag in The Temple Bar Pub in Dublin, Ireland

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Wichita Flag (@wichitaflag)

And found there again one year later

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Wichita Flag (@wichitaflag)

The Wichita Flag being captured in the 50th state of its journey

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Wichita Flag (@wichitaflag)

Just a few of the many ways the Wichita Flag is proudly displayed

And, yes, that is Fred VanVleet, former Wichita State Shocker and NBA superstar!

Links and Resources from this Episode

Stay up to date on the Wichita Flag by following these hashtags on social media: #WichitaFlag #ILoveWichita

See the flag on Twitter (@WichitaFlag), Instagram (@wichitaflag), and Facebook

Connect with Angie Prather on LinkedIn or follow her on Twitter (@angieprath) or Instagram (@angieprath)

Connect with Courtney Sendall on LinkedIn or follow her on Twitter (@courtneysendall) or Instagram (@courtneysendall)

Watch Angie and Courtney in the short film by Julian Liby highlighting Wichita’s resurgence of community pride and the role the Wichita Flag played. Click here to watch “Welcome Home, Wichita” on YouTube.

Learn more about the Resurgence of the Wichita Flag in this award winning video on YouTube.

Hear what several local Wichita people love about the Wichita Flag in this short video.

Listen to the Wichita Regional Chamber of Commerce Business Accelerator podcast

Rate, Review, and Follow on Apple Podcasts

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If that sounds like something you would say, please consider rating and reviewing the show!

This helps me reach and support more people who, just like you, want to learn to Connect people, Mobilize them for action, and Deliver results as they boost their career by mastering fundamental career skills. All while leading with kindness and confidence.

It’s quick and easy to rate and review the show on your mobile device.

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Thank You

As always, thank you for listening and for sharing this with others who may find the Connect Mobilize Deliver podcast valuable.

Let’s lead with kindness and confidence.

Greg

P.S. – If you’ve ever thought about starting your own podcast or online business, click here to check out the tools I use and get started today.

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CMD 017: How To Connect, Mobilize, And Deliver With Your Team – Part 2

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If you’re like me, you often find it challenging to keep everyone in a meeting focused on what you’re trying to accomplish.

I’ve found creating structure for the meeting with a simple document helps me lead meetings that participants often appreciate and usually find valuable.

And, I’d like to help you do the same.

In this post, I’ll do two things to help you learn to use structure to effectively lead meetings with your team, too.

We’ll start with the simple, seven step process.

7 steps to use structure to lead an effective meeting

I’ve broken the process I’ve used to lead meetings throughout my career into these seven steps.

I’ve used these seven simple steps to lead thousands of meetings and I’ve found the process to be helpful for me and for those who participated in the meetings I led. I hope you find them useful as well.

First, let’s talk about the initial step in preparing to lead an effective meeting, planning ahead.

1. Plan ahead

While the rest of these steps to lead an effective meeting may be done in a different order, this one must come first. If you want to successfully lead an effective meeting, you must plan ahead.

Unprepared leaders lead painful, ineffective meetings

We’ve all experienced the agony of sitting through a meeting led by someone who is not prepared. When the meeting starts, it quickly becomes obvious the person who brought everyone together doesn’t have a plan.

The conversation drifts all over the place. With the discussion jumping from topic to topic, it’s hard to know when to say something or what to say to add value.

Finally, after what seems like an eternity, the end time of the meeting arrives. But, no one is sure if you’re actually done. Because it wasn’t clear why you were even there in the first place.

Who cares? You’ve got an excuse to leave and you can finally escape. Blessed relief from the pain has arrived.

Am I exaggerating? Not much.

Unplanned, unstructured meetings occur countless times a day in organizations around the world. And, the person leading a meeting like this takes a hit to his or her reputation.

An unprepared leader is to blame

When we’re in a meeting led by an unprepared leader, we easily recognize why the meeting is ineffective. Typically no one says anything, but everyone knows who is responsible.

The unprepared leader is the one to blame. The person who asked everyone to come together for a meeting is responsible.

Scheduling a meeting and not being prepared to lead it effectively is a proven way to quickly lose the respect of your teammates.

Leaders who have not invested time getting ready prior to bringing a team together waste everyone’s time. And, we all know time is a precious resource in every organization.

But, good leaders think differently.

Good leaders view themselves as stewards of their teammates’ time

Throughout my career, I encouraged my teams to have the mindset of a steward when scheduling and leading meetings.

If you’re not familiar with the term, a steward is a person who is entrusted with the responsibility (and privilege) of managing another person’s resources.

This was our perspective.

If we schedule a meeting, we are responsible for planning and leading it to maximize the use of each participant’s time. It is up to each of us, when leading meetings, to ensure that every minute of the meeting is a valuable investment of time for each person there.

I encourage you to take this same approach.

Invest the time to prepare for every meeting

To earn and keep the respect of your teammates, I encourage you to schedule time on your calendar to prepare for every meeting you convene.

It doesn’t have to be a lot of time. Especially once you get the hang of the process I’m going to lay out in these next six steps.

The investment you make prior to the meeting will bring a great return by using your team’s time efficiently and boosting their morale.

So, that wraps up the first, and perhaps the most important, step of this process, planning ahead to prepare for the meeting.

Now let’s move to the second step of the process, creating a document to guide the meeting.

2. Create a document to guide the meeting

Creating a document to use as a guide when you lead a meeting is beneficial and important for three reasons.

What format should I use for the document?

The format you use for the meeting guide document is really up to you. You may like spreadsheets. Or, a word processing tool may be your preference. Any format other than “in my head” can be used. You can even use pen and paper if you like.

The key is to collect and capture your thoughts in a document before the meeting begins.

I love using Microsoft OneNote to document meetings. I’ll be using a OneNote document as an example.

Microsoft OneNote example

To guide our discussion I created this simple meeting guide document in OneNote.

I know it’s hard to read, but don’t worry. I’ll zoom in and highlight specific sections as we discuss them. And, the next section is part of step 3 of our process for using structure to lead an effective meeting.

We’ve got our meeting document ready so let’s use it to capture the meeting topics.

3. Identify the topics

You can see in this example meeting, there are three topics to be covered.

It may seem simplistic and obvious for me to suggest the person leading a meeting needs to state the topics to be covered.

However, in my experience, many leaders are not sure themselves of what needs to be discussed in a meeting until they invest the time to plan and prepare.

This is certainly true for me.

Once you’ve done the work to identify the topics, you can use the meeting guide document to capture and clearly communicate these topics to the meeting participants.

Communicating the topics should be done with two separate and distinct components, a topic label and a topic description.

Label and describe the topics

Create visual separation between the topics

Use numbers and visual elements such as highlighting and horizontal lines to create separation between the topics.

This technique amplifies the power of using the distinct, separated topics to manage the discussions as you lead the meeting.

Add details for each topic

You’ve labeled the topic and described it briefly. Now add the details that are important for this particular meeting.

Include action items and decisions and format the text to ensure they stand out from other meeting notes.

Include space for notes

As I noted earlier and in a previous post, taking notes during a meeting is important. In this meeting guide, create a section for this purpose.

Follow a template

There are many ways to implement these techniques and I recommend you use the methods that work best for you.

Once you settle on a format you like, create a template and use it for efficiency and consistency.

Here’s an example of a template I use regularly. You can see how it brings together the various techniques I described.

Now that you’re clear on the topics and communicated them clearly in your meeting document, you can move to the next step of the process.

Let’s talk about an agenda for the meeting.

4. Budget the time

Every effective meeting needs some sort of agenda. And, an agenda includes at least two things. Topics and time.

By getting clear on the topics including what points need to be discussed, you’ve made the task of creating an agenda much easier.

Review the topics and key points you want to cover and budget out the time you have available. Topics with many items will need more time. Others can be covered quickly. You may also need to lengthen or shorten the duration of the meeting accordingly.

Be disciplined and intentional when budgeting the meeting time.

Don’t make it too long just to fit a calendar suggestion of an hour, for instance. If you have 35 minutes worth of work to do, schedule the meeting to be 35 minutes long.

But, if you find you have too much material to cover in a reasonable amount of time, consider scheduling multiple meetings.

Be sure to leave time at the end of the meeting to review action items and owners. This blog post, Ask “Who Needs to Do What by When?” Drive Results! gives you tips on how to do this.

You now have topics for the meeting and an agenda, you are well prepared to lead the meeting. There are just a few more steps to take.

The next step is to decide who needs to be there.

5. Select the participants

You are now far more prepared than most meeting leaders to determine who needs to be in the meeting you are going to lead.

Many people who schedule meetings don’t think critically about who should attend.

With the meeting structure you’ve designed in your guide document, you can intentionally invite specific team members with clarity and purpose. And, you know how much of their time you are asking them to invest.

As you review your guide, consider who needs to be present to do the work you’ve outlined. Those are the people you should ask to attend. Keep the group at the right number of participants to effectively complete the purpose of the meeting in the time you have allocated.

The most effective meetings include only those who need to be there.

So, you’re done, right? Ready to send out a meeting invitation?

Not quite. There’s one more step.

6. Optimize the meeting structure

This step is one that will allow you to distinguish yourself as a servant leader in your organization. It’s not required, but it will definitely set you apart as a meeting leader.

If you’re made it this far and completed the five previous steps, you’ve done a lot of work to prepare for the meeting you are going to lead. In fact, you’ve already done far more than the majority of people who schedule and lead meetings.

But, I would encourage you to invest just a little more time for your own benefit and the benefit of those who will attend your meeting.

Here’s what I recommend.

Take a moment to visualize yourself leading the meeting you have designed. Walk through it in your mind. And, honestly consider how it’s really going to go once you and your teammates are in the room or online.

Ask yourself these five questions.

After answering these questions, you may be satisfied and ready to take the next step. Or, you may want to tweak your meeting document slightly.

If you want to make changes, repeat the previous steps until you’re confident to proceed.

Then, take the final step.

7. Share the meeting document

I realize I didn’t highlight an obvious step. As the meeting leader you need to schedule the meeting and invite participants to attend.

When you sent a meeting invitation, I encourage you to include the meeting document you created. This lets people know what to expect and prepare so they can engage and contribute.

Many leaders of meetings don’t take this step. Often it’s because they don’t prepare prior to the meeting. And, sometimes, it’s because the don’t want to relinquish control and be transparent with their plan for the meeting. Be aware of these common barriers and work to overcome them.

This is the seventh and final step to use structure to lead an effective meetings.

In the introduction, I promised to not only give you a process to follow. I also told you I would explain why structure makes a meeting more effective. So, let’s move to that topic now.

Why structure makes a meeting more effective

As I’ve explained, I have used this structure I’ve described and the meeting guide document to lead thousands of meetings. So, I know it works.

In addition, I have learned recently from two leadership experts some of the reasons why structure is so effective when used to lead meetings.

The first expert is someone I quote often in my posts.

A structured meeting shows your teammates the future

In a previous post, “Are You Above Or Below The Line? How To Know And What To Do About It.” I shared wisdom from Michael Bungay Stanier’s book, “The Advice Trap: Be Humble, Stay Curious, & Change the Way You Lead Forever.”

I shared his TERA technique to create a more psychologically safe space for our teams and keep them engaged.

Meeting structure is a direct application of the E in TERA. The E stands for Expectation as Stanier’s explains in his book.

The meeting structure you create and capture in a document shows your teammates what to expect. This calms their brains by showing them the future.

And, by sharing the meeting guide with them before the meeting, they can not only prepare for the upcoming session, but they will also feel more psychological safe as they anticipate joining together as a team.

Additionally, using the same document during the meeting provides familiarity and consistency which brings further reassurance.

These steps help your teammates engage more deeply and be more creativity.

Structure helps your teammates thrive by providing them with security. And, it does more than that. It helps them understand you better.

A structured meeting helps you make sense to others

When you’re leading a meeting, you definitely want to communicate clearly. You want the people in the meeting to understand what you’re saying.

In other words, you want to make sense to others. That’s the term Tom Henschel of Essential Communications used in a recent podcast episode.

Tom is a veteran executive leadership coach who grooms senior leaders and executive teams. He is an internationally recognized expert in the field of workplace communications. He knows what he’s talking about.

Tom had a conversation with Dave Stachowiak on Dave’s Coaching for Leaders podcast (which I highly recommend). They discussed the common challenge of making sense to others when communicating, including when leading meetings.

Tom explained why using structure when communicating helps both the sender, you in this case as the meeting leader. And, the receiver, those attending your meeting. And, he gives interesting insight into the benefit of clear, precise transitions.

The lessons in this episode are applicable when creating structure for your meetings and for every type of communication. You can access the episode by clicking the image below.

This podcast encouraged me to continue to use structure when leading meetings and incorporate it into other forms of communication as well. I hope it does the same for you.

That completes this section on why structure makes a meeting more effective. So, let’s summarize what we’ve covered in this post.

It’s time to put structure into action as you lead meetings

You’ve now got a seven step process to use structure to lead an effective meeting. And, you know why this structure makes a meeting more effective.

Are you ready to apply these lessons to the next meeting you lead? I encourage you to give it a try.

I’m confident the people who attend the next meeting you lead will recognize and appreciate the benefit of the structure you introduce.

Let’s lead with kindness and confidence.

Greg

Discussion Questions

• How do you introduce structure into the meetings you lead?

• Which of the seven steps listed above do you find most valuable?

I’m curious to learn more about how you prepare for and lead meetings. Please share your tips and tricks and teach me and others what you know.

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Of course, I may be overthinking the analogy. But if I am, I’m going to blame in on my career experience.

Be a thermostat leader not a thermometer leader

If you aren’t familiar with the thermometer versus thermostat leader analogy, here’s a quick summary.

This quote captures the essence of the illustration.

There are two different types of leaders. A person can either be like a thermometer or a thermostat. A thermometer will tell you what the temperature is. A thermostat will not only tell you what the temperature is, but it’ll move you to the temperature you need to get to.

Kevin McCarthy

First, let me say I think this is a useful comparison.

The differences between a thermometer and a thermostat can be used to teach many facets of leadership. I’ll cover some of those shortly.

But, to be honest, every time I hear this illustration, and even when I use it myself when training leaders, I hesitate a bit.

Again, it’s probably due to my background.

I know a thing or two about thermostats

I’ve spent most of my professional life in the HVAC industry. The acronym HVAC stands for Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning. In simple terms, HVAC technology is all about controlling the air temperature and humidity in a home or building with the goal of keeping the occupants comfortable.

One of the main components of an HVAC system is the thermostat.

The thermostat is the device that senses the temperature of the room and controls the rest of the HVAC system to heat or cool the air. Together they keep the temperature of your home right where you want it to be.

Or, if you’re a parent, the thermostat is the thing on the wall you tell your kids (or maybe your spouse) to stay away from. Or, is that just me?

I’m pretty familiar with thermostats since part of my job in previous years was to design them along with the electronic controls in furnaces and air conditioners. It’s a little hard to believe now, but years ago I did actually use my electrical engineering degree.

So, that’s why it’s easy for me to get tripped up with the leadership analogy of a thermostat. Well, that and my tendency to overthink many things, including analogies.

But, in this case, I think my extra analysis (that’s sounds better than overthinking doesn’t it?) and my HVAC experience add value.

A thermostat’s primary function

As I explained earlier the job of the thermostat is to control the other parts of the HVAC system. The air conditioner or heat pump outside your house. The furnace in your attic or basement. The thermostat sends signals telling those devices when to come on and make the air in your home hotter or colder.

But, that’s really not the primary function of a thermostat.

The main job of a thermostat is to keep you comfortable.

And, that’s where I disagree with the statement that a leader should act like a thermostat.

A leader’s job is not to keep people comfortable. A leader’s primary purpose is to mobilize people to deliver results.

Don’t get me wrong, I do agree with the traditional teachings of this illustration. And, I’ll also admit, my disagreement may be a technicality.

Where I agree

I agree that, like a thermostat, a leader must be highly skilled at determining the emotional temperature of the room.

A leader must take the temperature

If you read my blog regularly, you know I highly value the training provided by The Kansas Leadership Center.

One of the four leadership competencies they teach is “Diagnose Situation”. This is the work of observing and understanding a situation from multiple perspectives and at a deeper level.

To do that effectively a leader must be have the ability to “Take the Temperature” of a team or a challenge a team is facing.

This illustration is adapted from the content in the book The Common Good: Participant Handbook.

The comments in this graphic give you some clues to help you determine the emotional temperature of your team or a situation you’re in.

But, this is just a start. Here are even more tips from on how leaders can take the temperature.

These are taken from another outstanding resource from The Kansas Leadership Center, the book Your Leadership Edge: Lead Anytime, Anywhere.

I appreciate these tips and have used them myself many times. So, I wholeheartedly agree with the first comparison of a leader to a thermostat.

An effective leader must develop and continually improve their skill in taking the emotional temperature of their team and each situation.

I also agree with the second comparison of a good leader to a thermostat.

A leader must raise the heat

Once a thermostat leader has taken the temperature of the team or the situation, he or she must also adjust the temperature. And, almost always, the heat needs to be raised.

Sure, there are times when a leader needs to help a team member calm down or dissipate some tension in the room.

But, to make meaningful progress with a team, a leader most often needs to increase the temperature not decrease it.

Why?

It’s human nature to stay comfortable. We don’t like to have our routines changed. Most of us appreciate consistency and knowing what to expect. These all keep the temperature down in the comfort zone.

And, we really don’t like the one thing that tends to raise the heat faster than any thing else.

Conflict.

Conflict and heat go together

The engineer in me really wants to dive into how conflict involves friction and friction produces heat. But, I won’t. I’ll keep it simple.

Conflict and heat go together.

So, when you are leading a team and realize you need to raise the heat to help your team make progress, you need to be ready for some conflict.

Leaders must appreciate conflict

Leaders of successful teams must be ready to encounter and manage conflict. I will go even further and suggest this.

To be the most successful leader you can be, you need to learn to appreciate conflict.

That may sound odd given our natural tendency to avoid and prevent conflict. But, seeing conflict as a good thing is a trait of mature and experienced leaders.

Appreciating conflict is not an easy task I know. But, conflict is inevitable when people are involved.

So, if you want to lead people to deliver results as a team, you need to expect and appreciate conflict.

Conflict is required to deliver results

Organizational health expert and best-selling author, Patrick Lencioni, includes fear of conflict as one of the five pitfalls teams face. He writes about this in his book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable.

Lencioni describes the importance of conflict in this short video.

This quote from the video emphasizes the importance of conflict for effective and successful teams.

Conflict is not only okay on a team, or even good. It’s necessary and required. We have to engage in conflict. And, when we have trust, conflict becomes nothing but the passionate pursuit of truth or the best possible answer.

Patrick Lencioni

In The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Lencioni further explains the benefits of conflict for teams who want to deliver results.

He compares teams that fear and avoid conflict with teams that intentionally engage in healthy conflict.

Do the characteristics of teams that fear conflict look familiar?

If they don’t, take another look at the graphic above and the descriptions of teams and situations with temperatures that are too cold or comfortable.

Successful teams need conflict. They need the heat raised by courageous leaders who are willing to be a bit uncomfortable with their teammates to achieve results.

But how can we as leaders raise the heat?

Let’s go back to the training from The Kansas Leadership Center for some practical tips.

How to raise the heat

Here are proven techniques you can use to introduce the right amount of conflict and discomfort, heat in other words, with your team.

These are taken from the chapter titled “Raise the Heat” in the book Your Leadership Edge: Lead Anytime, Anywhere.

Keep an eye of the temperature

These tips are great for raising the heat. But, as you can imagine, each has the potential to make it way too hot.

As we lead, we must continually function as the temperature sensor in the thermostat. We must pay attention to the clues listed earlier to make sure we don’t create an environment that shuts our team down and prevents progress.

We must learn what works best for each team we lead in each unique situation. It’s not easy and we won’t always get it right.

Sometimes, we will have the heat raised on us and we will need to embrace the discomfort just as we ask our teams to do.

As leaders and as teammates we need to be uncomfortable at times.

And, that’s okay. In fact it’s good and required that leaders create discomfort.

But it’s not okay for thermostats.

My disagreement with the thermostat leader model

This brings me back to my disagreement with the statement that a leader must be a thermostat.

If your thermostat causes you to be too hot or too cold, you’re going to be calling an HVAC professional. Your thermostat may need to be replaced. It’s not carrying out it’s primary function of keeping you and the people in your home comfortable.

But, if you as a leader, are taking your team and yourself out of the comfort zone by raising the heat, you are functioning just as you should.

You are challenging your teams to embrace and appreciate conflict.

Your teammates may not be comfortable. And, you likely won’t be either. But you will be helping them to achieve the results they are capable of delivering for your organization.

So be a thermostat leader, but remember your primary function is not to keep your team comfortable. It’s to help them make progress and deliver results.

Let’s lead with kindness and confidence.

Greg

Discussion Questions

• What techniques do you use to raise the heat with your teams?

• What is the typical temperature of your team? Would raising the heat help them deliver better results?

I’m interested to know what you found useful from this post. Please share your thoughts in the comments section so we can learn together.

About the Author – Learn more about Greg

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Those are the three words I find myself using over and over when I ask a question.

Frankly, I can’t remember when I learned this phrase. Of course, it’s not original to me and is commonly used by organizations seeking to innovate.

The phrase has been widely discussed and analyzed so there is an abundance of material available on the topic. In fact, “How might we” is represented by the acronym HMW in many articles and publications.

When a phrase has its own acronym, it’s clearly not a new idea. This article in the Harvard Business Review traces the roots of this question introduction back to the 1970’s at Procter & Gamble.

“How might we” has been around as long as I have. It’s been tested and proven as an effective and powerful way to start a question with teams of all sizes in a variety of organizations.

These three words work to unlock the creativity of teams.

Here are a few of my thoughts on why this three-word combination should be in every leader’s vocabulary.

Effective leaders ask questions

The fact that “How might we” starts a question is in itself powerful.

Asking questions when leading others is almost always more effective for getting results than telling others what to do or how to do it.

In his book, “The Advice Trap: Be Humble, Stay Curious, & Change the Way You Lead Forever.” Michael Bungay Stanier encourages all leaders to stay curious longer to get the most from your teams.

And, asking questions instead of giving advice is one of the best ways to stay curious.

In my blog post “How To Ask Powerful Questions – Getting Started” I share 32 questions you can use with your teams. These questions help your teammates contribute more and add value to your organization.

Any question beginning with “How might we” is a good addition to that list. Using these three words to begin a question to your team can make a tremendous difference in how they receive your question and in how they respond.

The specific three words, How, Might, and We are important. Each add their own value in the phrase.

Consider the word, “how”.

How can’t be answer with a yes or a no

The word “how” ranks near the top of the list of ways to start a powerful question. “Why” and “what” are up there too. These words require a thoughtful response because they can’t be answered with a “yes” or a “no”.

In a previous post, I introduced the guide titled “The Art of Powerful Questions: Catalyzing Insight, Innovation, and Action” written by Eric E. Vogt, Juanita Brown, and David Isaacs. It is available through The World Cafe’ and other locations online.

In this valuable resource the authors write this.

“The linguistic construction of a question can make a critical difference in either opening our minds or narrowing the possibilities we can consider.”

The word “how” opens our minds.

A meaningful reply to a question beginning with “how” must include an explanation of a process or actions. An answer might explain steps to take and who would take those steps.

And, an important assumption is built into a question beginning with “How might we”.

“How might we” suggests a solution to the problem or opportunity described in the rest of the question exists.

Just by using the word “how” to ask your team a question such as “How might we address this challenge?” or “How might we capitalize on that opportunity?” you are positively impacting their mindset.

You are bolstering their creative confidence by suggesting to them an answer does exist.

A solution is out there. Somewhere. The team just needs to work together to explore options. To discover what is possible by applying their individual and collective creativity.

Through their individual and collective work, they can apply their talent and skills and find solutions.

The word “how” sparks innovation.

And, the second word in the powerful phrase “How might we” stokes their creative fire.

Might is a mighty word

The word “might” in this context can unleash the power of creativity from your team. It sets the tone for innovative and collaborative thinking.

The “might” in “How might we” brings a positive approach and builds mental momentum for your team. It is fuel to feed the flames kindled by using the word “how”.

One definition of “might” describes power. While, this is indirectly applicable, it’s not grammatically correct.

But, the appropriate definition also captures the power in this simple word.

Optimism

This definition of the word “might” highlights its positive and encouraging energy.

Might – used to express possibility

This description of “might” is optimistic as well as encouraging.

Like the word “how”, it acknowledges the possibility that a solution exists to the problem you are trying to solve. It communicates there is potential to make progress on the challenge before you. The improvements you want to see could exist.

You and your team don’t have certainty and clarity on how things will change just yet. But, “might” suggests at some point in the future you could.

It instills hope in the future without demanding a solution right now.

In contrast, using the word “should” implies there is one right answer. The team’s mission is to find that one and only one solution to the problem not to explore and discuss a variety of ways to make progress. As a result, the creativity flames are quenched.

“Might” encourages teammates to suggest ideas that might not be good ideas. They could even be bad suggestions and need an experiment to learn more.

In fact, the word “might” invites experimentation.

By asking “How might we…” you set the expectation that a person’s response may or may not work. But, you still want to hear their idea. And, you want the entire team to hear what they are thinking.

Sharing an idea with the rest of the team when you haven’t thought through it completely can be intimidating.

As a leader you can reduce the fear factor for your teammates, by encouraging them to “rent an idea” when sharing and experimenting with initial thoughts about how to address challenges and solve problems.

Renting an idea

I learned the phrase “renting an idea” from my training at The Kansas Leadership Center. The concept is simple.

You are only “renting” an idea and not “owning” it.

And, since you haven’t made the commitment to own it, you don’t feel compelled to defend the thought you’ve shared.

The phrase provides space for you and your teammates to suggest ideas they have not yet fully thought through and analyzed.

They can “rent” an idea and share it with the team before being convinced themselves of its value.

It is understood when renting an idea is that it may or may not be a good idea. You are not emotionally attached to what you’ve shared.

You are participating with your team to play with the idea. To critique and consider it. You can take what’s good about it, if anything, and leave what is not of value.

In my experience, I’ve rented and shared plenty of ideas that I later decided through dialogue with the team were not good ideas at all.

Combining the concept of “renting an idea” with the phrase “how might we” can produce highly valuable ideas from concepts that at first seems to have no value at all.

Using these two phrases together promotes innovation and collaboration.

This leads us to the third word of this powerful phrase. The powerful pronoun, “we”.

We are better together

When one teammate offers an idea, even a bad one, it stimulates creativity. Other members of the team can ponder this initial idea and add their own thoughts. They can bounce off this idea and continue the conversation.

“We” as team members are working together to consider possibilities and solutions. We’re building on each other’s ideas and encouraging one another to consider new perspectives.

In contrast to a question like “What are you going to do to fix this?” a question beginning with “How might we” brings people together instead of isolating them.

It encourages and emboldens them by reminding them they are not alone. It reassures them they are part of a team with members who support each other and want to learn from one another.

Diverse and inclusive teams perform better

The use of the term “we” in a question beginning with “How might we” also encourages diversity in thought. It invites others into the conversation so they are heard and included.

When teams are diverse and all members provide input, they consistently outperform teams that are less diverse. This has been my experience and this article from Gartner supports this position. The article also highlights another important point.

Creating an inclusive environment is the key to leveraging diversity.

So, by regularly asking “How might we” questions, you are building a culture of inclusion to unlock the potential of each unique individual on your team.

Every person can add value when seeking to solve problems and make progress on difficult challenges. As a leader you can help each of your teammates contribute.

It’s easy to get started

I hope you’re ready to try out these three powerful words with your teams. It’s not hard at all.

The next time you’re faced with a challenge in your organization, a regular situation for most leaders, just ask your team for input using a “How might we” question.

It could be as simple as asking, “How might we improve in this area?” or “How might we solve this problem?”

And then, let them respond. Even if there is awkward silence for a bit, don’t fill it. Leave time for your team to envision possibilities that “might” exist.

Let your team realize you really are inviting them to share their input. To express their ideas, even the rented ones. Reassure them you don’t know the one right answer or expect them to know it either.

Communicate through your “How might we” questions and your interaction with them that you sincerely want to hear what they have to say.

I’m confident your team will give you many valuable ideas, ideas you wouldn’t have thought of on your own.

And, I’m also sure the responses you hear to your question of “How might we…” will encourage you to ask questions starting with these three powerful words again and again.

Let’s lead with kindness and confidence.

Greg

Discussion Questions

• How might we learn from one another and share what works best for us?

• How might we train others on our teams to use these three simple words regularly?

I would love to read your answers to my “How might we” discussion questions in the comments. Please share so we can learn together.

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But, this can seem like a daunting task. I know how it feels to have a team that has lost confidence and is a bit shaken. It’s hard to know where to start.

Thankfully, I learned how to help my team be strong by asking them some simple yet very clever questions.

I learned this technique from one of the best question-askers around. You’ve likely heard of him. But if you haven’t, let me have the privilege of introducing you.

An expert on asking questions – Michael Bungay Stanier

Michael Bungay Stanier is an expert at asking thoughtful questions.

His book, “The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More, & Change the Way You Lead Forever”, contains a set of seven transformative questions coaches and leaders around the globe use every day. In fact, it is the best-selling book on coaching this century.

Michael also founded a training and development company, Box of Crayons, that has taught coaching skills to hundreds of thousands of people around the world. Box of Crayons helps organizations move from “advice-driven to curiosity-led”.

And, being curious means asking good questions.

So during the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020, Michael started a podcast called “We Will Get Through This” to help his listeners stay strong and be resilient during difficult circumstances.

This is an exceptional podcast I highly recommend.

I found one particular episode particularly valuable because it was packed with information on leading well during difficult circumstances. A situation many of us are familiar with.

A podcast episode to help you and your team be strong during crisis

Before I dig into the seven questions, I can’t stress enough how impressed I was with this episode. The full 30 minutes is filled with wisdom and practical advice.

It is a must-listen for any leader who is in the middle of or preparing their team for difficult and unsettling times. Or, in other words, every leader.

If you want to help your team be strong during times of crisis and change, listen to this episode.

Click any of these links to listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, tunein, or Google Podcasts.

The episode is based on the Harvard Business Revenue article, How To Answer An Unanswerable Question which is another outstanding resource.

6 tips for dealing with difficult questions during times of uncertainty

In the article and in the conversation with Michael, Ron Carucci, gives these six tips for leaders to help their team be strong and resilient during a crisis.

Ron is co-founder and managing partner at Navalent and speaks from a wealth of experience.

1. Acknowledge your own anxiety
2. Listen for the need underneath the question
3. Ask questions that help others find strength
4. Don’t interpret questions as critique
5. Practice your tone and physical delivery ahead of time
6. If you blow it, recover quickly

All of these tips are highly valuable and I encourage you to study the article. But, tip number 3 impacted me the most.

The insightful questions Ron provided to help my team stay strong caught my attention. They stuck with me.

And, Michael added another question that was equally powerful.

4 questions that help others find strength

As Ron writes in his article, great leaders empower their teammates by helping them discover their own strength.

Leaders can do this when confronted with anxiety-driven inquiries by asking questions that draw out people’s deeper concerns.

From the article, these four questions help team members discover the answers they have but are hidden below their own fears.

• When you sense someone is having trouble adapting, ask, “What’s something you’ve learned during this crisis you would have never expected?” This can help them recognize they are more capable than they think.
• If someone is struggling to see past the current challenges, ask, “What’s one thing you hope remains after this crisis?” This will allow them to acknowledge that they’ve discovered things they actually might enjoy — like the perks of remote work and extra family time.
• To help others discover their resilience and combat anxiety, questions like, “What’s the worst thing you could imagine happening from all of this?” can help people sort through real vs. irrational concerns.
• Asking, “What’s one of the worst things you’ve ever overcome or endured?” helps people tap into sources of hope and fortitude from their own stories.

2 more powerful questions to help your team be strong

In the podcast episode (at 18:25), Michael adds two more powerful question for leaders to use to help their team be strong when coping with a difficult situation.

Here’s question 1.

On scale from 1 to 10, how do you think you are doing in dealing with this difficult situation?

Pretty simple, right? No magic there.

Question 2 is the clever bit.

Why didn’t you give yourself a lower number?

As Michael points out, this approach causes the person to consider the positive attributes in themselves that caused them to pick this number. Even if your teammate answers with a 2, they can point to something that’s caused them to not be a 1.

The question opens up a “self-awareness of the person’s capabilities, competence, and confidence.” as Michael notes.

Whereas, asking them what it might take for them to get to a higher number might trigger negative thoughts of judgment and feelings of inadequacy.

Michael credits Dr Michael Pantalon at Yale for this question. You can learn more from him in his book “Instant Influence – How To Get Anyone To Do Anything Fast”.

A helpful alternative is one more thoughtful question. And, you can use this one if your team member picks a “1”.

1 last thoughtful question

Instead of discouraging your teammate by asking them why they didn’t pick a higher number, try this better question.

“What needs to be true for you to have selected a higher number?”

This question drives thoughts of practical actions that would have to be taken and grounds the conversation in reality while displacing often irrational speculations.

Positive, forward-thinking discussions will occur and stimulate progress as well as self-confidence in your team members.

You will not only be encouraging them during a time of crisis, you will also be helping them continue to deliver results during periods of uncertainty and fear.

Applying this to the Red-Yellow-Green method

If you’ve read my post, “An Easy Way To Check In With Your Team“, you learned the Red-Yellow-Green method to start a conversation to better understand how your teammates are really doing.

An easy way to further the discussion after asking

How are you doing?

And getting the response of “yellow” or “green” would be to ask,

Why didn’t you pick “red”?

This question will likely cause the person to realize they have many things going well in their situation. And, the inquiry will likely stimulate thoughts of areas they can and have influenced the outcome.

They will become empowered and encouraged as they become more aware of the strength they possess to positively impact their circumstances.

But what if they pick “red”?

Easy.

Simply ask them this.

What would need to be true for you to pick “yellow” or even “green”?

As described above, these questions might transform your check-in conversation to a positive and encouraging planning session for the future.

This connection between how we ask a question and the mindset of the person we’re talking with is a reminder that caring for our teammates can lead to higher performance and sustained results. Even during the most challenging circumstances.

Great questions lead to great results

As I listen to and learn from experienced experts the incredible power of asking thoughtful questions continues to amaze me.

These seven questions from Ron Carucci and Michael Bungay Stanier are outstanding examples.

By asking these simple questions we can help our teams be strong and resilient even during the most challenging times.

And, best of all, our team members will get the strength they need not from us but from themselves. As they ponder the answers to the questions we ask, they will realize the power they already have even when it is hidden under the feelings of fear and uncertainty they are experiencing.

What more could we ask for in our quest to be kind and confident leaders?

Let’s lead with kindness and confidence.

Greg

Discussion Questions

• What questions have you found to be the most useful when leading your team through difficult circumstances?

• How did your team react when you asked them these questions? Were the resulting discussions beneficial to you and them?

I’m interested to know how you put these questions into practice with your team. Please share your experiences in the comments section so we can learn together.

About the Author – Learn more about Greg

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One more hidden danger of being a respected leader

I’ve done several posts recently on the dangers of being a respected leader.

You wouldn’t think that leading in a way that produces followers who admire and emulate your behavior for all the right reasons would introduce risks to you and your team.

But it does.

Today’s post on groupthink is directly connected to my post 3 Powerful Ways to Disagree When You Agree. There I outlined strategies to use when you recognize the warning sign of your team regularly reaching agreement quickly and without conflict.

Groupthink also contributes to the traps of getting comfortable (A Hidden Danger Of Being A Respected Leader. How To Avoid This Trap.) and duplicating an admired leader (How to Keep Your Team From Being Just Like You.).

The dangers I describe in these three posts have a common theme.

Teammates often feel compelled, whether they realize it or not, to conform.

And, this describes what is known as “groupthink”.

Groupthink defined

According to Psychology Today the term “groupthink” was first introduced in the November 1971 issue of their publication by psychologist Irving Janis.

Here is the definition of groupthink from Psychology Today. I recommend the full article to learn more on this topic.

Groupthink is a phenomenon that occurs when a group of well-intentioned people make irrational or non-optimal decisions spurred by the urge to conform or the believe that dissent is impossible. The problematic or premature consensus that is characteristic of groupthink may be fueled by a particular agenda—or it may be due to group members valuing harmony and coherence above critical thought.

Psychology Today

The words “well-intentioned people” and “non-optimal decisions” highlight the importance of this topic for you and for me.

If you’re reading this blog, you are striving to be a kind and confident leader. You are “well-intentioned” and your teams likely are too.

And, no leader wants to make “non-optimal decisions”. Or worse, “irrational” decisions.

To lead well, even when our motives are right, we need to avoid groupthink and help our teams do the same.

To do this effectively, we need to start with what we believe.

2 beliefs to avoid groupthink

I’m sure there are many more beliefs we could include in this discussion. But, I see these two as critical and fundamental.

You may even think they are so obvious they aren’t worth noting.

But, this is exactly why I want to talk about them.

It is easy to say we agree with these beliefs, but our actions may not match what we say we believe.

Because we are “well-intentioned people”, kind leaders with teams who want to do things the right way, we are especially susceptible to “irrational or non-optimal decisions” that come with conformed thinking.

Therefore, let’s focus on these two important beliefs to help us avoid groupthink.

The first belief is described well by my friends at the Kansas Leadership Center.

Belief 1 – There are multiple interpretations to be considered

Take a couple of minutes to watch this short video from the Kansas Leadership Center then keep reading for a few of my thoughts on how this mindset equips us to avoid groupthink.

Like all the content produced by the team at the Kansas Leadership Center this video is packed with valuable and practical leadership wisdom.

You’ll notice the message is built on an important assumption.

The way we interpret a situation is not the only way a situation can be interpreted.

You may be thinking that this is obviously true. Something everyone knows.

I agree, but as I stated above, sometimes our actions reveal that we have forgotten this obvious truth.

Groupthink is a behavior that exposes that we aren’t acknowledging, or perhaps valuing, other interpretations of a situation.

This is especially important for healthy, successful teams to remember. Great leadership brings great results.

And, this success can create blind spots.

We can begin to think that because our way of viewing the world works, it is the only way, the only perspective.

But, it’s not. And we have to remind ourselves of that.

Those outside our group of teammates likely don’t see things how we see them. They haven’t been included in our groupthink activity.

And that’s a good thing.

Their different, and possibly even conflicting, perspectives might help make our great team even better.

This brings us to the second belief that’s required to avoid groupthink.

Our way may not be the best way.

Belief 2 -There might be a better way

It’s one thing to acknowledge that interpretations different from our own exist. It’s another to admit those interpretations might teach us something.

After all, our entire team agrees. And, we’re a great team. We all see things the same way. We’ve reached the same conclusions.

It’s obvious to us we are right and we are good to go.

But take just a minute to pause and observe the mindset I’ve described.

Do you see it? The danger that having a strong team of trusted teammates who think alike can bring?

We’re groupthinking.

It’s easy to get blind spots built on the confidence we have in ourselves or our team.

That confidence may be fully justified based on our exceptional past performance and amazing team dynamics. But, it may also keep us and our team from improving.

This is why it is critical that we focus on being open to the idea that other perspectives might make our team even better.

If we and our teammates can commit to being open to sincerely listen to what others have to say, we are more prepared to avoid groupthink.

But, how does this play out in real life with our teams? How can we put what we believe into action?

Here are some practical tips I’ve found useful.

5 practical tips to avoid groupthink

Make your team aware. Talk with your team about the dangers of groupthink and conformity. Encourage them to look for warning signs. Invite them to speak freely when they see a lack of diversity in the team’s way of thinking.

Assign a “devil’s advocate.” Pick one or two team members to rotate into a role of intentionally representing an opposing view when the group reaches consensus. This technique was used by President John F. Kennedy when he assigned his brother, Robert, this role following the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. Here is an interesting article on that topic.

Explore “tough interpretations”. Our teams can quickly groupthink ourselves into easy interpretations. Tough interpretations are those that make us uncomfortable, but may still hold some truth we need to consider. The video above and the book Your Leadership Edge [affiliate link]  teach more on this topic.

Zoom out. As a leader we can help our teams avoid groupthink by stepping back from the group and taking a broader view. You can find more information on how to do that effectively in my post, How To Serve Your Team By Zooming Out.

Fear your ego. Our pride is a dangerous thing. Hearing our entire groupthinking team tell us we’re right can destroy our humility. To avoid groupthink, we need to surround ourselves with trusted colleagues who will tell us what we need to hear even if it’s not what we want to hear.

I include more actions in my post 3 Powerful Ways to Disagree When You Agree that will help you and your team avoid groupthink too.

Put our beliefs into action to avoid groupthink and improve

It takes preparation to avoid groupthink and the dangers that come with it.

Establishing these two core beliefs personally and with our teams is a powerful first step.

And, taking the five suggested actions will help you and your teams increase the diversity in your thinking and perform even better as a result.

Let’s lead with kindness and confidence.

Greg

Discussion Questions

• What other actions do you recommend for leaders and team who want to avoid groupthink?

• How have you considered multiple interpretations to situations you’ve encountered?

Your interpretations and perspectives are important to me. Please share your experiences in the comments section so we can learn together.

About the Author – Learn more about Greg

Click here to download the free guide.

How to Write a Professional Email: Make a positive impact with every email you send.

The post Focus On These 2 Beliefs To Avoid Groupthink appeared first on Greg Harrod.

Consensus without conflict is a warning sign

Are you on a good team? Maybe even a great team?

I hope you are. But, even if you aren’t, I’d like you to do a quick mental exercise.

Take a moment to consider some dynamics of this great team you’re a part of. Or would like to be on.

This team could be any size. It could be 30 people in a large corporation or just you and the only other employee in your small business.

You may be the formal leader or a team member without a position of authority.

Everyone on the team respects each other. You communicate well. Everybody gets along.

You identify challenges and find agreed-upon solutions. And, you do it quickly.

You’re tight as teammates. The team chemistry is amazing. It’s almost as if you know what your teammates are thinking. How they are going to respond.

You all know how things should be done. They think like you think. You think like they think.

It’s a perfect team, right?

Wrong.

Far from it.

A team that reaches consensus quickly and without conflict could be in serious danger.

To be a great team member and build a successful team you have to learn to disagree even when you agree.

This skill doesn’t come naturally. It has to be learned and practiced.

This is especially true when the team is led by an admired leader who is leading people well.

Another hidden danger of being a respected leader

In my blog post, “A Hidden Danger Of Being A Respected Leader. How To Avoid This Trap.” I raised the red flag to signal the dangers associated with being a leader people respect. I wrote about the trap of getting comfortable.

The post, “How to Keep Your Team From Being Just Like You.” explored ways to prevent simply cloning an admired leader which is another pitfall to avoid.

As with those dangers, lack of conflict and easy consensus is a subtle trap for leaders and the teams they’re on.

Quick agreement can come naturally to teams who are led by a person the team members really want to follow.

Why?

When teams are formed intentionally through hiring or selecting team members from existing employees, it’s natural to choose people who have similar views of how things should be done.

Common values. Shared goals. One vision. Everyone moving the same direction.

These are all good things, but the agreement on these overarching principles can prevent us from embracing diversity of thought and inviting dissenting views.

So, if you find you and your teammates agreeing quickly and often, pay attention to this warning sign. Take action to avoid the dangers ahead of you. As a starting point, try out these 3 ways to disagree even when you initially agree.

3 actions to help you disagree when you agree

Depending on your starting point, these actions may be difficult for you or for those on your team.

I get it. These steps aren’t always easy for me to take either.

So, I’ll start with the action that will probably be the least uncomfortable. We’ll work our way up to the one that will take some courage.

We’ll begin where you can have the quickest impact. With you and your own team.

1. Challenge yourself and your team

Let’s go back to how I described your team in the introduction.

You reach agreement quickly.

We also said that may not be a good thing.

With that in mind, try challenging your team to get better by making one of these statements the next time you quickly reach a consensus without much debate or conflict.

Discussion starters

We all seem to agree on the best way to solve this problem. But, I’m wondering if we’ve missed something. If we were forced to pick a different solution, what path might we take?

As I think about the comments we’ve each made to get us to this decision, they all sounded basically the same. It’s good that we’re aligned. But, let’s challenge our thinking. Would someone be willing to share a thought you don’t really agree with but crossed your mind as we were talking? You don’t have to defend the idea. Just tell us what it was so we can discuss it.

Okay. We’ve all agreed on our next steps. But, surely we don’t all agree 100% on every part of the actions we should take. Let’s each take a turn sharing one thing we don’t like about one of these steps. This doesn’t mean we aren’t committed to the plan, but let’s force ourselves to think about seeing things in a different way.

Creating an environment of openness and curiosity

Statements like this invite each team member to challenge themselves and, therefore, the entire team to entertain a different perspective.

These discussion starters force each person to disagree when they agree at first.

These invitations for dialogue create an environment of openness and curiosity to explore new ideas and solutions.

Based on my experience, you will find that those who quickly agreed initially may realize they aren’t fully aligned after a deeper conversation.

When invited or challenged to provide an opposing or different perspective, they may open up with their unspoken views. This may lead to healthy debate which can produce an even better solution than was originally agreed upon by the team.

But, the team’s opinion really isn’t the most important perspective to consider.

What matters more is the opinion of your customer.

2. Seek input from your customer

Wait.

Don’t skip this part because you think you don’t have customers.

You do.

You may be thinking this section doesn’t apply to you because you aren’t selling a product to someone. Or you aren’t running a business. You don’t have customers.

I disagree.

Everyone who produces something has at least one customer and likely many more.

For example, if you write emails, you have customers. The people you want to read your emails are your customers.

I write about this in my post, “The Most Important Thing To Get Right With Emails“.

No, the recipients of your emails aren’t paying for your product. But, when you view them as customers you are seeking to serve, you will produce better products, emails in this case. Emails they want to read.

This applies to everything we do as leaders and teammates.

We must seek the input of our customers to be successful.

This is especially important when our team is in complete agreement. It’s good that we’ve reached consensus, but if our customers don’t agree with the decision we’ve made, our “complete agreement” doesn’t matter.

Countless business owners have learned this lesson the hard way. The solution their teams agreed their customers wanted and needed was rejected. And, their business failed.

How could they have prevent these failures.?

The same way you can prevent the catastrophe that awaits your team when you are in agreement with one another but not with your customer.

You need to ask your customers for their input. And, listen to them. Then, do what they say.

Just three easy steps, right?

Not really. The first step is actually pretty easy. But those last two, they take some work.

Step 1. The easy part – asking for customer input

Contacting your customers and asking for their opinion on an idea your team has is not hard.

It doesn’t have to be a formal data gathering session with fancy tools and techniques. Sure, those are helpful and appropriate at times.

But, all you really need is a conversation, a pen, and a notepad.

That’s it.

Just pick up the phone or your computer mouse and set up a time on their calendar. Tell them you would like to get their opinion on an idea your team has that might impact them.

Most people will be eager to tell you what they think.

All you have to do is ask.

Step 2. The harder part – listening to the customer

We’ve covered listening in this blog before. Listening well is not easy for most of us. We have to work at it.

And, it is especially difficult when we are asking for input on an idea our team has already labeled as “great”. Or maybe even “amazing”. “Life changing” perhaps?

Whatever adjective we’ve selected, all of our team has agreed that our customer is going to love it.

Here’s where listening gets hard.

You’ve explained your idea to the customer you’re talking with and they don’t share your enthusiasm.

As you’re taking notes, you’re writing down quotes. And, they don’t confirm your team’s opinion. Instead of jotting down, “Best thing since sliced bread”, you find yourself writing, “Yeah. This won’t work.”

What?

They must need you to explain your amazing idea to them again.

So you interrupt to clarify the many benefits of your team’s brilliant idea. To correct them. Your customer.

See why listening is so hard?

You want them to affirm what your team so quickly agreed upon, but they might not. If that’s the case, you still need to listen to them disagree with you.

This is where the true learning begins for you and your team. The hardest input to hear is often the most valuable.

But, asking for input from your customer and listening to what they say isn’t enough.

You have to take the next really hard step.

Step 3. The hardest part – doing what the customer says

Before I go on, let me address a point you may be wanting to make with me if you’ve studied innovation.

I know the customer isn’t always right. I agree.

Yes. I have heard the quote.

“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said ‘faster horses’.”

Attributed to Henry Ford

(If you’re interesting another perspective on that quote, this Entrepreneur article has some valuable insight.)

I get the point of that quote.

We don’t want to limit ourselves to only giving our customers what they say they want.

But, in general, if your customer tells you something isn’t a good idea, they are probably right.

This is true even if your entire team agreed it was an awesome idea.

This is why listening to our customers is so difficult. Their honest input might hurt our pride.

It takes humility to admit that the idea our great team thought was exactly what the customer would want isn’t what they wanted at all. If we’re not careful, our personal ego or the collective ego of our talented team could derail our success.

We need to humble ourselves, admit we’re not perfect, and take our customer’s input into account and refine our idea.

This may mean more work for our team. We may have to scrap what we’ve already created.

But, the time invested now to better satisfy our customers we are trying to serve is a wise investment.

Sincerely seeking input from our customers may test our humility.

It may be a bit uncomfortable to request honest input from someone who might disagree with you.

But, how uncomfortable would it be to get feedback from someone you know will disagree with your recommendations?

Your critics.

3. Get feedback from your critics

Stay with me. Don’t turn back now. I told you this last one would take some courage. And, more humility.

We’ve all got critics. People who are going to find fault with whatever we do.

Whether it’s our personal work or the work of our teams critics will pick it apart. They will point out everything they consider to be a flaw in what our team has agreed is a near-perfect approach.

You know you’re going to hear the criticism from them. You can’t stop the people who want to tear you down.

So why not take advantage of their input and make use of their cutting comments to get better?

If you have the right mindset, your harshest critic can unknowingly become an extremely helpful ally.

This is perhaps the most powerful way to disagree when you and your team agree.

Go on the offensive and ask your most stringent critic to tell you what’s wrong with your team’s proposal.

Here’s what I recommend.

5 steps to use with your harshest critic

1. Schedule an appointment with your critic.
2. Prior to your meeting send the person your idea or proposal. Give them plenty of time to empty their red pen critiquing your work.
3. During your meeting, listen to learn and understand. Take detailed notes just as if you were listening to your most valuable customer.
4. Do not defend or explain your proposal except to answer specific questions.
5. When they’re done, thank your critic for their input and end the meeting.

I guarantee you will learn something using this technique if you have the right mindset.

Mindset tips for turning your critic’s input into useful feedback

• Expect unfair or unfounded negative comments. Prepare your mind to hear them so you don’t feel compelled to respond.
• Believe that somewhere in all the non-helpful rhetoric your critic has some valid criticism your team needs to hear.
• Focus on accurately recording what your critic is saying. A video or audio recording of the dialogue is ideal.
• Wait to process the feedback until after the emotion of the encounter with your critic is gone.
• Entertain the possibility that your critic’s views might be shared by a customer you want to serve.
• Be willing to take useful input from your critic back to your team and disagree with what you originally supported.

If you can take this action one critic, you can do it with another. And another.

I suggest you repeat this process with every critic who will share their comments with you.

Their input is as helpful as the feedback you receive from your customers. Possibly even more valuable.

Protect your team from hidden danger. Disagree with them.

When you’re on a great team with great people, agreeing is almost always the easiest and most comfortable approach. And, it usually produces good results.

But, if you want your team to get even better, try something new. Disagree with them.

Don’t settle for first idea everyone agrees with. You and your team can do better.

Try these 3 powerful ways to disagree even when you initially agree.

1. Challenge yourself and your team
2. Seek input from our customer
3. Get feedback from your critics

I am confident you will learn something new.

You will become a more informed and effective leader and your team will benefit as a result.

Let’s lead with kindness and confidence.

Greg

Discussion Questions

• Does your team tend to reach consensus quickly and easily? Have you seen any negative effects of this?

• What techniques do you suggest for leaders to disagree when they actually agree with the team’s conclusion?

I’m interested to know if you agree or disagree with my recommendations. Please share your perspective in the comments section so we can learn together.

About the Author – Learn more about Greg

Click here to download the free guide.

How to Write a Professional Email: Make a positive impact with every email you send.

The post 3 Powerful Ways To Disagree When You Agree appeared first on Greg Harrod.

There’s one simple thing you can do to make this happen.

But, here’s the bad news.

You probably aren’t going to like it.

At least not until you read the rest of this post that is. Then I think you just might change your mind.

Bad Meetings

Have you ever been in a “bad” meeting whether it’s in person, on the phone, or over video?

Your answer may be something like, “As a matter of fact, I’m in the fourth bad meeting of the day right now. Save me!”

I know there are a million reasons you might describe a meeting as “bad”. I’m sure you have a list.

On the top of that list is probably something like this.

“We talk and we talk. The conversation drifts all over the place then starts to sound just like the discussion we had last week. Then, the meeting time is up and everyone rushes off to their next commitment. And, next week, we’ll have the exact same meeting again.”

Is that a “bad” meeting for you? A familiar meeting?

It certainly is for me.

So, what can you do to stop the waste of your time and your team’s time and avoid the frustration that goes along with it?

Here’s what I recommend.

And, I said above, you may not like what I suggest.

Be the note taker

What’s the secret to leading a meeting when you’re not the meeting leader?

Volunteer to take notes.

See why I said you weren’t going to like it?

Almost no one likes to be the scribe for a meeting, let alone a conference call.

Why is that?

Why we don’t like being the note taker

Well, for starters, you have to pay attention. Not just occasionally. But during the entire meeting.

Who wants to do that?

And, on top of that, you have to make sure you understand what was said so you can translate the myriad of spoken words into a clear, concise record of the discussion.

Don’t forget the gender dynamics that can be involved too.

The pattern of automatically assigning a woman to take notes during a meeting because of gender bias is still far too common in the workplace. This can cause some women to see the role as unimportant and resist volunteering for the task.

I get it. Being the note taker is not a role many team members volunteer for.

In fact, in most meetings no one takes notes.

The meeting leader doesn’t ask or assign someone to do it. And, of course, no one volunteers.

So, nothing is written down during or after the meeting (except a few scribbles and doodle images on your notebook, right?).

How does that typically turn out?

The results of a meeting without a note taker

A meeting without a note taker definitely generate results. Negative results.

Here are a few I can think of. I’m sure you can add more to the list.

Another meeting.

When nothing is recorded from a meeting, the odds are good that you are going to have another meeting. To discuss the same things. With those that were present at the first meeting. And some who weren’t. Who will need everything from the first meeting repeated for them.

I know you’ve been in that meeting.

The chances are also high that no notes will be taken in the second meeting either. So, yet another follow up meeting will be needed.

And the endless cycle of frustrating meetings continues.

Frustration

Meetings where great ideas are discussed but never recorded are frustrating.

They’re frustrating because great ideas captured only in conversations tend to evaporate with time. They drift away without being converted into actions.

Or, an even more frustrating scenario occurs. An idea is shared and it seems great at the time, but in reality it isn’t.

It’s easy to talk and talk and make something sound positive.

It’s only when someone puts those spoken words into print that the flaws in the argument are revealed and the true merit of an idea is seen.

Confusion

When a written record of a meeting is not created, the only documentation are the memories of the participants. And, very often those memories don’t match.

Confusion abounds when each person later remembers a decision or an assigned task differently.

I’ve experienced each one of these negative results of meetings without a note taker. You have too I expect.

If only there was a way to replace these negative results with positive ones.

But, wait. There is a way. It’s a solution we typically resist.

How we can make a bad meeting better

We can be the note taker.

Anyone can do the job if they’re willing. It doesn’t take special skills or unique talents. But it can have a big impact.

Think about the opportunity to lead your team by serving them in this role. This is a perfect example of leading even when we’re not the “leader”.

We can be the one who delivers positive results from what would otherwise be a waste of our team’s time.

I realize it’s natural to resist volunteering for the task of recording the notes from a meeting.

So, to help convince you (and myself) that it’s worth overcoming our hesitancy, let’s consider some of the positive benefits to being the meeting scribe.

These results are positive not only for our team but also for us personally.

The power of the pen (or the keyboard)

As the designated note taker for a meeting, you possess a tremendous amount of power to indirectly lead the meeting. Through this power you can strongly influence your team and your organization.

Here are just a few of the powers you have as the meeting scribe.

The power to lead by staying engaged

I’ll just start with the obvious.

If you’re the note taker, you need to be engaged during the entire meeting.

And, while it may seem attractive to zone out and play on your phone during the boring sections of a meeting, wouldn’t you much rather be actively engaged with the discussion?

Wouldn’t you really prefer to help turn a bad meeting into a good one instead of scrolling through your social media accounts and trying to stay awake?

The power to lead by interrupting

Have you ever been in a meeting and wanted to ask a clarifying question but didn’t feel like it was your place?

As the designated note taker for the meeting, you are authorized to stop the meeting at your discretion so you can do your job effectively.

By volunteering, you have gained a personal power you didn’t have before.

This statement works well for me.

“I apologize for interrupting here, but I need to ask a quick question to make sure I get this right in the notes.”

The power to lead by bringing clarity

I’ve been in countless meetings in which something was said and it just didn’t make any sense to me. And, I found out later, it didn’t make sense to anyone else either.

As the note taker, you can stop the confusing talk when you hear it and ask for clarity that will benefit the entire team.

Just use a statement like this.

“Would you clarify your last statement for me please? I didn’t understand it well enough to accurately record what you said.”

The power to lead by ensuring alignment

During most meetings, things are said and the participants assume everyone else is in agreement. But, this isn’t always true.

When taking notes, you can ensure alignment with this simple question.

“I noted what Judith said, but can I also record that everyone was in agreement? Does anyone disagree or have a different position?”

The power to lead by documenting decisions

We talked earlier about conflicting memories of what was decided during a meeting when no notes are taken. The note taker has the power to capture decisions so this doesn’t happen.

Use this statement to not only document a decision, but to also make sure decisions are being made during meetings.

“I think I just heard a decision in what we discussed. Did we actually decide on that and, if we did, would someone please repeat it for me? I will record it as a decision in the notes.”

The power to lead by ensuring actions are taken

Meetings that don’t result in actions typically aren’t very useful.

As the note taker, you can make every meeting you’re in more valuable by clarifying the specific actions with owners and completion dates. 

See my post Ask “Who Needs to Do What by When?” Drive Results! for more on this topic.

The power to lead by not being perfect

Some people hesitate to be the note taker because they are afraid they will mess up. As a recovering perfectionist, I completely understand.

The truth is, however, when you volunteer to be the note taker when no one else will, your notes are the best in existence. You get the grand prize trophy for best notes of the meeting without a contest.

Everyone knows the value of meeting notes, but no one wants to create them.

You will rarely be criticized as the note taker in a meeting.

This is because everyone else knows you can simply and politely ask them this.

“I know I’m not the best at taking notes, would someone else like to take a turn?”

That question will quickly earn you the support of even your worst critics.

Some post-meeting work is required

I don’t want to mislead you. You will have to do some work that others won’t have to do after the meeting.

You’ll have to clean up your notes and distribute them.

But, I have found the post-meeting work actually benefits me.

I learn more about the topic of the meeting as I finalize my notes. I process more thoroughly what was said and understand it at a deeper level. Or, I realize I need to study something that’s not clear to me.

This note taking activity causes me to grow and develop even after the meeting is over.

Additionally, I often reach out to other team members to make sure I got a note recorded accurately. This solidifies existing relationships with my teammates and builds new connections.

Why not try out this power to lead?

With all these benefits are being the note taker, what are you waiting for?

Try volunteering for this important role and exercising your power to lead the meeting indirectly.

See if you can apply the many powers that come with the role to transform your next bad meeting into one with many positive outcomes.

Let’s lead with kindness and confidence.

Greg

Discussion Questions

• Do you serve as the note taker in your meetings? What positive results have you seen in this role?

• What prevents you from volunteering for the important role of meeting note taker?

I’m interested to hear your comments. Do you consider taking notes during a meeting an important role or is your position different than mine? Please share your experiences in the comments section so we can learn together.

About the Author – Learn more about Greg

Click here to download the free guide.

How to Write a Professional Email: Make a positive impact with every email you send.

The post How To Unlock The Power To Lead In A Role You Probably Don’t Like appeared first on Greg Harrod.