This article was first published February 14, 2020 at Troy Media 

Questions are one of the most powerful tools we have in our arsenal as leaders, professionals, parents, human beings.  One of my favourite personal stories about the power of a question comes from an interview.  My final interview for a job I really wanted was with the CEO of the company.  After peppering me with questions, he asked if I had any for him.  I asked him why he was the CEO.  Twenty years later, I can still remember the ‘whiplash’ that unexpected question elicited.  Afterward I got feedback that it was a very bold question.  I also got the job - either because of, or in spite of - what that encounter said about me.   

Questions, unlike opinions or advice, have a unique ability to stop a thought process or redirect a discussion.  We have all been in meetings where someone is going on and on about what they think.  It is easy to sit back and tune out.  But a question immediately demands our attention.  The better the question, the more likely we are to perk up, and the more likely the conversation will deepen and our exchange become more meaningful.  

What is a good question?  
A ‘good question’ has a number of characteristics.  It is well-considered.  It comes from a place of genuine curiosity.  It is ‘on-topic’.  It is positioned in a way that allows the discussion to move forward.  It requires people to pause and think before answering.  It challenges assumptions.  It opens up new pathways of thinking.    

Coaching is a very popular development strategy for a reason.  It is, at its core, all about asking the good question.  A really good question is fuel for our reflection, awareness and insight.  Most of us like to solve our own problems, and good questions invite us to do that.

When should you use a question?

There are a few key situations where asking a good question or two is more effective than giving advice.  

When someone is on the verge of making a breakthrough.  When someone you are coaching is close to finding a solution or forming a new insight, it is very tempting to step in and point out the obvious.  One of the reasons leaders admit they do more ‘telling’ than ‘coaching’ is because allowing others to work through problems can be painfully slow at times.  One of the best ways to help someone make that final leap of insight is by asking a really good question.  

When someone is stuck in a rut.  Do you know someone who is constantly complaining about the same old thing?  When I see that person heading toward me, I can be guilty of looking for an escape hatch.  When my friend Perry wanted to talk, for the hundredth time, about how under-appreciated he felt at his company, I decided to change tactics.  Perry was stuck in a rut - unhappy but not doing anything about it.  Instead of spending 30 minutes listening, nodding and showing empathy, I asked a question instead:  “What do you need to do in order to leave this job and move to a place where you will be appreciated?”   My question took Perry off-guard because it wasn’t my usual ‘if you hate it so much why don’t you leave?’ question.  It was a ‘how’ question, and ‘how’ questions engage our problem solving brains. Instead of complaining, Perry spent the next 30 minutes talking about strategies for leaving, as well as sharing his fears and feelings of inadequacy.  Asking a really good question can be the impetus for helping someone get ‘unstuck’.    

When someone is coasting.  When you see someone who is not living up to their potential, a question is far more effective in inspiring action than a judgment.  For example, telling your daughter she could have had an A in math if she had worked a little harder is unlikely to be met with a positive response.  Asking her ‘how important is it to you to get an A in math this year?’ is more likely to help her reflect on and tap into her own motivation.  

Knowing when and how to ask a good question is an invaluable skill.  It will make you a better leader, a better coach, a better parent, a better friend.   And asking really good questions is also the best way I know to come across as really smart without having to know all the answers.

AA version of this article was first published in my monthly column for Troy Media.

This weekend I was admiring a burst of tulips in the back garden.  I commented on how striking they were.  My husband commented on how they were ill-placed.  Irritated by his lack of appreciation for the riot of colour, I grabbed a pair of scissors, snipped them off and announced he would no longer need to be annoyed by their poor placement.  At that moment, I completely lost my ability to self-regulate.  Self-regulators do not stomp into the garden and clip tulips just because someone suggests they are planted in a poor location.  

​It is difficult, at this moment in time, to argue that the ability to self-regulate is one of the most important success factors in work and in life.  There are examples of leaders around us who are impulsive and imprudent.  But I think they stand out because they are the exception rather than the rule.  In most instances, the ability to demonstrate consistent and mature control over emotions and impulses will help us succeed.

What is self-regulation and why is it so important?
Self-regulation allows us to set aside our immediate emotional reactions and choose how we want to respond to situations.  It directs us to be nice when we could be surly, to restrain ourselves when we could let loose, to pause before we do something stupid.  It helps us sit back when we might be tempted to dominate, choose our words carefully when conflict is in the air, and show patience when we are tested.  At its essence, self-regulation helps us present our best selves during our potentially worst moments.  The ability to be selective in our response can mean the difference between building bridges and burning bridges.  

Self-awareness is at the heart of self control.  
Without being aware of ourselves, what we are thinking and how we are reacting, it is impossible to choose or change how we respond to people or events.  This idea goes back a long way in human history.  To quote Plato, “The first and most important victory is over ourselves.”  One of the unique features of human consciousness is our ability to observe ourselves in thought and in action.  Philosophies like Stoicism and Buddhism incorporate this act of self-observation (and self control) as a key principle and practice.  It is also at the core of mindfulness meditation, which has taken western culture and workplaces by storm.    

Objectivity helps us over-ride our impulses.  Humans have very big brains, but also very sensitive emotional wiring.  We develop ‘hot buttons’ - beliefs, associations and attachments to things that bypass our brains and trigger our emotional impulses.  ‘Cognitive distancing’ is the process of stepping back and shifting into self-observation.  From this neutral place we can observe what we are thinking, how our brain is processing, and reflect on our emotional reactions.  When someone says ‘you need to be more objective and not take this so personally’, this is what they are suggesting we do.  When we don’t take advantage of our ability to step back, our emotional triggers can ignite and we end up saying or doing something we regret. 

We have the power to choose how we respond.  Psychotherapist Viktor E. Frankl said it powerfully: “Between stimulus and response there is a space.  In that space is our power to choose our response.  In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”  We have all had the experience of reacting to something without thinking, and then regretting it.  Like me, you have probably apologized once or twice for something you said or did in the heat of the action.  If we operate from a place of awareness, we are in a position to take advantage of the space between stimulus and response, and choose how we want to react.  We have the luxury of considering options, and their implications.  We can take thoughtful, positive actions and avoid the career- or relationship-limiting ones.  

Self-regulation puts us firmly in the driver’s seat of our own life.  It isn’t easy.  It takes practice.  We aren’t always going to get it right.  But we can get better at it.

For those interested in building up self-regulation, there are a number of best-selling resources including Michael Singer’s The Untethered Soul, the works of author and Stoic Ryan Holiday, and Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now.  To learn more about mindfulness practices, the website relaxlikeaboss offers a very user-friendly guide.

A version of this article was posted in my April column at Troy Media.

Last month my column was inspired by the political maelstrom created by the SNC-Lavalin affair.   A month has passed, the storm continues to swirl.  I am inspired, once again, to draw on this situation as a leadership learning opportunity.  There have been no shortage of ‘what were they thinking?’ moments, causing us to wonder about the quality of the decisions being made. 

We all face difficult situations.  The question is, how do we do an appropriate level of due diligence before making a high-impact decision?  The more complex and nuanced the issue, the less likely there are clear-cut right and wrong answers.  We can never guarantee we will always make the ‘right’ decision.  We can, however, increase the likelihood of making good decisions through robust due diligence, and then anticipating and preparing for the consequences of our decisions.
There are some typical decision-making traps we can all fall into, and ways to avoid them.
Failing to recognize, early on, the importance, scope, or complexity of an issue.  We are all moving quickly and juggling a lot of balls.  Sometimes it feels like we are on auto-pilot, moving from one crisis to the next.  When we don’t slow down and intentionally engage our brains, we run the risk of overlooking something really important.  This is exacerbated when we have a job where everything we are dealing with is big and complex, or when we are confronting something for the first time and don’t have lessons of experience to draw from.  Strategies for avoiding this trap include:

• Schedule regular ‘thinking time’ dedicated to reviewing key issues and challenges you are facing.  Big decisions should not be made on the fly nor consultations squeezed into the crevices between meetings.
• Flag issues you have never dealt with before.  If you have no prior experience with something, it is particularly important to slow down and gain a full understanding of the complexity.

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Limiting decision-making inputs.  While we all agree there is “strength in diversity”, most of us are not very good at actioning it.  We tend to fall back on a small group of advisors and confidantes, even when we can anticipate the advice we are likely to get.  When the stakes are high, it can be emotionally reassuring to hear familiar perspectives from those we trust.  However, we can fool ourselves into believing that hearing different perspectives is the same as hearing diverse perspectives.  To maximize diversity of inputs and cast new light on an issue:  

• Seek out the advice and perspective of people whose opinion you don’t know or have never consulted.  
• Seek out the advice of people who regularly disagree with you.  

Forgetting to plan for the consequences.  Too often we focus on making the best possible decision under the circumstances, and then move on.  The reality is, every critical decision has consequences we will have to deal with.  When we don’t stop to think about what dominos could fall, we are unprepared to respond to them.  There are times when how we respond to events is even more significant than the decision itself.  In his book Farsighted: How We Make the Decisions That Matter the Most, author Steven Johnson talks about using a pre-mortem before making a critical decision.  This is a strategy for imagining and anticipating the full range of potential consequences that could occur so we can plan for them, or even use those insights to reconsider our decision.
Doing a poor job of delegating decision-making.  As leaders, we have to delegate responsibility for decision-making to others.  Leaders can struggle with which decisions they should be making, and which they should be farming out.  Some leaders exercise too much control and want to make every decision, even when they lack important insight or expertise (the micromanagers).  Others exercise too little oversight, leaving others to flap in the wind and make critical calls on their behalf (the absentee landlords).  Both situations can lead to problems in high-stakes situations.  As a leader, it is important you get clear on where you need to be operating. 

We are all confronted with difficult and complicated decisions, the consequences of which can have long-lasting impacts.  How we approach them can make all the difference.

A version of this article was first published in my monthly column for Troy Media 

This article is adapted from my HR column on Troy Media at http://troymedia.com/2019/01/14/radical-strategies-work-collaboration/

The ability to collaborate with others is a ‘must have’ skill to be successful in work.  It doesn’t matter if you are a project manager, a self-employed editor or the Chief Financial Officer, part of your success is probably going to hinge on how well you can work with colleagues.  Our work world is a complex system with lots of inter-related people and parts that need to work together if we are to get things done and deliver on our goals.  Working easily and fluidly with others is simply how things get done in the 21st century.  

​What is collaboration?  Collaboration has become a catch-all phrase to encompass a whole range of activities and behaviours that relate to our ability to interact and work with other people.  Fundamental to collaboration is the ability to establish and maintain constructive, genuine, healthy relationships.  Some questions you might ask yourself to test your collaboration skills include:

• Do I talk to colleagues on a regular basis, not just when I need something?
• Do I know who my key stakeholders are for each of my major projects or initiatives?
• Do I genuinely seek out the input and perspective of knowledgeable people when making plans?
• Do I think about who will be affected by my actions and decisions, and do I communicate with them in advance?  
• Do I proactively offer up information or insight that can help other people be successful? 

Why is collaboration so hard?  The reason I know collaboration is hard is because it is on the development plans of many of my clients.  At work, we typically get rewarded for getting things done.  Collaboration can slow this down - getting others’ input, incorporating others’ ideas, communicating regularly all take time.  And then there is our natural egocentric nature, the belief we know best and have the right answers.  Since we already know what to do, why bother asking for advice?  Effective collaboration also means we have to trust other people.  We have to trust they will be honest with us, that they will use our input with integrity, that they won’t take credit for our ideas.  The work environment is competitive by nature - not everyone will get promoted or rewarded.  At times, collaboration seems an awful lot like putting ourselves out there to help other people be successful when what we really want is to ensure we are successful.

Radical ideas for better collaboration.  I recently read the book Real Love, Sharon Salzberg’s guide to applying Buddhist philosophy in order to experience greater love and acceptance of oneself, and others.  It struck me how applicable many of the key principles are to collaboration in the workplace.  To be truly successful at collaborating with others requires more than just switching up a few habits.  I believe it requires a different - radically different - mindset.

1. Pursue excellence, not perfection.  Striving for perfection ties us up in knots.  It escalates our need for control, which causes us to become ego-centric and insular.  That is bad for collaboration.  Pursuing excellence opens us up to the possibility that someone other than ourselves may have something to contribute, may be better at something than we are, may know more than we do.  To truly achieve excellence requires us to look beyond ourselves and out into our communities.   
2. Resist judging others.  Our human brains are wired for analysis and judgment.  We make up stories about other people to explain who they are and what we can expect from them.  Sometimes we make judgments about who is worth talking to, who is worth listening to.  The truth is, we never really know where the next good idea will come from, what conversation will spark an idea, who will offer up a critical piece of information.  When we suppress our judgment of others, we can be more open, more curious and more receptive to what others have to offer.   
3. Be curious.  When you consult with your partners at work, are you really interested in what they have to say?  Do you really understand where they are coming from - their concerns and challenges?  Are you checking your email while they are talking to you on the phone?  Superficial interest doesn’t lead to the insights that can help you do your job better.  Effective collaboration requires relationships, and those take real sympathy and compassion to build.    Curiosity is an important pathway that leads to understanding.
4. Practice kindness.  Kindness.  Now there’s a word that is rarely used when we talk about work.  Pause and reflect on a time when someone was particularly kind to you.  How did you feel?  How did it make you feel about that person?  Kindness is an act performed without the expectation of reciprocity.  But isn’t collaboration about relationship reciprocity, you ask?  Yes.  And there is a very good chance that kindness begets kindness, creating a virtuous cycle that leads to deeper and more meaningful relationships.  The kind of relationships we envy when we see them.  And, frankly, we could use a lot more kindness in the world, including at work.   
5. Accept help.  While we are often happy, even eager, to lend a hand when asked, too often we think of asking for help as a sign of our own weakness.  We are afraid it will signal a lack of competence or confidence.  Give and take is an important part of creating the equilibrium required for constructive collaboration.  In the same way we hope our partners will reach out and ask for our advice, opinion and support, we need to do likewise.  Relationships are enhanced when we are able to ask for and accept help.  Collaboration is, after all, a team sport - everyone needs to participate.