❓ 3 New Questions For This Year

I always emphasize that the questions we ask are more crucial to our success than the answers.

This is all the more true in leadership. Because by asking questions, you direct thoughts, both in yourself and in others.

There are empowering and disempowering questions. The former make you think about meaningful answers that take us forward. The latter lead to a dead end, because they hardly allow an answer that brings us ahead. 

(👉 If you want to practice the technique of asking the right questions, the best way is to come to my coaching. ➔ You can find suitable programs here). 

Because of the high importance of questions to your own success and the success of your entire team, I recommend that you create a set of empowering questions.

Here are three ideas for empowering questions that I especially recommend using repeatedly this year:

1. "How can we benefit from adversity?"
   You can ask this question whenever you face setbacks. Instead of "What can we do now?" ask the aforementioned question instead. This comes as a complete surprise to most people and gets them thinking. From my experience, exciting answers almost always emerge, at least after some reflection.
2. "Why would people want to work for us?"
   I had written elsewhere about how it is becoming increasingly critical to your success as a leader that you are attractive to ambitious people in the job market. Hence this question. The important thing here is that you come up with very specific answers that your competitors couldn't give in this way. And if you can't find good answers, you have to create the facts first.
3. "What will we be significantly better at by the end of the year than we are today?"
    Too many teams and companies focus purely on operational goals (if at all). Instead, the proposed question is aimed at your advancement. Ask this question in your leadership team and you'll have an interesting discussion about what you should be working on first and foremost in yourself to become more successful in the long term. 

As mentioned above, ongoing thinking on these and similar questions is a habit change that doesn't come easily at all. This is a typical topic for personal coaching with lasting effect on your success.

👉 Check out ➔ my coaching programs here and get in touch for any questions.