Category Archives: Leadership

Leadership means asking great questions. But that’s not always as simple as it sounds.

Here’s a useful way of thinking about the types of question you can ask, courtesy of Christopher J. Frank, Oded Netzer, and Paul F. Magnone (link below):

🟦 Factual Questions: “This type of question has straightforward answers based on facts or awareness. These questions can be open or closed. The answers to questions are based on facts but may require an explanation.”

🟦 Convergent Questions: “These are close-ended questions with a finite set of answers. Typically, these questions have one correct answer. The most basic convergent question can be answered with a “yes” or “no.” “

🟦 Divergent Questions: “These are open-ended questions that encourage many answers. These questions can best be understood as exploratory — as means for analyzing a situation, problem, or complexity in greater detail and then predicting different outcomes. Frequently the goal is to stimulate creative thought or to expand the conversation.”

🟦 Evaluative Questions: “This requires deeper levels of thinking. The questions can be open or closed. Evaluative questions elicit analysis at multiple levels and from different perspectives to arrive at newly synthesized information or conclusions.”

👉 Read the article here: https://buff.ly/3ChcoUj

What also matters, of course, is how you put the different types of question into practice.

The “7 Sins of Questioning” shown here comes from David Marquet and his book “Leadership Is Language.”

David’s advice is:
1. Instead of question stacking, try one and done.
2. Instead of a teaching moment, try a learning moment.
3. Instead of a dirty question, try a clean question.
(A “dirty question” is one that suggests the other person is wrong somehow).
4. Instead of a binary question, start the question with “what” or “how.”
5. Instead of a “why” question, try “tell me more.”
6. Instead of self-affirming questions, try self-educating questions.
7. Instead of jumping to the future, start with present, past, then future.

Watch a video of David talk about this here: https://buff.ly/3Rtfso5

This sketch note comes from the marvellous Chris Spalton. Learn more about Chris’ work here: https://buff.ly/3RIQOkG

hashtag#Leadership hashtag#ActiveListening hashtag#EmployeeEngagement hashtag#PsychologicalSafety hashtag#Trust hashtag#EmotionalIntelligence hashtag#EmployeeExperience hashtag#HR hashtag#OrganizationalCultureActivate to view larger image,

Where can you intervene to drive system change? Are there particular points or moments when you have more leverage?

This is something I’m really interested in when it comes to improving employee experience. How can you identify and elevate the moments that really matter for building trust in the workplace?

👉 Donella Meadows is who I associate with “leverage points”. She started with the observation that there are levers, or places within a complex system where a “small shift in one thing can produce big changes in everything”.

💡 She began with a list of nine such points and expanded it to twelve. Here they all are, listed in order of increasing effectiveness:

🔹 Constants, parameters, numbers
🔹The sizes of buffers and other stabilizing stocks, relative to their flows.
🔹The structure of material stocks and flows
🔹The lengths of delays, relative to the rate of system change.
🔹The strength of negative feedback loops
🔹The gain around driving positive feedback loops
🔹The structure of information flows
🔹The rules of the system (such as incentives, punishments, constraints)
🔹The power to add, change, evolve, or self-organize system structure
🔹The goals of the system
🔹The mindset or paradigm out of which the system arises
🔹The power to transcend paradigms

👉 What’s this last one?: “It is to keep oneself unattached in the arena of paradigms, to stay flexible, to realize that NO paradigm is “true,” that every one, including the one that sweetly shapes your own worldview, is a tremendously limited understanding.”

This illustration comes from a great article by David Ehrlichman on systems thinking and design thinking, which you can find here: https://buff.ly/3ONzHLK

You can read Donella Meadows’ article on leverage points here: https://buff.ly/2MxRioV

It worth noting what she also wrote:

🔑 “There is so much that has to be said to qualify this list. It is tentative and its order is slithery. There are exceptions to every item that can move it up or down the order of leverage.”

💡 Moreover: “Leverage points are not easily accessible, even if we know where they are and which direction to push on them. There are no cheap tickets to mastery. You have to work hard at it, whether that means rigorously analyzing a system or rigorously casting off your own paradigms and throwing yourself into the humility of Not Knowing. In the end, it seems that mastery has less to do with pushing leverage points than it does with strategically, profoundly, madly letting go.”

(That is a terrific paragraph.)

hashtag#Leadership hashtag#SystemsThinking hashtag#LeveragePoints hashtag#ChangeLeadership hashtag#BehavioralScience hashtag#DecisionMaking hashtag#Strategy hashtag#DesignThinking hashtag#EmployeeExperience hashtag#EX hashtag#PsychologicalSafety hashtag#TrustActivate to view larger image,

What makes for a really effective leadership team?

In this great article Roger Martin says: “The key to Leadership Team effectiveness and efficiency is segmentation of tasks. There need to be very different modes of working and the only way to do them well is to segment them into three chunks: LT Members as Individuals, LT Members as Colleagues, and LT as a Collective.”

🔑 As Individuals, “the key imperative is role clarity that is understood and agreed upon by the CEO and the LT member.”

🗝 As Colleagues, “the key imperative is collaboration skill, the development and utilization of which should be strongly encouraged by the CEO.”

🔓 As a Collective, “the key imperative is focus and restraint.”

Based on what I’ve seen, I think what really matters is building the mindset that’s required for “leaders as colleagues”. It’s key for making difficult decisions, especially trade-offs. But a lot of pressures get in the way, e.g. competition and territoriality.

What do you think? Is this a useful framework for your organisation?

Here’s the link: “The Work and Workings of Leadership Teams” https://buff.ly/3QwGieH

hashtag#Leadership hashtag#HighPerformance hashtag#OrganizationalCulture hashtag#DecisionMaking hashtag#Strategy hashtag#ExecutiveTeam hashtag#HR hashtag#CEO hashtag#PsychologicalSafetyActivate to view larger image,

Which Thinking Hat are you wearing? And more importantly Why? (And When?)

💡 Edward de Bono’s Six Hats is a way of providing structure to discussions and ensuring that you bring different perspectives to the table when making decisions.

What are the hats?

🔵 Blue Hat: The Conductor’s Hat. Thinking about and managing the thinking process. The blue hat is the control hat. It is used for thinking about thinking. The blue hat sets the agenda, focus and sequence, ensures the guidelines are observed and asks for summaries, conclusions, decisions and plans action.

🟢 Green Hat: The Creative Hat. Generating ideas. The green hat is for creative thinking and generating new ideas, alternatives, possibilities and new concepts.

🔴 Red Hat: The Hat For The Heart. Intuition and feelings. The red hat is about feelings, intuitions and instincts. The red hat invites feelings without justification.

🟡 Yellow Hat: The Optimist’s Hat. Benefits and values. The yellow hat is for a positive view of things. It looks for the benefits and values.

⚫ Black Hat: The Judge’s Hat. Caution. The black hat identifies risk. It is used for critical judgment and must give the logical reasons for concerns. It is one of the most powerful hats.

⚪ White Hat: The Factual Hat. Information. The white hat is all about information. What information you have, what information you need and where to get it. (This is my favourite hat!)

Edward de Bono wrote the book “Six Thinking Hats” in 1985. He wrote “Lateral Thinking for Management” in 1971 and Six Hats is about “Parallel Thinking” – where people consciously “wear the same hat” as they explore all sides of an issue (in contrast to adversarial thinking).

🔑 By wearing each of the hats and by wearing them together with other people, you can gain a richer understanding of issues and how to solve them.

🗝 And as shown here, specific topics/issues may require a different order to the hat-wearing.

What do you reckon? Something you use? Or has it become – [groan; so sorry] – old hat?

📗 You can still buy the book: https://buff.ly/3SmbFLg

Here’s the de Bono website (where the above descriptions come from): https://buff.ly/3tRBjbX

This great illustration comes from here: https://buff.ly/3HHNHn2

hashtag#DecisionMaking hashtag#Leadership hashtag#SixHats hashtag#ProblemSolving hashtag#Facilitation hashtag#TheClassics hashtag#EmployeeEngagement hashtag#EX hashtag#DesignThinking hashtag#PsychologicalSafety hashtag#HRActivate to view larger image,

The Feynman Technique. Do you know it? You may already follow it in some form.

🔑Feynman’s technique is designed to help you convey information using concise thoughts and simple language.

✔ It begins with identifying a topic and writing down everything you know about it.

✔ You should then explain it in your own words, plainly and simply, without jargon — so that a child can understand what it is.

✔ Real learning happens next, when you ask yourself “What am I missing?” and “What don’t I know?” (Feynman famously kept a notebook titled “Notebook of Things I Don’t Know About.”)

✔ This process is iterative, but the next step is to tell your story and to review it. One idea is to speak it aloud so you can hear when you stumble. Another approach is to use analogies.

💡 Simple steps, tricky to do well, but key for effective communication.

The image here comes from BrainZucker: https://buff.ly/3FvkESY

hashtag#Leadership hashtag#Learning hashtag#FeynmanTechnique hashtag#Ai hashtag#StoryTelling hashtag#HR hashtag#CommunicationActivate to view larger image,

In an age of transparency and connectivity, trust has never been more important.

Don Peppers & Martha Rogers in their book “Extreme Trust” talk about the importance of “trustability”. They argue that to succeed in a more transparent and “hyperinteractive” world you need to:

🔑 Do things right (be competent and focus on experiences as well as performance)

💡 Do the right things (align your interests with those of your customers and link short-term actions to long-term value)

📢 Be proactive (“not knowing and not doing is not competent”).

In essence, they argue that trustability comes down to 2 dimensions:

✔ Good intentions (honesty and alignment of interests)

✔ Competence (proficiency and capability).

One of my favourite sections is on “the social role of empathy” which they argue is the reason why trustability is the “primary structural issue facing board rooms”.

Written about customer experience (CX), it’s a useful framework for employee experience (EX) leadership and HR too.

The figure shown here comes from a bog by ttec, which you can find at: https://buff.ly/48NrKzz

You can find the book here: https://buff.ly/3tzUKui

hashtag#Trust hashtag#Leadership hashtag#EmployeeExperience hashtag#Execution hashtag#CX hashtag#Empathy hashtag#HR hashtag#EmployeeEngagement hashtag#BehavioralScience hashtag#PsychologicalSafetyActivate to view larger image,