15 Questions Guaranteed to Create Clarity
Confusion, instability, and chaos describe organizations with poor leaders.
Confusion and leadership, however, are partners. Sometimes you create and encourage others to work through confusion. It’s the path to solutions; it’s innovative and invigorating.
The dance with confusion is dangerous, however. Confusion is never an end in itself. The purpose of using confusion is to create clarity. Confusion paralyzes; clarity enables.
Endersbe, Therrien, and Wortmann in their lucid book, The Three Commitments of Leadership, believe clarity, stability, and rhythm create great leaders. Ask yourself:
- Are you clear?
- Are you creating stability?
- Does your work have rhythm?
Dangerous confusion:
You can’t lead in a persistent state of confusion; people won’t follow. Persistent confusion challenges, dilutes, and eventually destroys leaders.
Leading through confusion:
Confusion precedes clarity; it’s inevitable. Confusion is useful as long as you have confidence and strategies to face its challenges.
Face confusion with questions.
I’m a sucker for good questions. The Three Commitments of Leadership, offers powerful questions for leaders committed to achieving greatness through clarity. For example:
5 core questions:
- Whom do you serve?
- What need do you satisfy?
- How do you define success?
- What values govern your actions?
- Where do you communicate the messages everyone needs?
Three task clarifiers:
- What are your most important tasks?
- What do you need (resources, support, opportunities) to be successful?
- How will you measure your efforts and results?
Three logistical questions:
- Is everything you need to know to be successful clear?
- Is there a stability that prevents fear, stress, and drama?
- Is there rhythm to the way people work together?
One expediter: What’s next? (My favorite way to end conversations.)
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How do you create stability personally and organizationally?
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Another great post, Dan – I like the points you make about taking advantage of confusion.
I think employees benefit from the same things that young children do. Kids are learning machines whose understanding of life and their roles changes daily, but kids also do best in a structured, consistent environment. They need meal-times and bedtimes to be consistent, and do best when the surroundings and people are familiar. Disrupt the routine, and their attitudes go downhill fast.
I think all of us are like that to some extent. Leaders need to create that framework or structure that stays the same day in and day out, and that provides the organizational strength to flex and grow. It might be routines, it might be processes and procedures, but something about your organization has to make 80% of what happens in a day normal. When everything changes, employees have to think about everything and can’t focus effectively on anything. When most things stay the same, then employees can attack the areas where growth (and confusion) are happening.
One thing that has been useful to me: I put my flexible, adaptable change agents as early in the process as I can, and put the ones who love routine and consistency farther downstream. I think of it like a wood-chipper: the intake has to accomodate everything from twigs to trunks, but as the stuff goes through, eventually it’s all chip.
Greg,
Your experience and wisdom shine through. Love the illustration of children functioning best with routine.
One thing I notice is I enjoy disrupting things in the name of innovation BUT when others disrupt my world, it’s not so enjoyable. Seeing my inconsistency helped me be less disruptive to others.
You are a respected participant of the LF community. Thank you for regularly adding value and engaging others.
Cheers,
Dan
Kids and woodchippers in one post, wow Greg! Both fit very well with this blog.
Your point of attuning to the strengths of the team and attending to where/when in the process stream they work best is a great one that is often overlooked! Thanks.!
Dan, this is an excellent set of questions.
Scott, Thank you sir. Best, Dan
Enjoyed this post, Dan. A leader’s greatest opportunity is to provide clarity, and when clarity comes with compelling purpose, the results can be staggering. The best way to stay the course is to be acutely aware of the strategy. Strategies take the guesswork out of confusion. But, so few leaders are prepared to declare a strategy which constrains them because they do not have the confidence that strategic sacrifice, strengthers.
John,
Your experience shines in your comment. Clear, concise, and to the point. While writing this post, I didn’t think about strategies much. Your addition to the subject of clarity enhances our conversation. Very powerful.
I look forward to talking with you soon.
Best,
Dan
These are great questions, thanks.
I’d suggest that these questions should be discussed at regular intervals within any team/group that has to work together on an ongoing basis – it’s the kind of conversation that has to be ongoing to help ensure clarity.
Tim,
Great idea.
An added benefit is repetition is part of stability and rhythm.
Thank you for being a regular contributor. I appreciate you.
Best,
Dan
Great questions. Thanks for posting. I am going to file these away for future reference.
Best wishes Jess. 🙂
Like you, Dan, I like nothing better than a good question. It’s one of the best ways to help create value.
Also, let’s not confuse clarity with certainty. Sometimes, there is nothing more powerful than a leader who declares “I don’t know,” and then who engages her people to find an answer together.
M
Michael, thanks for making the point about clarity and certainty. I think it’s critical, because if we wait for certainty then many opportunities will pass us by.
Dear Dan,
Confusion breeds clarity. Confusion is the driver of clarity. It becomes difficult to be clear without experience or exposure. So, I believe one has to be confused while seeking clarity. However, excessive and repetitive state of confusion makes one look fool and clueless. I agree with you that as long as you have confidence, confusion is powerful booster. Opposite is also true, when person is not confident, confusion makes more confusing. Core questions really define the path of leaders. The most important question that I believe is definition of success and means to achieve that success make one either leaders or misleaders.
I think we can create stability personally and organisationally by aligning vision with individual values. People need to connect organisational purpose with individual purpose. Though it is difficult task, it is leaders’ responsibility to create vision that is clear and connect with the value and goal of each individual in the organisations.
Adaptability, Good Relations and Performance are the key factors to get stability and progress personally and organizationally.
I liked three commitments to leadership. Although simple but difficult to practice if you don’t have right good organization culture and work environment.
I believe strongly that it’s the boss who will make or break your career. Leaders need to care for others and selectively groom good capable people to share their responsibilities initially and then empower them to take independent charge with fairness and freedom.
Another question to help you get clear is “Who am I in relationship to this?” I got this from Neal Donald Walsh’s book, Conversations With God, and I use it every time I am confused or have an internal conflict.
This question even helps you clarify the right response when you are angry or disappointed with someone and need to have a crucial conversation.
Every conscious choice (and every reaction) is a representation of who we think we are and how we represent ourselves.
Marlene thanks for the book reference. I love the title. Will take a look. Your question is great and universal and provides an important perspective. Everything we do reminds us we don’t live in a vacuum.
Thanks Alfonso.
From a personal standpoint, I think stability stems from a constant process of asking yourself what is most important. I guess it’s not much of a stretch to say the same is true for organizations.
I was listening to a report recently about liquidators – the businesses that come in and deal with closeouts of stores that are going out of business. Behind the liquidators (at least in the case I was listening to – Bordersand Syms) is the dying organization’s accounting staff, not staff brought in by the liquidators. The reporter teased out some semi-amusing verbiage about how the accountants just waited for “their turn to be called” after which they visited the bar across the street. One woman had sat, literally, in the same exact chair at the same exact desk for 23 years. At some point a perfectly stable situation devolved into a completely unstable one, probably due to facts she personally couldn’t control. Maybe stability involves making sure that your assets could be useful in a variety of situations. I suppose that’s still more individual than organizational, but it’s what keeps bubbling up in my mind.
Here’s a link to the story: http://www.ideastream.org/news/npr/144317128
Embrace confusion—no easy task that.
How bout leadership needs the acumen to ‘lean into’ chaos from time to time as there is much to be learned in those dark waters.
Acknowledge/own deeply that the leadership and organizational journey requires confusion with uncharted waters. What those 12 great questions ask requires…and should answer ‘why’ you do what you do and what your organization is.
Once through the confusion/chaos, the growth opportunities often appear. There is a rhythm within that cycle.
As far as the ‘stability that prevents fear, stress and drama, that may be trust, respect, good humours, and time with some faith tossed in too. (Although, a certain degree of dynamic eustress should not be ‘prevented’).
Doc “embrace confusion” what choice do we have? Running from it or ignoring it does not make it disappear. The sooner we tackle it the sooner we will figure out how to use it and the quicker clarity will appear. Confusion creates questions and working to answer them creates results. Confusion will bring people together with an immediate positive outcome and serves as the catalyst for creativity. “Intelligence brings solutions to problems; creativity brings possibilities.” Cheers 🙂
Certainly agree with you Al. Do you think that all, most, some, none of those ‘leadership types’ embrace or, as with conflict, may want/try to avoid it? I think some to many think they do have a choice to recuse themselves from it or justify that there are too many other plates to juggle, will ignore it til too late. (Kodak comes to mind lately or maybe the US auto industry.)
Don’t make eye contact with confusion, maybe it will go away. The proverbial elephant tapping you repeatedly on your shoulder.
Rather perhaps the model would be to shine a light on it, sidling up along side and getting to know it because it is such a rich vein. (Tht I would give ya med ref!)
the vein reference definitely touched my heart 1 🙂 thanks Doc appreciate the input.
Great article!