10 Ways to Connect and Get Results
Indifference to input is one reason employees are silent. Curiosity is an inconvenience to anyone who already knows.
Leaders who lack curiosity, need it the most.
New ways of seeing depend on new questions.
Use curiosity to:
- Strengthen relationships.
- Ignite innovation.
- Help others find their path forward.
- Establish accountability.
- Achieve remarkable results.
Coaching-leaders connect through sincere questions.
It’s easy to convince yourself you’re right. Just stop asking questions.
10 ways to commit to curiosity:
You think you know because you haven’t asked.
- Have coffee with someone who is smarter than you. Regularly!
- Open up when you feel like pushing back.
- Learn something new about team members. “How did you get started in _______,” for example.
- Begin questions with “what” and “how” not “why.”
- Be courageous enough to ask tough questions and wait for answers.
- Ask dumb questions. Fear of looking dumb prolongs dumb.
- Ask, “What question should I ask?”
- Value others.
- Humble yourself.
- Focus on constant improvement.
Bonus: Release the need to have all the answers.
3 curiosity tips:
- Commit to curiosity, even as you move forward. Too much curiosity blocks progress.
- Avoid making people feel interrogated. Explore gently.
- If you don’t want answers or input, don’t ask questions.
Curiosity prescription:
Have a five minute conversation where all you do is ask curious questions about whatever the other person wants to talk about. Don’t ask why, talk about yourself, or give advice. Affirm and thank when you’re done.
Take this prescription once a day for one week. Determine if you should continue using the prescription over the long haul.
How might leaders develop and practice curiosity?
How could you practice curiosity today?
*The curiosity prescription is adapted from, “Coaching for Engagement“
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I love this: “Curiosity is an inconvenience to anyone who already knows.” OR “If you want to acknowledge curiosity, let’s do it Wednesday’s from 1:00 until 1:30.” Without curiosity broadly encouraged, stagnation is a virtual guarantee!!!
In terms of your ten ways to COMMIT (great choice of verb!) to curiosity, all are great but numbers 4 and 6 are priceless!!!
I love “sincere questions.” Too often I hear (even from myself) questions asked for the effect they’ll have, not for the information they’ll gather. The question will be leading, rhetorical or manipulative in nature. I truly believe following your curiosity is the first step to problem-solving.
“Fear of looking dumb prolongs dumb.” That is awesome. Sharing it with my kids tonight.
Love this blog, particularly the curiosity prescription. I think this could be a great daily practice. I also like the bonus of ‘release the need to know all the answers’. Many comment on that point, the need to sit in ambiguity, as the greatest challenge of asking open question, becoming curious in one’s approach to life.
Curiosity is great and a solid post. Thanks, Dan. But more and more, I get convinced that we are putting so many managers into a task-interference situation where they have more and more and more to do (4x what was common 20 years ago) and we simply over-burden them. Companies extinguish any drive to excel and engage, making the goal to simply get through the day.
I wrote a little about this in this short post: http://performancemanagementcompanyblog.com/2015/03/02/the-workplace-and-the-work-thoughts-on-the-8-hour-day/
Data says that the average manager is connected to the workplace 72 hours a week with about half checking their email BEFORE they go into work and half checking when they go to bed!
Crazy.
I think we pound Curiosity into dust in so many workplaces, both employee and manager.
Too many managers discourage any kind of curiosity: they don’t want people who are interested in the results, just people who can generate results. The sort of “bottom-line widget-maker” ethos of this is just means you get to the point where you have nothing new to sell sooner.
The other things I’ve seen is where managers only want curiosity expressed about certain, specific areas: usually not the ones the customer wants from you!
How can I create curiosity? – Very good Question, Dan!
How can I create curiosity? – I follow my intuition! – I play 🙂
I think basically is innate curiosity!
I am guided by the “words” that I think (found) and do not know
– look for the origin and the semantic interpretation of diversity
and the content! Take a look …
Then I wonder what this means to me, looking on to definitions,
branches, explanations and examples. (… a littel game for me 😉
Today, I asked myself, what VALUES do I have?
What is important for me what they mean for my life
– internally and externally?
What is the connection between inside and outside to understand
and how they influence?
I have found the word “value index”!
How do I set my values in life – at work around?
As I live these values!
What meaning I give to you and me thus?
I live these values really effective
or is that just a superstition and/or limitation?
I oute my values and what makes sense?
Another issue today that concerns me the following:
How can I create recognition?
And what does that have to do with word recognition ourselves
and our values and behavior patterns.
First step: A a look inside – the reflection.
“What” and “how” – always good questions begin.
I like asking questions very much!
I think it encourages thinking in general.
All interpretations are options – the freedom or their borders.
With good questions we go into resonance – they inspire our minds.
An honest answer is dearer to me than lies. Lies are dead ends;
Who asks the right questions – sometimes you get clever answers.
Who does not questioning – is already death.
Responses are like the truth – there is more than one right!
Open mind – Quenstion opens the mind! 🙂
There are subjective, objective and creative questions and answers
that call on us to evolve, to grow and to be active!
The curiosity so you can train – easily.
I think good questions direct the mind,
let us become more flexible and free!
Let us be attentive …
and focus our thoughts on a target.
Good questions to be taken as relatively good decision.
Who makes half-hearted decisions
– does not apply the one he really wants,
and thus it generates exactly the opposite of what he wants.
Questions are often more important than the answers for me!
Accepted – yes the Bonus:
Release the need to have all the answers. 🙂
Curiosity depends for me along with the ability and quality
of self-reflection!
Pablo Picasso once said:
“Only when I’ve stopped searching, I could find.”
Never stop to ask the “right” questions.
There are no other than … we are living into!
Sometimes the answer is losing its importance,
because we outgrow it! 😉
Either we occupy the mind with constructive questions
and/or he starts his own business … hahaha …
and then the Spirit gives often unconsciously nonsense!
The silence cultivate – the silence in my head are better then me
and more importantly my conscious being!
Awareness is also a form of curiosity,
because we are able to deal with everything
open and awake! 😉
GOOD TIMES – Dan
joyful and thankful – Beate
ART IS. LOVE IS. LIVINGART
Curiosity is something like fantasy,
we can understand as margins of consciousness.
Maybe we should in our curiosity the child to “play” discover
and recognize representing a return to the easier learning
and the way of joy …
Giving and receiving are one! be open …
I recently asked a Leader, who I suspected did not have his finger on the pulse of his broader team, how he might get a better sense of the morale for his team. He suggested an anonymous survey. NOT the answer I was hoping for.
What might have been a course of curiosity I could have taken to explore that answer and perhaps expose where there might be better avenues to connect and be aware of the emotions on his team?
I like the idea of beginning questions with “what” or “how,” and not “why.” “Why” is probably more likely to put others on the defensive and cause them to limit communication.
I always ask the dumb questions. Sometimes it’s the hardest thing to do, but usually someone in the room is silently grateful.