Why haven’t you asked “why” lately?

John Baldoni in his article The Power of Why writes:

One of the most powerful words in the English language is why. When asked as an interrogatory, why
has the power to change assumptions, preconceptions and mindsets. It
has the power to initiate change as well as the power to affirm the
right course. It is a word that should be used frequently but with
great care. When used the proper way, it can be one of the most
effective tools a leader can employ. And it’s totally free.

Why is a word favored by those not satisfied with the way things
are. These individuals tend to be inventors, entrepreneurs, scientists,
social capitalists and politicians. By nature, they are catalysts.
Inventors and entrepreneurs wonder about alternatives using why to provoke thought about what might be and try and quantify it as a product or service. Scientists use why as part of the scientific method that begins with a hypothesis and ends with proof. Engineers use why as a means of diagnosis: what happens and why. Social capitalists and politicians alike use why
to question assumptions about the way organizations and governments
serve their constituents. For all of these types of people, why
becomes the trigger word for invoking alternatives as well as beginning
the process of bringing people along to alternate points of view.

Mastering Your Stories

Joseph Grenny, co-author of Crucial Conversations in their Crucial Skills Reminder newsletter writes:

One of the best predictors of success in a crucial confrontation is not
your skills, but your story. Its a difficult thing to stand apart from
the story we tell and look at it dispassionately. But those who have
the most control over their emotions, their actions, and their lives
are those who can poke at, laugh at, observe, and change their own
stories.

So true. Both the books by VitalSmarts: Crucial Conversations and Crucial Confrontations make great reading. The unfortunate part though - at least for me - is to internalize and implement them. However much I try, I revert back to my old patterns pretty soon. Maybe taking a training class might be the only way out. Unfortunately VitalSmart does not conduct any training in India. If anyone knows an equivalent program in Bangalore, drop me a line.

How to get team members to take action

This month’s management tip in SD Magazine’ newsletter in by Tim Bacon, an XP (Extreme Programming) coach and a software developer at Thoughtworks. I have been following Tim’s blog for a few weeks now. I like the tips that Tim provides in this newsletter.

Rather than simply reacting to the problems that team members bring to you, a good manager first decides what “stance” he or she wants to take and then forms an appropriate response, says Bacon. In general, the stance and response are designed to “coach” the employee toward finding a solution to the problem. Here are some examples:

Reflecting: “So if I understand correctly, what you’re saying is …”

Prompting: “Have you considered [doing] / [thinking about] …”

Positing: “What if [this were true] / [that were to happen] …”

Suggesting: “If it were up to me, I would …”

Connecting: “Have you talked to [her]? She …”

Digging: “Is that really the problem?” / “How do you know?”

Challenging: “So what are you going to do about …” / “Is doing nothing an appropriate response to …”

Aiming: “What are you really trying to achieve?” / “How will you know when you’re done?”

Steering: “How would you get there from here?” / “Can you break that down into smaller steps?”

Focusing: “If you could only do one thing …” / “What’s the first action you can take?” / “What is most important right now?”

Summarizing: “So, the problem is … the alternatives are …”

Chairing: “Shall we take a vote?” / “Give [him] a chance to speak …”

Smoothing: “Why don’t we take a quick break …”

Marshalling: “I hear what you’re saying, but we’ll have to come back to that later; right now we need to … “

Taking an interest: “What’s new with … That sounds interesting … How does it work? How did you come up with …”

Encouraging: “Well done …” / “Thank you …” / “… which is a big step forward” / “… which really helps”

Obviously, these stances pay off only if the coach actually listens to the responses.

Learning Leadership

[Via SdMagazine] A PDF booklet titled “Notes on the Role of Leadership and Language in Regenerating Organizations”, available exclusively to the registered users of SD Magazine. This book emerged from the conversations between members of Paul Pangaro’s Developer Web Services team at Sun Microsystems and Dr. Michael Geoghegan, who devoted more than 25 years to research, development, and strategic planning at Du Pont.

Dr. Geoghegan helped the team examine their work in the context of Sun’s changing, highly competitive environment. In a market that raises many fundamental business concerns, he gave them ways of evaluating and regenerating their relationship with developers.

A sample:

The source of new language is questions –
questions that spark new conversations,
questions that create controversy.

Ask yourself:
What questions should we ask?
And more important, ask yourself:
What questions are we not supposed to ask?
(Ask those.)

Ask yourself:
Who aren’t we conversing with?
And then ask them:
What are your questions?

Ask questions that don’t come easily –
questions that are tough, awkward, even taboo.

Ask unnatural questions.

Chet on What they don’t teach you at B-schools

Chaitanya (Chet) Kamat, who heads the India Delivery Center Network of Accenture in India, shares his thoughts on what they don’t teach you at the B schools in an article in today’s Business Standard.

I was privileged to attend a 2 day workshop that Chet conducted while I was at Accenture for new Managers in the organization. Those were two days well spent and Chet was awesome! If you work for Accenture and have the chance of hearing Chet talk, you shouldn’t miss it.

A Personal Story told exceptionally well

I have been introduced to the concept of Business and Organizational Storytelling by Rajesh, a few months back. Since then I have been following Steve’s writing on and off and very recently had the chance of picking up Squirell Inc. It still lies on my desk under a pile of to-be-read books. Very recently Rajesh pointed to Subroto’ Bagchi’ address to the IIM students.

It is a personal story, narrated exceptionally well.

More than that, what triggered my interest was to corelate what Bagchi talked about, with what Steve writes about on story telling.

Bagchi’ speech is an example of a story that encompassed 5 our of the 7 narrative styles that Steve writes about (see image):
It communicates who the real Subroto is
It transmits values
It shares knowledge
It leads people into future and
It sparks action…..Go Kiss the World!

PowerPoint Checklist

Rajesh Jain pointed to this wonderful blog by Cliff Atkinson, who is a leading authority on PowerPoint and Organizational communication.

Here is a quick checklist on PowerPoint Presentations:

1. Do your slides contain only words? Show some pictures.

2. Do your slides contain words that you also speak? Stop being redundant.

3. Do your slides contain things you don’t explain? Get rid of them.

4. Do you pause for a long time on a single slide? Break it up into smaller pieces.

5. Do you have lots of information on a slide? Keep it simple.

Need to remember this, next time I create a PPT.