“If I had an hour to save the world I would spend 59 minutes defining the problem…  and one minute finding solutions”

From what I have seen most of my Clients and reader spend 65 minutes finding the answer…. while watching their world crumble around them.

The following is from an e-mail I get Weekly called Doug’s Weekly Success Tip. Doug’s a pretty smart guy, I’m good friends with his Mom and I’ll tell ya, the apple falls RIGHT NEXT to the tree, Doug is one sharp cookie.

Check this e-mail out, subscribe to Doug’s newsletter and most of all, start creating a question friendly environment!

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Live the Questions

“Don’t search for the answers. Love the questions. Live the questions. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.”
– R.M. Rilke, Paraphrased from Letters to a Young Poet, 1903

Consider this:

Questions, not answers, are the seeds of success. Someone focused on answers says, “This is the way.” Someone focused on questions asks, “Is there a better way?” Questions force you to explore – to stretch, to learn, to grow, and to be creative. Answers let your mind go to sleep. You get lazy when you think you’ve found the answer. You haven’t. And you never will because things always change. To stay vibrant and relevant, keep living the questions.

For six years, a client of mine has been holding management meetings once a quarter to discuss stategy execution. Several years ago they asked me to help them change some things to make the meetings more productive. One of the most powerful changes we made was putting questions at the heart of the meeting. We boiled the entire meeting down to the following four: (1)What’s working? (2)What’s not working? (3)What could we be doing better? (4)How could we be doing it better? “It was a small change,” my client reflected last week, “but it’s made a huge difference in how we think in the meetings. We’re much more creative and exploratory now.”

Try this:

When it comes to your meetings:

Try putting questions at the core – like the example above.
Build in mechanisms that make questioning OK and expected.
Take the time to foster a useful dialogue around the bigger questions.
Be weary of people giving straight “reports” about anything – they tend to be loaded with answers that haven’t been questioned.
Make sure you end your meetings with clear actions and owners.
Come to the next meeting just as ready to live the questions again.
- Doug Sundheim

Doug Sundheim is an organizational consultant, author, & speaker. To learn more about his services visit him online at www.clarityconsulting.com

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The 25 Best Time Management Tools & Techniques: How to Get More Done Without Driving Yourself Crazy

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