APPENDIX

Question Library

The deep value and benefits of Socratic inquiry are vast. In the work-place, asking and answering a few key questions can bring a fluid discipline to the day that is far more effective than reviewing a checklist. In fact, consider the reality that if someone is focused only on going over a checklist, this is a ritual that is actually supporting and sustaining disengagement. Many believe that if they focus on the tasks on the list, that they are doing the right thing to align people and outcomes. But this is only partially true.

Alternatively, when we pose compelling questions to the mind, it immediately becomes more active and engaged. When beginning a meeting, for example, asking the participants to answer a few questions related to the topic helps each person take greater ownership of the topic at hand rather than being less participative or totally passive listeners.

The Question Library offered here is an introduction to the Socratic inquiry process. Many of our clients have developed in-house libraries covering all of these areas. You can also invite your employees to submit new questions that raise the bar, uncover new information, and initiate new behaviors. In fact, this is an exceptional way to increase and extend the benefits inherent in the overall process.

These libraries should be accessible to all employees, and everyone should be encouraged to engage with them as well as contribute new questions for a wide variety of applications. Under these circumstances, it is also valuable to appoint a curator to monitor and organize new submissions to help keep the standards of the library high. Alternatively, the process could take a Wikipedia approach, in which new visitors make improvements, once again, through a curator.

When asking questions that can elicit uncomfortable feedback, it is critical to establish certain guidelines. Once you have them, make sure to publish the required behaviors throughout the organization. This will save needless friction. Here are a few pointers:

1. If you are the individual asking the question, simply listen or ask clarifying questions. Don’t defend, retaliate, react, or dismiss. Make it safe for stakeholders to respond.

2. If you are the stakeholder answering a question, don’t use that moment as an opportunity to shame, insult, or abuse the questioner in any way. Give feedback in ways that are respectful, supportive, and constructive.

3. Practice taking nothing personally.

4. Never ever rely on the words “I don’t know.”

Our first exercise, Irrevocable Happiness, is to be used at the beginning of a Workplace Engagement Solution initiative with everyone. It is also to be used with new hires and for revisiting on a quarterly or biannual basis. It can be used privately, between mentor and mentee, and as an exercise within groups or teams. We encourage frequent reviewing to deepen the definitions and to solidify the pursuit of happiness in your daily awareness. Remember: there is only one incorrect answer, and that is “I don’t know.”

Irrevocable Happiness

If you were happy all of the time, what would you be doing with your work? How would you be spending your time? Where do you live? How do you feel? Describe your personal and professional lives as if you were “sentenced to happiness.”

Career and Change Updates

The following questions can be used by mentors, career counselors, human resources, and talent management professionals. We strongly suggest that everyone uses these questions to stay abreast of the constant need for change.

Active Learning/Skill-Building

1. How do I feel about building my “courage skills”?

2. If I embraced the learning experience, how could these skills impact my future?

3. If I became a master with these new skills, what impact would it have on my life?

4. In moving forward with my career, here or elsewhere, what do I need to learn as soon as possible?

5. Which areas of my job and profession are about to be impacted by change?

6. If I stay, what kinds of new skills do I need?

7. If I move on, what kinds of new skills do I need?

8. What are my biggest fears about the changes impacting my work?

9. How can I take positive action despite my fear?

10. Who do I know that could provide insights about the skills I need to be effective with change?

11. How will I learn the skills?

12. How can I make this learning process as pleasurable as possible?

Time Management

These questions are to be used on a daily basis. Modify them as needed to fit the work area and function. We strongly recommend using questions like these at the beginning of each day to develop the ritual as an ongoing practice. These few minutes, in many organizations, represent the most valued time for leveraging productivity. Customize the questions to acknowledge differences in environment, but never remove the spirit of the inquiry.

1. What is the best use of my time today?

2. What is the ideal blend of tactical and strategic activity?

3. Who needs my attention today?

4. How can I best take care of myself?

5. Who deserves my praise?

6. What is the one problem I most want to solve?

7. How can I best market my value, new ideas, and solutions?

8. Where do I need support, improvement, or change?

9. What is my current attitude and how can I improve it?

Mentor Questions

Mentors will be those who have developed a modicum of mastery in questioning others with positive results. They will have committed to the courage skills and learned enough to be objective about their value and use. Through time, mentors can become masters of Socratic questioning because questions are the primary method of connecting people to their truth, opening them up and motivating them to learn, grow, and succeed. Consequently, it is wise for a mentor to keep a journal, add questions to it and explore new ones, and continue to refine the best ones.

Here are a few examples that can get mentors started quickly:

1. What do you want to accomplish in our meeting today?

2. If I become your mentor, what do you want the outcome of mentoring to be?

3. What are some of your challenges?

4. How would you describe your relationships with your colleagues?

5. What do you attribute the quality of your relationships to?

6. Who deserves your praise today?

7. Do you have time management rituals? If so, tell me about them and how they support you in getting more out of your day.

8. Where do you want to grow next and why is it important?

9. What changes would bring you the most joy?

10. What would be frightening, difficult, and worthy for you to pursue?

11. What is the one thing you can do that would make this a transformative year?

Meetings

All too often, those who lead meetings spend little time evaluating how to make the meeting as engaging as possible. Meetings should include inspiring and praising others. It should be so exciting that attendees are motivated to tell others about it. Meetings can be greatly improved by answering a few questions while preparing the agenda and by asking everyone who attends to answer a few questions before you begin.

For the Leader

1. What can I do to make this meeting engaging, interesting, and valuable?

2. How can I best justify the time, manpower, and value of pulling this group of people together?

3. What do I want them to take away from the meeting?

4. What do I want people to tell others about this meeting afterward?

For the Attendees

Always ask the participants to bring paper so that they can write down the questions as well as the answers you will pose to them. There is far more engagement of the whole self and depth of answers in actually writing them out rather than asking them to just verbally reply. Use any questions from this list that are appropriate and add in open-ended questions of your own.

1. How do you feel about (the topic)?

2. What do you want to contribute to (this topic)?

3. How would you describe the ideal outcome?

4. If we need a breakthrough on this issue, what does that look like from your perspective?

5. What kind of help or resources are we going to need to move this forward?

Leadership Development

When we deliver a leadership program at Inspired Work, our questions are customized to fit the business circumstances, current and desired leadership capabilities, and current and desired future state with each significant priority, relationship, and upcoming changes. These are a few question examples for leaders to ask of their people. Customize your own to get the best feedback from your stakeholders. In this case, simply ask the questions and elicit verbal answers. It is important that leaders respond only with more clarifying questions—never answers or opinions—and always thank participants for the feedback.

1. How would you describe my leadership style?

2. What do I do that encourages you to contribute?

3. What do I do that discourages you from contributing?

4. What do you most want to contribute that I could help you with?

5. What do you most want to accomplish at this organization?

6. How can I help you get there more quickly?

7. In your opinion, what does our business unit need that we are not supporting?

8. If you were going to redesign this organization from scratch, what would you change?

9. How can we do a better job for our clients/customers/stakeholders?

10. How am I perceived?

11. What can I do to improve that perception?

12. In your opinion, what can we do to take advantage of the changes ahead?

Engagement

Engagement is a practice and a way of life. The practice can be undermined by a variety of issues: A colleague becomes distracted and withdraws from the team. Someone becomes more fearful than usual. A team member starts bringing in cynicism or even contempt to meetings and day-to-day conversations. That highly focused partner becomes aimless and lackadaisical.

In the vast majority of cases, gently pointing the symptoms out will open the door to resolving them. In a highly engaged team, temporary circumstances are generally behind these fluctuations in behavior. It is everyone’s responsibility to help this individual regain connectedness with the team, the customers, and other stakeholders. If we become resigned and let the disengagement grow, we are sliding back to a disengaged culture.

Mentors, managers, and team members will do well to support the colleague with tact and kindness rather than coming at them with any form of disciplinary process or energy. That is, unless the behavior is egregious.

You want to review and consider all questions before you use them. It pays to really think about what you are doing and why you are doing it. Always strive to be relevant and appropriate. Here are some good sample questions to inquire about engagement. Before and after you begin, be aware of where the individual is with filters such as cynicism, contempt, aimlessness, resignation, and frenzy. Don’t use the definitions as a weapon, but rather gently point them out.

1. I have been developing the sense that you are checking out a bit. What is going on with you?

2. How can we help you re-engage?

3. What kind of support do you need to get back on track?

4. If you are overwhelmed with the workload, how can we hit the target without burning you out?

5. You don’t seem to be very interested in the skill development process. What will it take to shift your attitude?

6. How can I inspire you to reach out more, present with greater enthusiasm, and ask others for help?

7. I heard about your interaction with the client today. Can you tell me what happened?

8. How do you feel about what happened?

9. If you had a “do over,” how would you do it differently?

10. I want to help you succeed. All of us have blind spots. How can I help you avoid this one?

Support Systems

There is almost always a support system to fit any need. Great mentors will confidentially help their clients build new support systems by routinely discussing needs and finding support to fit those needs. We typically look at 15 different areas of a person’s life. Rather than providing questions for every single category here, I am providing examples at the beginning and where I feel it may be most helpful. The idea of customized support systems is so alien to many of us that it will be most helpful to define what is meant by each category. It is wise for organizations to start building resources that can provide professional support to everyone. Look for the highest of standards, reputation, and track record of performance.

Following are some key support categories.

Career Development (Short-Term)

These are the career issues that are immediate and perhaps even pressing. They can involve skill-building, starting a big project, transitioning out into a new career, and preparing for a promotion.

1. What do you want to accomplish in the coming year and how can we help you get there?

2. In qualifying for the job that you want, what do you need to learn?

3. What do you need from your team to attain that goal?

It is equally important that individuals ask senior stakeholders questions that help them progress with their careers or set higher expectations.

1. This is the income I would like to make. In the coming year, what value can I bring into our department that will justify that income?

2. Please give me the specific targets I need to hit in order to justify a promotion (or new income).

3. How would you advise that I go about reaching my career goals?

Career Development (Long-Term)

Disengaged workers tend to only address career development when they are in a crisis. In other words, they lose their job and look for another one, often just like the job they hated. They only network when they have to, generally during a transition. Long-term career development is about setting aspirations, finding meaning, developing a legacy, and building self-esteem. Here are some questions that can help focus in on this area.

1. What do you want to accomplish with your life?

2. Describe the legacy you want to create here.

3. How would you describe your overall purpose in life?

4. What do you really want to be doing?

5. What do you need to learn in order to fulfill that ambition?

Finances (Personal)

Issues that come up with finances ought to be handled confidentially with a mentor. These can include qualifying for a home loan, credit workouts, managing tax issues, or simply becoming a better manager with money.

The questions around this will come easily. I suggest that mentors and engagement leaders develop resources that can be given to employees. Set the highest of standards. For example, be careful with financial advisors who sell their own products. Personalized advisement rather than faceless bankers is always better. Shop around and select resources based on reputation and day-to-day performance with referrals.

Risk-Taking

The very purpose of a business leader or mentor is to get more out of people than they would be able to do on their own. Mentors ought to always look at valuable and positive ways to get their clients to stretch and take more risks. This can include reaching out to leaders that come up during social networking. It can include inspiring a mentee to make their first presentation. Often, it includes developing new behaviors. Additionally, as an individual learns the courage skills, he or she will become more comfortable with taking risks.

Mentors are at their best when they push their mentees to grow but not push so hard that the person implodes.

Fear Management

Mentors are ideal for providing comfort and guidance when someone is feeling frightened. But in a hard-charging culture, fears will come up all the time. We want all those who are mentored to develop specific people to reach out to when they get frightened. However, avoid reaching out to people who only tell us not to be frightened or who put us down for having fear, or commiserating with people who share the same fear. In other words, when one starving actor says to another, “Oh, I know how hard it is” nothing changes. A good mentor will say, “Yes, I know it is hard but that’s because it is worth it. How can you change your approach in order to be more successful?” Here are some sample questions around fear:

1. This year, you have quite a few opportunities that might raise some fear. How are you going to respond?

2. As you go through this significant growth period, who are you going to reach out to for support and help with any fears that arise?

3. It is always good to have a variety of people to reach to when you’re frightened. Who are those people for you?

4. Who are the five safest people for you to reach out to when you are feeling frightened?

Image

Like it or not, most people make a decision about buying or hiring in the first few moments. Our overall image is part of that quick decision-making. Image is a very touchy subject for many people, but it is also an area that can make or break success. I strongly suggest having highly vetted resources in this area. Image consultants ought to be pros who can properly assess a person’s ideal colors, cut and style of attire, accessories, hair style, and shoes. At Inspired Work, we have a philosophy that if someone wants to become more successful, it is time to have an objective professional evaluate his or her physical presentation.

An example of a question: “You want to grow your income by 50 percent. How can we upgrade your physical presentation to fit the income expectations?” (In other words, if someone wants to move from $75,000 to $150,000, it is wise to look like a $150,000 person).

Healthcare (Chronic)

When someone suffers from chronic pain, persistent excess weight, low energy, and so on, it is a good idea to find additional resources beyond mainstream medicine for support. Some examples include chiropractic, acupuncture, nutrition, and fitness resources.

Healthcare (Critical)

Many consumers of medicine spend little time vetting and qualifying the person who manages their health. This is an area in which research, references, and interviews lead to far better results than blindly accepting a physician.

Administrative

Typically, this category is about keeping our lives and our businesses organized.

Wellness

This is about our well-being. It can include physical fitness, health, energy, and vitality. What are we doing to support these categories? What kind of support do people need?

Happiness

Happiness is the single best indicator that we are doing the right thing, that our life is on the right track, that we love our work, and that we love our lives. Asking questions about happiness is a good idea. Building support systems that ensure our happiness is also good.

1. Have you written out your version of irrevocable happiness?

2. How much energy are you giving towards being happy?

Play and Leisure

This one truly needs no explanation.

1. What do you do for fun?

2. When was the last time you took a vacation?

3. What would be your best next vacation?

4. How often do you laugh?

5. What do you do to get work out of your mind?

6. What is the most fulfilling and wonderful thing you could do with your time off?

Other

All of us have unique and unusual needs that can include finding a dog sitter, a party planner for our parent’s anniversary, a spiritual coach—the list is endless. The point is, believe there is a solution to every problem.

• • • • •

And, that is my intention for all of you. I wish for you to lead well-balanced lives, to be happy, to love going to work, to love being part of your tribe, and to love the people that you work with, work for, and who work for you.