Welcome! As I write this, David Letterman recently taped his final show and retired after a prolific 33+ years on the air. Quite a career and he’s also personally facing quite a change – almost half his life was dedicated to his demanding daily routine.

What about you? Are you just starting in your career? Mid-way or in the home stretch? It leads to an interesting question – Will you retire from the job you have today? If not, change in definitely in your future. Heck – even if you said “yes”, change will find us all eventually!

I’ve been told that the Chinese symbols for crisis and opportunity are the same. The same change can be viewed positively or negatively depending on your perspective. That perspective is based on the questions you ask yourself. It seems that people adept at handling lots of major change ask themselves different questions than the typical guy on the street.

This leads us to our theme for this issue – questions and how we think. I hope you enjoy this and have a great summer.

Have an excellent quarter!

Best,

SIgnature

Jeff Cole

President

JCG Management Consulting

Questions, Anyone?

An interesting article in Fast Company magazine recently profiled Hollywood producer Brian Grazer who discussed how he has employed the power of asking key questions throughout his career as a fundamental management tool. The right question at the right time can make a world of difference in results.

According to Grazer, “asking for people’s help rather than directing it is almost always the smart way of doing things regardless of the stakes.”

Early in his career, being able to anticipate all the questions about a new project and having clear answers was a great aid in helping him secure the funding, approvals, and cooperation needed to make great films.

While filming Far and Away in the early 90’s, the producer was spending $300,000 a day and the studio executives were all over Grazer to cut costs. He went to the set in Ireland and spoke to the star Tom Cruise. Grazer explained the situation and asked if Cruise would be willing to be an informal team leader on set with the cast and crew – could he be the guy to set the example? Cruise was in 100% including sprinting to his trailer and back when he had to go to the bathroom. He was 100% committed to setting the pace for excellence and respect.

That’s a far cry from those corporate executives who tell you and me to cut costs on their way out the door to an executive golf retreat.

So, what lessons can we take away from Mr. Grazer?

· Anticipate what questions you will be asked in your next presentation, project, or product pitch. Have great answers for those ready in advance.

· What questions can you ask your management, co-workers, and employees to help advance your process efforts?

For more on Brian Grazer, check out his new book A Curious Mind: The Secret to a Bigger Life.

The Strangest Secret

Ever hear of a man named Elvis Presley? In 1956, his single Heartbreak Hotel won him screaming fans and a gold record. That same year another man also won a gold record. His name was Earl Nightingale and his audiences were significantly more sedate. He won the first spoken-word gold record.

Its name? “The Strangest Secret”. As it turns out, over a million people clamored to their local record stores to buy this album, listen to his speech and find out what this secret was that everybody was talking about!

Spoiler alert - the secret? You become what you think about most. It’s that simple! Your thoughts drive your focus and actions. Every action is a cause set into motion. Each cause has an effect. Those effects stack up on each other to take you in a direction. Each direction has a destination – your destiny, if you will. Earl Nightingale was a fascinating man who co-founded the Nightingale-Conant corporation that to this day remains a leader in personal motivational audio programs.

Our question for the day: What do you think about most?

Root Cause Questions

Asking questions is fundamental to any investigation into a problem or broken process. There is, however, a certain sequence of questions that can get you to the root cause faster. We all know the technique of 5 Whys, but there are other simple questioning tools.

Is-Is Not is one such tool. In this tool you attempt to reduce your search space by definitely ruling things “In” or “Out”. For example – I am thinking of a card (Queen of Diamonds) and you need to ask me Yes/No questions to get to my card quickly. Is/Is Not suggests we try to cut our search space at least in half with each question. Thus, your sequence might go like this:

· Is your card red? (Yes – thus it “Is Not” black and we’ve cut the search space in half!)

· It is a heart? (No – Again, cut in half)

· Is it a face card? (Yes – You just ruled out 10/13 of the remaining cards!)

· Is it a Male? (No – Bingo – you found it!)

Is/Is Not can also be combined with a “Who, What, When, Where” line of questioning to give you a solid framework of root cause questions to ask!

Featured Link

If you don’t know TED, allow me to introduce you. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, and Design. TED Talks are famous for their quality and content.

Experts from a wide range of fields give entertaining talks about a large variety of topics in 18 min. or less. Don’t have 18 minutes? They feature over a dozen TED Talks in 3 minutes. It’s a wonderful way to get motivated and continually learn – all free and with no large time commitment. Click here to go to the official TED site.

Code Words That Kill Change

Have you ever poured hours and days into designing a process change only to find that when you roll it out, people don’t engage? Very frustrating and it can kill any process change in an instant. When you investigate why people aren’t following the new process, you run into a variety of answers.

Here are three phrases that can kill any process change:

· We’ve always done it this way – This is code for “I’m not using your new process. I already know the old one and don’t feel like changing”. Processes people have been using for quite a while become muscle memory – almost a physical attachment to the old way!

· I don’t have time - Sometimes people legitimately do not have the time. In other instances, this serves as a knee-jerk reaction and is code words for “I could make time but I don’t want to – your change in inconvenient”!

· Yes, but… - Whenever you hear this it is code for “will you and your change please just go away?”. People are often happy to unload a laundry list of objections to what you are proposing.

If you ever find yourself encountering these phrases, click here to read our short column on the prescription for addressing these responses!

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