Last week, We!™ facilitated an experiential training program for 30 managers in a 400-person transportation company. Their goals? 1.) Build relationships of trust. 2.) Reduce turnover.
Will and I set out to design the most engaging, experiential program possible, filled with both laughter and learnings. While planning, I had a flashback to the three-month road trip that I set out on with my wife this past summer. Driving on some seemingly endless highways, the truck pictured below drove by:
Wow! What a statement! As we prepped to work with our client who was facing incredibly high turnover rates, we started reaching into our toolbox for ways that leaders can communicate to their employees this same message: “You are our most valuable resource and you matter.” (Without a giant billboard, of course.) All of the eight tools that we shared with the group invited people to move from a mindset of “me” to a mindset of “we.”
At the final checkout of the program, each manager shared which one of the eight keys they most wanted to implement with their staff. “Ask powerful questions” was number one. By far! Almost every single person in the room felt motivated to ask and encourage more powerful questions among their staff. What makes a question “powerful” though? Our answer to that question is usually given in a full-day workshop. But you are just reading this post on the internet and have got things to do, so here are cliff notes.
Powerful questions are:
- Open
- Inviting
- Rooted in natural curiosity
- Embedded with the intent to understand
Sometimes, the best possible way to communicate your message to someone is to ask them a powerful question. Our challenge to you: carefully consider whether the next five questions you ask to someone meet these four characteristics.
If you are naturally curious about how to Ask Powerful Questions, let us know. Our knowledge and experience in this area is one of the reasons we have jobs. We also share ideas like this each month over our We! Connect Newsletter.