QUESTIONING LEADS TO PROGRESS
Simon Sinek is a motivational speaker, well known for his amazing leadership speeches and presentations. He is known to break well known leadership myths and break popular beliefs of the way a company should be working. Oftentimes we believe something, and it might not be what people are saying necessarily, right? Well, it's good to have a difference of opinion.
Questioning causes disruption.
This is very essential for growth. Think about every meeting you attend, or any conversation where people are discussing critical issues and you felt you didn't agree with them but decided to be quiet to avoid a conflict. That is a mistake done too often. The belief is that if we share our views, people will be upset, or the boss might take it as disrespect. However, if we don't question things, there is no room for change and things aren't ever improving and that becomes worse.
Questions are to be raised.
Questioning is very important.
You need to question things you need to ask for more clarity. Get it clarified. Following something blindly is the biggest mistake we can do. Don't fall in the trap of just blindly following, that's probably the easiest thing to follow. But you need to make sure that when you follow or do anything, it is working for you. There is something you believe in. It is something you understand. That makes you more knowledgeable. It makes you stronger and become a better leader in a lot of ways.
MY EXPERIENCE QUESTIONING PROCESSES AT WORK
I remember a scenario when one of the managers at work was having a discussion and setting expectations for a new project. We all sat in the meeting as trainers and he went on and on about work culture and how we should organise our schedule. Then he went on to say that we all needed to work at least 14 hours a day.
What I was surprised to see was that we were a team of 10 people sitting there and nobody said anything. Everybody just nodded along and agreed with that.
I had the most shocked expression on my face. As a reflex to the statement, I just raised my hand and asked, “What if I completed my work in 9 hours, why would I work for 14?”
Pin drop silence.
The question was as though I had just questioned him and he was beyond angry. He was quiet but I could see he was annoyed.
Then he responded, “You will be doing other projects besides your work so you will need to put in more time”
I responded, “What if I completed that within 8-9 hours?” I guess there was no backing down from me.
At this point, he said we needed to take this discussion after the meeting and I knew this might mean trouble. But I worked hard and in my career have hardly ever done overtime and still grew extremely fast. Working hard vs working smart. That is the most important thing to take into consideration.
OVERTIME IS JUST OVERWORK
I also noticed that the people who did overtime were not very effective. They were doing the same job for a longer number of hours, which does not reflect on their effectiveness. Here is what happens with overtime :
It just was to please their leaders just to please their managers that they would do what they would.
Take long breaks and talk long hours and just chat and sit at their desk and I'd love it.
Time and walk around and socialize and talk to leaders and other teams. I found it so strange that just to please their managers they would do this.
ORGANIZATION CULTURE
When a management is open to:
seeing its employees ask questions,
set up options to get feedback like company surveys,
feedback box in HR,
setting up fun exciting prizes for answering company policy or process questions or setting up meetings with departments to understand how things are going.
There are so many ways to ask questions and make sure that you get the feedback and then using it to improve an organization is how the culture is formed. When people say a company's work culture is very important, it actually means things are being questioned and are changes happening for the better as well.
Questioning things is very important, as it leads to development and personal growth. Don't sit back and be afraid to ask.
If you don't question things, nothing is going to change.
Things will remain stagnant.
Life will remain the same.
Work will not progress.
You will be doing the same thing again and again, and you'll wonder how boring it is to fail to do the same thing again.
They're questions, give motivation and also help in change. It makes things more efficient. You can maybe save time. Can you come up with creative ideas you want to say hey why not try this other way rather than what we've been doing all along? And that's where real innovation comes in, so. It's very important to cause disruption. Generally, disruption is associated with a negative term. But here I encourage it and I say disruption is very important for development.
This particular progress or development or disruption can only come. When you decide to act on it, when you have an action plan around it. So if you see a problem in your process in your work in your life, and you sit back and think Oh no things are going to be this way, I can't do anything about it. It is out of my control. These are not actions. These are ways to just not do anything. But excuses I would say. So have an action plan around it. Let's say the problem is that I'm just not able to manage my projects. I'm trying everything I can. Just not able to do it effectively. Take our time management course, take up a course where you can learn how to be more effective with your time. So the first step is to of course, identify the problem.
STEP 1 - IDENTIFY THE PROBLEM
STEP 2 - ACTION PLAN AROUND IT
STEP 3 - DISCUSS WITH PEOPLE AND GET IDEAS
STEP 4 - SHOW HOW YOU ARE GOING TO GET IT DONE
STEP 5 - IMPLEMENT IT AND SHOW THE RESULTS
These steps are very important to prove to people that what you're saying is actually working. Sitting and talking about something is fine, but if you're not able to implement the idea and make a change. Disruption doesn't make sense. That's just exactly what the app will become. It will just cause disruption. It just becomes you complaining. But if you want to complain and highlight a problem, you need to do it in such a way that you have successfully been able to find a solution to the issue. And I always encourage this. I always encourage it.
I love working with my team, working with my colleagues, walking up to them, asking them how things are, what would they change? How are things going? And it's been part of my profile in my kind of job that I do so it comes very naturally to me. Maybe, but it is the way that I've always. Thought from a solution oriented approach. Rather than a problem oriented approach, so that's very critical to solve this problem.
So please go today, go out, go out of your comfort zone and cause disruption 'cause it. Start questioning things. Don't cause it to harm somebody, but just to help yourself. Disruption shouldn't be about, oh, I want to prove a point to you. It should be about improving myself. I want to do better. I want to help somebody and probably help my company or help my process or help my partner or help me.
Look at disruption as a helping perspective not causing more problems. So the way we approach it also is very important. We should not approach it from a negative standpoint that causes even more. Chaotic scenario, I don't think that's advisable for anybody. So go out there today. Think about it, just say, make it or things you want to change and see how you're gonna change it and get advice and help from people who can do it for you. If you're not able to find the solution.
