{"id":871,"date":"2011-02-15T06:00:51","date_gmt":"2011-02-15T06:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.scottcochrane.com\/?p=866"},"modified":"2011-03-30T22:53:12","modified_gmt":"2011-03-30T22:53:12","slug":"how-great-questions-can-yield-great-results","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/2011\/02\/15\/how-great-questions-can-yield-great-results\/","title":{"rendered":"How Great Questions Can Yield Great Results"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Great leaders ask great questions. And these great questions lead to great results.<\/p>\n<p>My thinking in this area was recently sharpened by reading an outstanding post in the Harvard Business Review, <a title=\"The Power of the Right Question\" href=\"http:\/\/blogs.hbr.org\/anthony\/2011\/02\/the_power_of_the_right_questio.html?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+harvardbusiness+%28HBR.org%29&amp;utm_content=Google+Reader\" target=\"_blank\"><em>The Power of the Right Question<\/em><\/a>. In this insightful piece, Scott Anthony suggests that a leader \u201cshould spend roughly six times longer generating a killer question than positing answers.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>When I was on staff at Trinity Baptist Church as executive pastor, I was able to see the power of the right question masterfully leveraged by our lead pastor, Tim Schroeder.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-867\" src=\"http:\/\/www.scottcochrane.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/question-214x300.jpg\" alt=\"How Great Questions Can Yield Great Results\" width=\"214\" height=\"300\" \/>On one occasion our lead team was planning for the upcoming Easter weekend. The question on the table was, \u201cShould we do our usual Saturday night service on the Easter weekend, in addition to our Good Friday and Sunday services?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Tim allowed the conversation to develop for some time, before chiming in.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTeam, let me suggest a different question,\u201d he tossed out. \u201cInstead of asking whether or not we should do a Saturday service that weekend, let\u2019s wrestle with this; \u2018<strong>How can we maximize the impact of Easter weekend?\u2019<\/strong>\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That question brought the energy and passion in the room to a whole new level. Ultimately the question led to our church moving our Easter services to our city\u2019s largest outdoor venue, creating a \u201cbuzz\u201d like nothing we could have imagined.<\/p>\n<p>It all started with the right question.<\/p>\n<p>(I can\u2019t even remember whether or not we did a Saturday service!)<\/p>\n<p>How do you know if you\u2019re asking the right question? From what I\u2019ve seen, the right question will:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Inject passion into the dialogue,<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Create a sense of fulfillment of your vision,<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Instil energy in your people.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>To develop that kind of questioning skill, try Scott Anthony\u2019s suggestion, spending six times as much effort generating \u201ckiller questions\u201d as producing correct answers.<\/p>\n<p>I believe the results will be well worth it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What\u2019s the best leadership question you\u2019ve used to inspire great results in your team?<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Great leaders ask great questions. And these great questions lead to great results. My thinking in this area was recently sharpened by reading an outstanding post in the Harvard Business Review, The Power of the Right Question. In this insightful piece, Scott Anthony suggests that a leader \u201cshould spend roughly six times longer generating a&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,580],"tags":[31,607,619,79,122],"class_list":["post-871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-leadership","category-results-2","tag-energy","tag-fulfillment","tag-insight","tag-passion","tag-results"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=871"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1001,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871\/revisions\/1001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottcochrane.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}