Archive - August, 2007
Getting to How
Questions are at the heart of really great thinking. We have a tendency to believe that answers are at the heart…but the truth is that questions determine so much. Ask the right questions and you find the right answers. Ask the wrong questions and you end up with answers that are either irrelevant or insignificant.
Peter Drucker was a master framer of questions. In fact, that may be his most significant contribution. Determining the right questions what his gift to all of us. Three of his best known questions were, "What business are you in?" "Who is your customer?" And, "What will you call success?" You could easily spend a day or even a week thinking through the answers to those questions for your own organization. That would be time really well spent.
Another of his great question sets concerned the required thinking about our individual contributions. Here are his questions for each of us (and for every member of your team):
- What is your task?
- What should it be? (This should be based on The 5 Keys to Making Your Unique Contribution)
- What should you be expected to contribute?
- What hampers you in doing your task and should be eliminated?
Think about the effect this little exercise would have on your productivity. On your impact. There’s a lot in these 4 simple questions. Not easy questions. Simple. Wouldn’t they lead somewhere really good? Wouldn’t they lead somewhere great for your whole team?
As helpful as these questions are, I love Drucker’s summary statement: "The how comes only after the what has been answered (The Daily Drucker, May 24)." How many of us spend most of our time thinking about how and almost nothing on what?
Take the pebble from my hand…grasshopper.
Jerry Seinfeld’s Productivity Secret
You never know what you’re going to discover over on Lifehacker. Definitely worth adding to your list of feeds. Yesterday’s list of cool stuff included Jerry Seinfeld’s Productivity Secret. I know it sounds a little weird…but it’s actually a really good idea.
The Essential Next Step
You’ve gotten the sense that your organization might not be humming on all cylinders. You’re not even really sure what it is that got your attention. But something, somewhere in the back of your mind, has gotten your attention. Or maybe the attention of someone on your team that you respect. And now that you’ve taken a first step toward greater awareness…the fun begins.
So you examine your organization as carefully as you can. You look at the effectiveness of individual business units (depending on your business these might be departments or ministries). Hopefully you get to the place where you look truthfully at whether you’re winning or losing. You even might develop a tentative diagnosis. And suddenly you’re in a really dangerous spot. Why dangerous? Two reasons. First, taking the next step might be hazardous to your health. Second, NOT taking the next absolutely will be hazardous to your health! But for many organizations there is a tendency to look the other way right at this spot. Been there?
According to Peter Drucker, once you’re right here there remains one essential next step: "to re-examine the tentative diagnosis in the light of the marketing and knowledge analyses (Managing for Results)." Unfortunately most of us stop just short of re-examining our earlier assumptions. We go right on, stuck in the current trajectory…even though everything around us screams, "LOOK OUT!"
Ready for a change? Be sure and re-examine your tentative diagnosis before proceeding.
