Practicing Personal Accountability: All QBQs Focus on Action
A corporation that had just gone through a major merger held a QBQ session. Afterward, a middle manager came up and shared this story with me: He had come into our morning program griping and complaining (his words) about a problem with the new parent company headquarters in New Jersey, which was seriously hampering his field operations. After an hour or so of the QBQ, he began to think differently. He slipped out of the room and booked a ticket for the next day back to the East Coast. He had figured out how to solve the problem.
What a great example of the practice of personal accountability. First, he chose to stop complaining. Second, he asked a better question: “What can I do?” And third, when the better answer came, he thought: You know what? I could head out there, sit down with my colleagues, and figure this thing out. And he did it.
It’s so simple. The ultimate goal of the QBQ is action and it’s also our third guideline: All QBQs focus on action.
To make a QBQ action-focused, we add verbs such as “do,” “make,” “achieve,” and “build” to questions that start with “What” or “How” and contain an “I.”
Now, if that’s all we did, a QBQ might sound something like “What I do?” or “How I build?” So to avoid sounding like cave people, we add another word or two, such as “can” or “will” and “now” or “today,” and end up with excellent-sounding questions like “What can I do right now?” and “How will I make a difference today?”
If we don’t ask what we can do or make or achieve or build, then we won’t do or make or achieve or build. It’s just that simple. Only through action is anything accomplished.
The practice of personal accountability: We discipline our thoughts. We ask better questions. We take action.