Never underestimate the power of enthusiasm.
—Dale Carnegie
Based on what you learned in chapter 5, you should now see that assertive curiosity has many benefits, both as a trait of your own and as a quality you can develop in your team members. We’ve already discussed some of the people skills that can help you reach those objectives. Now, at the start of this chapter, we’ll sharpen our focus a bit. We’ll look at the things you absolutely must do as a manager to maximize assertive curiosity in a corporate setting. Please pay close attention to the four items we’re going to cover now. These are the essentials—the “must-haves.” These are the elements that really make the difference between a culture of complacency and a winning team.
ELEMENT 1: Frequent Contact
Assertive curiosity depends on just a few vital components in the relationship between managers and employees. The most important of these is really very simple—it’s frequency of contact. Assertive curiosity requires face-to-face meetings with team members continually. In fact, you should be in touch every day if possible. This kind of concern lets you see who deserves praise at a given moment and who needs help. It shows your commitment, and it encourages your team members to think about what they can do in return.
In order to make this personal contact happen, you should schedule time every week for an individual meeting or for group interaction when team members can just get to know each other. A good time for this to happen is at the start of the workday. Perhaps once a week, for example, team members might be willing to come in twenty or thirty minutes early to catch up on what’s been happening in their work and in their lives. This works best when everyone participates. Assertive curiosity is enhanced when it’s a team effort rather a solo enterprise. Like all people skills, curiosity should be a collaborative and social experience, not a competitive and isolated one.
In order to make these informal meetings successful, it’s best to have an agreed-upon topic that’s neither too narrow nor too broad. If there’s no topic for the meeting, there’s a danger that people will just sit there waiting for someone to break the ice. That someone would likely be you, their manager or senior person in the group. If this happens, the meeting will result in an interaction that will become too formal; one in which everyone ends up following your lead. On the other hand, a topic that’s too narrowly defined might prevent people from speaking about what’s really on their minds. They might think their concerns are off topic, so they’ll just keep quiet. The real purpose of having a topic for group interactions is not to solve that particular problem but to use the topic as a starting point for a discussion in which assertive curiosity gets put into action.
In a group setting like this, assertive curiosity becomes genuinely interactive. Team members develop and share questions, insights, and solutions. It’s a good chance to learn how others think as well as how your own thought processes work. Within that framework, here are some specific guidelines for an effective group discussion. These are shared principles and responsibilities that should be defined and agreed to by each team member.
First and foremost, everyone should make a commitment to attend and be on time for the meetings. Team members should understand that the purpose here is not to stand out or win an argument. Friendly disagreements are acceptable and even desirable, but personal criticism should be avoided.
At the first meeting, decisions can be made about the group’s goals, how often meetings will take place, how progress can be evaluated, and how any conflicts can be resolved. It’s often a good idea to choose a new person to lead the discussion during each session. The group may feel more comfortable, however, if you, as the senior manager, were to take on that role every week. You know your group and can decide what would be the most beneficial.
Let’s look at an example of how a meeting like this might proceed. We’ll assume that the topic for the week is communication within the corporate setting. The leader of the discussion begins by asking if anyone can think of some obstacles that get in the way of people communicating effectively about work-related issues. If nobody responds, the discussion leader should share an experience of his or her own. This is a basic tool of assertive curiosity, and it usually primes the pump for others to come forward.
In any discussion of communication issues, a very common theme is the divergence of communication styles that can exist among individuals. For example, one person might be more comfortable with written communications, while another prefers speaking on the phone or personal meetings. Differences like these can become a problem when a manager prefers one style of communication, while a team member is more comfortable with another.
The end of the week is a good time for you as a manager to take a team member aside and check up on how things are going. It’s a chance for you to ask questions one-on-one, and also to encourage employees to ask you about whatever is on their minds. Assertive curiosity begins with knowing what you don’t know and then taking action to get that information.
You and your team members need frequent updates on individual responsibilities as well as on what’s happening in the company as a whole. Without impinging on the privacy of team members, you should schedule appointments to observe team members actually doing their jobs. The intention here should be toward mentoring, support, and assertive curiosity. It shouldn’t be like spying! This is a chance for you to assess and assist team members in whatever way they need help. At the same time, it’s an opportunity for employees to make suggestions within the context of their everyday work environment.
ELEMENT 2: Time Management
We’ve seen how important it is to schedule group meetings, and also for you as a manager to spend time with individual team members. As you’re thinking about scheduling interactions like these, it’s a good idea to consider the issue of time management in general. As an assertively curious manager, one of the most important questions you can ask is “How much time do you need?” We can refer to this question as “time on task,” and it should be brought up in every discussion of workplace issues. Learning to use time well is critical for both managers and team members. The fact is that people need help learning effective time management. Allocating realistic amounts of time means greater productivity. How a company and a manager define time expectations can establish the basis of peak performance for all.
Regarding time management, a good rule of thumb is “Expect more and you will get more.” High expectations are important for everyone, especially in light of one of the corporate world’s most firmly established laws: Work expands to fill the time available. Expecting team members to complete a task within a designated time frame can be a self-fulfilling prophecy, especially when you hold similar high expectations for yourself.
Without doubt, the single most effective time management tool is for team members to keep logs of how they spend their time each workday. In asking people to do this, you should be sure to put it in the context of assertive curiosity. Instead of presenting the time log as a form of intrusive scrutiny into what people are doing every second of the day, make it clear that this is just a way of exercising healthy curiosity about how things get done. The results are likely to be interesting and surprising.
Creating a Time Log
John, for example, is the owner of a film editing and postproduction facility in Los Angeles. He employs a team of editors who work on Hollywood movies as well as smaller, independently produced projects. Much of the work is done at night, and even for experienced night workers there’s a tendency to become less than efficient at three or four in the morning. John wanted his team members to create time logs as a way of dramatizing the need for better work habits, but he knew there was danger in simply ordering them to do so.
Instead he came up with a novel way of introducing the topic. He bought some inexpensive stopwatches at a sporting goods store and passed them out to his team. Then he asked if everyone would agree to watch one of the professional football games that were going to be televised that weekend. As a special assignment, he asked his people to keep a time log of how much of the telecast was actual football action and how much was taken up by commercials or other breaks in the game. As their football time logs revealed, the action portion of the games comprised less than seven and a half minutes of the three-hour telecast.
Based on this information, it was easy for John to suggest trying something similar with time logs of the editing work. In fact, the editors looked at it almost as a game. They wanted to see how little actually got done over the course of an eight-hour shift. But once the logs were completed, everyone saw that a serious point was being made. The results were not quite as striking as the football time logs, but there was certainly not an optimal use of the available time. Through this assertively curious exercise, team members understood that changes had to be made. Because John had exercised creative people skills, the lesson was conveyed without negative feelings on anyone’s part.
As a time log will reveal, different people work well in many different ways. Your awareness of this fact should be reflected in the way you discuss the time logs and in the larger expectations you have for one individual or another. Brilliant thinkers in the conference room may be much less effective in face-to-face dealings with clients or customers. Team members rich in hands-on experience may not do so well in presentations or in preparing written reports. People need the opportunity to find out where their talents lie and to use them in the ways that work best. Then, as time passes, they can be motivated to move into areas that don’t come so naturally.
ELEMENT 3: Seek Help from Management
As a manager, you have primary responsibility for being assertively curious about your team and for improving and expanding their skills. But you need and deserve a lot of help. In particular, upper management has the power to shape an environment that is favorable to curiosity and achievement. You as a manager should make this clear to your supervisors.
When this exciting, assertively curious environment starts to come into being, managers and executives begin to think of themselves as educators, not just as bosses. What specific qualities must the environment have? Adequate resources are put into creating opportunities for managers and team members to reflect and act on their mutual concerns. Managers receive support and are given time for the development of new ideas and approaches. The most crucial factor, however, is a strong sense of purpose. Setting goals is fundamental. This is necessary first for the organization as a whole, and then for each individual team member. This topic of goal setting is so central that we should spend a few moments thinking about it and seeing how goal setting is really an expression of assertive curiosity.
ELEMENT 4: Goal Setting—Asking the Right Questions
It is best to begin with some questions. What do you like to do? What are your interests? What are you truly passionate about? Ask yourself these questions, and ask your team members as well. Be sure to make it clear that the answers to these questions don’t have to be work related, at least not initially.
Next, however, you’ll want to ask how these passionate interests can find applications in the workplace. How can your interests benefit the company’s profitability, which will advance your own career in the process? Be aware, however, that you’re probably not the only person in the world, or even in your company, who has these talents. How can you be unique? How can you be better? As you scan the corporate environment, what do you see? Where do you fit? Where do you see opportunity? Those are big questions, and they’re the kinds of questions that assertively curious people naturally ask in order to implement their goals.
Whenever you think about goals, there are other questions you should ask. These questions deal with the time issues we spoke about a moment ago. How long will it take to realize your goals? How will you measure your progress during that period?
Once you’ve identified your talents, translated them into specific goals, and put them into a time frame, there are still some more questions to ask. Be sure to consult with your colleagues and coworkers. What do they think of your goals? This is also a chance for you to ask them about their own aspirations.
Whenever you’re thinking about goals, whether for yourself as an individual or for your team, understand that achieving your objectives will be difficult. If they’re not difficult, you should ask whether these are indeed worthwhile goals. A real goal should be hard. It should test your will. Your resolve should be challenged. When that happens, will you double your efforts or run for shelter?
Ultimately, there is a very deep question you must ask: Are your goals driven by ego or by a higher sense? Is your goal superficial, or will it really benefit your work and your life? Improvement is the key idea here. When the goal is realized, you should be a lot better off than before. This doesn’t only mean you’ll earn a bigger salary. While more money is admittedly very important, there could also be intangibles that will enhance your situation after your goals have been achieved. What are those intangibles? How can you identify them and use them to increase your motivation? How can they get you from where you are now to where you really want and need to be?
Reaching Your Goals
Although spending time on goals and goal setting is not unusual in books on personal development or management training, goals are rarely linked to ideas like assertiveness or curiosity. In fact, the very importance of goal setting has led to its being discussed in very predictable ways. People ask, “What are your goals?” and it seems that whoever can list the most goals wins. But this isn’t really the point. Making a list of goals can be fun, but there’s not much point in listing all the things you want when you may never get there. What people really need to ask is “What will you do to make sure you reach your goals?” That’s assertive curiosity.
Too many people treat goal setting like leaving on a dream vacation, without a map of how to reach the destination. It’s one thing to dream about where you want to go, but you’ve got to know whether to go north or south. Maps, of course, are usually on paper, or today they may also be on a computer screen, a GPS, or your cell phone. You should use all of these mediums in order to take the all-important step of writing down your goals. They should be written not just as informal notes to yourself but as a carefully organized plan of action. Do this for yourself, and encourage your team members to do the same.
Aligning Your Goals with Your Values
As you begin to write out a goal, make sure it’s something you really want. Be sure that is it not just something that sounds good or something you think you ought to want. When setting goals, remember that they must be consistent with your values. If you don’t know what your values really are, now’s a good time to ask yourself about them in an assertively curious way. Do the same for the members of your team. As you encourage them to write down their goals, encourage them also to think about what they believe in and how they came to have those beliefs. In this way, goal setting can become a powerful people skill.
For example, if someone on your team states that he or she wants to triple his or her income, feel free to compliment him or her on her ambition. You then need to ask how hard they want to work in order to achieve that goal. Is he or she willing to come in on weekends, for example, in order to put together a new presentation or to do some independent research? Perhaps spending that extra time at the office would contradict another goal, such as being with his or her family as much as possible.
It’s a good idea to ask yourself about your goals in at least six different areas of your life: your business, your family, your finances, your physical health, your education, and your spiritual perspective. By gaining clarity in each of these areas, you will become a more complete person and you’ll find that your skills in dealing with other people will be strengthened as well.
State Your Goals in the Positive
Always write your goals in the positive instead of the negative. Once again, do this yourself and encourage others to do the same. Think about what you want, not about what you want to leave behind. Part of the reason for writing down your goals is to create a set of instructions for our subconscious mind to carry out. The subconscious is a very efficient but somewhat limited tool. It cannot make the distinction between thought and physical reality, and it does not make judgments between right and wrong. Its only function is to carry out its instructions. The more positive instructions you give it, the more positive results you will get. This is a basic premise of all forms of personal development, including the development of people skills. Make sure you give it the attention it deserves.
Write Detailed Goals
For the same reason, when you write down a goal make sure you do so in as much detail as possible. If your goals seem sketchy in your own mind, there must be some assertively curious questions you still need to ask. Instead of writing “I want to be given more responsibility in my company,” write “I want to become the director of human resources within the next five years, so that I can increase the diversity of our workforce.” Once again, you’re giving the subconscious mind a detailed set of instructions to work on. The more information you give it, the clearer the final outcome becomes. The more precise the outcome, the more efficient the subconscious mind can be. In this sense, the mind is just like a company. It needs a good business plan before it can act efficiently. Your list of goals is simply a business for your mind to invest in and work toward. If you can actually see the goal you want to achieve when you close your eyes, your heart and your soul can “see” it too.
Suppose you were asked to write down the largest amount of money you feel you can earn in the next twelve months. When you start to do this, maybe some very large figures pop into your mind; figures that seem very unrealistic. You might think, “I can make a million dollars, or two million dollars.” But it’s too scary, so you won’t write it.
What does this tell you? If you’re frightened of even writing down the number, consider how much more frightened you must be of actually making this happen. Your reluctance and the difficulty you are having are indications that there’s real truth in the seemingly outlandish numbers that entered your mind. Even though they’re not based on any material circumstances at the present time, they don’t have to be based on physical circumstances. Your thoughts, after all, are the start, and the real start of anything is not based on physical circumstances. When the first airplane flew, was it in the air over Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, or in the minds of the Wright brothers?
Gaining Victory over the Imaginary Observer
Here’s the real difficulty that people encounter when they’re called upon to formulate a specific goal, especially in writing. We may have been told that this is only for ourselves, that no one else will ever see the number, but we don’t really believe that! For the vast majority of people, there’s an imaginary person looking over their shoulders. That imaginary person sees the number they’ve written and says, “Are you crazy? You’ll never make that much money in a hundred lifetimes!” So we let the imaginary person make the decision for us. We do this without realizing that this is just as much an expression of our imagination as the million dollars or the fifty million dollars that we were tempted to write down! Since it’s a negative expression, you’re much more ready to believe it. Why is this?
Don’t let this imaginary observer make limiting decisions for you. Be aware that the imaginary observer has no more basis in reality than anything in your wildest dreams. The important thing is what you believe, or even what you want to believe. Focus your attention on what you desire before you bring in the imaginary spokesman for “reality.”
Let’s be very clear about this. If you believe that something is possible, even in your wildest dreams, it is a goal worth striving for. The only qualification is that at some primary level you must believe it is possible. You must be able to take it seriously even if you don’t imagine that anyone else can. Then, to become a master of people skills, you must be able to engender that power of belief in everyone around you. The ability to move what’s in your mind to the minds of others is the real definition of communication.
In the next chapter we’ll move from asking the right questions to sharing the best answers. Our focus will shift from assertive curiosity to assertive communication.
ACTION STEPS
1. Frequent contact is a key to the success of you and your team. Do you have weekly meetings set up with both your subordinates and your superiors? If not, take some time to do so, perhaps creating a memo for those involved, including proposed meeting dates/times, and what you intend to accomplish in them.
2. Many of us are often more negative than we realize. We may spend a great deal of time and energy stating what we “don’t want” in our lives instead of what we do want. For one day, take note of every time that you voice something that you don’t want in your life. Make note of both verbal complaints as well as those within your mind. Once you note this tendency, take a moment to state the opposite (what you do want) in the affirmative. Make note of any changes that you experience in your life as you continue to practice this exercise.
3. Take a large sheet of paper and give yourself permission to think big as you list your greatest desires. Write down each and every idea that you get, without filtering anything out of the brainstorm. Then take some time to write those desires out into goals, setting action steps, timelines, and desired outcomes. Finally, for five minutes per day for at least twenty-one days, imagine these goals coming to fruition. Feel into the experiences and give yourself total permission to enjoy the experience fully!