Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 55 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: One question every leader must ask when facing a challenge
— From Out Think: How Innovative Leaders Drive Exceptional Outcomes by G. Shawn Hunter
In his book Out Think, author G. Shawn Hunter shares lessons in business leadership and teamwork via interviews with renowned leaders. In one of his interviews, the author recalls asking Lincoln Crawley, Managing Director of ManpowerGroup (a leading staffing and recruitment company) if he could recall a watershed learning event in his career.
Crawley pointed to a time, about 15 years earlier, when one question made an enormous difference. He was trying to win a service contract for the firm for which he worked back then. He was the lead for this project, and he felt like David competing against Goliath in his industry. Everything pointed to him losing, as he was out-infrastructured (yes, I just made that word up…) and there was no way his firm could replicate the infrastructure of his competitor in the time required for the proposal.
“In discussions, during the proposal process, the people around Crawley described the technical and financial the company faced as insurmountable,” writes Hunter.
However, Crawley had a conversation with an external mentor, where the latter said he understood the issues and concerns raised, and then asked, “If it were possible, what would the solution look like?”
That one question is what unleashed possibility.
“That simple phrase, ‘if it were possible,’ gave the team permission to speculate and open up a whole new conversation. It was an invitation to dream.”
Crawley and his team then got to work, came up with a plan, and gave it to the prospective client.
The result?
They won the contract.
“I’ve taken those few words with me all through my career,” Crawley says. The author goes on to note that this phrase has been especially important when Crawley “can’t see his way around a particularly difficult situation [or] when the competitor seems unbeatable.”
Asking, “If it were possible, what would it look like? [Puts] you in a completely different environment where you’re not now talking about why you haven’t done something,” Crawley states. Instead, “You’re actually talking about how can we make this happen. It changes the conversation.”
Crawley pointed out a curious thing during the in the interview with the author: He didn’t fully recognize the power of asking this question in the face of a challenge until many years later, when he had a team of his own.
“Only then,” writes the author, “did he recognize that these four words opened up the capabilities and imagination of his team.”
To conclude, Hunter writes, “When we see that our teams are stymied, we should try asking them to use their imagination.”
The phrase, “If it were possible…?” is the one question every leader must ask when facing a challenge. It produces a mind-shift that enables both, the leader and the team, to focus on what’s possible. And by focusing on the possibility set amongst the constraints, and not on the obstacles themselves, this question lets the answers and solutions flow freely.
ACTION
TODAY: What challenge are you facing where you seem to be stuck? Ask yourself and your team, “If it were possible what would it look like?” and let your imagination run wild. A few answers will be crazy and undoable, but you’ll also come up with one or more that will reveal how it can, indeed, be possible.
FUTURE: Make it a habit of asking, “If it were possible…” whenever you are facing a challenge that seems insurmountable.
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