Bobb Biehl – Executive Mentor

 

The key to focusing your thinking is asking profound questions. Without focusing and thinking clearly you cannot lead. You cannot motivate. You cannot plan. You cannot communicate. If your thoughts aren’t clear you cannot stay confident, keep balanced, maintain motivation, or become or keep organized.

 

Focusing is the key to growing into your full potential. Think of yourself as a lifelong student: always growing, always seeking, always clarifying, always taking the next step. 

 

There are three important words I’d like you to understand: focusing by asking.   This is a principle I want you to understand for the rest of your life.

 

The way to focus more clearly is by asking profound questions. This article is about teaching you the profound questions you need to ask to turn the confusion in your mind into crystal-clear, energizing, unlocking, releasing, expanding ability to focus. 

 

 

 

Who’s the wisest person you know? Let me suggest that one of the characteristics of this person is that they ask great, profound, penetrating questions. 

 

I’ve collected questions for about twenty years, but until recently I couldn’t tell people why it was so important. I just didn’t have the language. I didn’t have the concept to tell them. But this is the reason it’s so important:  If you ask profound questions, you get profound answers; if you ask shallow questions, you get shallow answers; and if you ask no questions, you get no answers at all. Without good questions, you are left in the position of making unwise decisions because you haven’t thought things through. You’re just repeating what other people say or think. 

 

 

 

The single word focus that I would give you about asking is the word maturity. A mature person asks great questions. Maturity is putting process between opportunity and decision. 

 

For example: The immature person gets the opportunity to buy a car. The person selling the car says, “Hey, how do you like my Jaguar?”  The immature buyer says, “I like it! I’ll buy it!” There’s no process between the opportunity to buy it and the decision to buy it.

 

 

A mature person says, “I like your Jaguar, may I ask you a few questions? How many miles does it have on it? What are you asking for it? Has it ever been in an accident?” This person asks a few questions that put process between an opportunity to buy something and a decision to buy something. Maturity is putting process between opportunity and decision.

 

How do you find the questions that will help you to think for yourself and have a crystal-clear focus? Number one, ask profound questions before deciding anything. Number two, make a hobby of collecting questions for a lifetime. Number three, carry questions with you all of the time. 

 

 

 

Back to number one. Peter Drucker - who was the father of modern management, probably wrote twenty books on management in America, consulted with presidents of the United States and with the presidents of General Motors—made this statement, “Once the facts are clear, the decisions jump out at you.” You know that if you have all of the facts, making the decision is easy. What’s hard and stressful is trying to make a decision without the facts. So before you make any kind of decision, make sure you have some good questions to put between the opportunity and the decision.

 

 

 

Secondly, make a hobby of collecting questions over your lifetime. I would encourage you to start making your collection of questions today. Ask your best friends, ask the leaders you know, “What are your all-time favorite questions? What questions do you ask before making a major decision? What questions would you ask before you risk money? What questions would you ask at this point in my career? What questions would you ask before you decide to sell something, buy something, adopt a child, or build a house?”

 

 

 

The third thing you need to do is carry a copy of the questions you collect. Somewhere in your briefcase, in your purse, or in your computer, keep a list of questions that you put between opportunity and decision. 

 

One question I’ve added to my own lifelong list came as the result of a board meeting.  We were having a discussion involving several million dollars and which direction we should go on a new building project. We had been discussing, debating, and wrestling with it for probably two hours. At that time, Bill Hybels asked a question that brought absolute clarity. He asked one simple question. “What would be the ideal solution long-term?” The minute he asked that, everyone in the room knew what the answer was. We were trying to deal with it on a short-term basis. He asked one profound question, the discussion lasted about thirty seconds more, and it was done. It was done! 

 

It only took one question to remove the confusion from the entire discussion. When you find questions like that - grab them, collect them, and keep them with you. Ask them at precisely the right time and people will say, “Wow! What a profound question that was. What an amazing leader this person is.”  Where do you get questions like that? You don’t have to create them, just collect them.

 

 

 

If you ask profound questions you get profound answers, if you ask shallow questions you get shallow answers, and if you ask no questions you get no answers at all. 

 

 

Note: Adapted from a CD titled: Focusing by Asking!   Available at www.BobbBiehl.com

 

 

© 2009 – Bobb Biehl – www.BobbBiehl.com – 1 800 443 1976