Module 19 – Create New Thinking

So yesterday, we we’re talking about SCARF and how that, if you tend to the five dimensions of SCARF, you will be helping to get people into a motivated towards state. Now, attending to those elements is really, really important, But we can also get people into a towards state, and in particular, out of their problem and drama states, when we talked about the five levels of focus, by asking them the ________ sort of questions, the questions that get them thinking, the questions that get them creating new wiring, the questions that get them feeling positive, the questions that get them motivated into action to move forward.

Now of course we’re talking here very much about one-to-one work here. But as a leader you’ll be talking to individuals, and you can also, to some extent, use a few of these when you’re working with a group as a whole. Now I can’t go through all the questions, there’s lots of them. But you can see that from the sheets, there’s a range of questions, good coaching questions.

It starts by getting people to think clearly and freely about the situation. How important is this to you on a scale of one to ten? How long have you been thinking about this? How important is this to you? Well simply tell me a little bit about the challenges that you face. And you get them thinking about it by saying how important it is, clarifying the situation, and then you can start to get them thinking about alternatives, “So tell me what ideas have you come up with already? You must have been thinking about this for a while. Tell me what your thoughts are. If resources weren’t an issue, how might you tackle this problem?” Okay, you can’t see how to finish, to finally solve this problem, but what would be a good first step? And so, you start to generate alternatives, and that last question is starting to get into action. And you always finish up by getting people into action.

“So, if you were to leave this room, and you don’t make one change, what would it be? To get you started, what could you do to start this project moving powerfully? Before we even allocate budget and resources, is there something we can do to get this ball rolling? There’s lots of things we can do. And we can start asking about how would you feel when you get there. Paint a picture in your mind of what that vision looks like when we’ve achieved this project. Tell me what people will be saying to you, once you’ve achieved the successful completion of this project.” And this will be motivating people into thinking about the end state, thinking about the vision and the planning, and not about the problem and the drama, and get them into moving forward powerfully.

So, there’s lots to read up here, lots of ideas. The important thing is, we’re thinking about today and tomorrow, we’re not thinking about the past. The more positive we are, the more future-orientated, the more we’re up in vision and planning, the more open the brain is, the more we’re creating new wiring, the more positive we are, and the more committed and motivated we are.

So, see if you can ask a few of those questions in your work setting today, and see what effect that they achieve. And tomorrow, we really are going to wrap this all up, this section on the brain before we move on to another area. But best of luck with those questions and see what responses you get.