- You want your questions to be kind of innocent and kind of curious like this, I'll give you a suggestion, you'll say like, "Hey, yeah, I may be the new person here and I know I'm less experienced than everybody else, so please forgive me if I'm being naive, but can I ask? " And so you're setting the tone like that, you're curious, you're not coming in with an arrogant attitude, and then you wanna ask some version of these three questions. (light music) Hey, it's great to be back for another episode of the "Craig Groeschel Leadership Podcast.
" I wanna say sincerely, I am thankful for you. It's an amazing thing to have you in our leadership community, and I have a real passion. I feel like it's a calling to help you get better in your leadership.
And so what I wanna do is I wanna talk about what you wanna talk about. What we're gonna do is we're gonna do a multiple week series where I'm answering your questions. We ask for questions, and man, you guys ask a bunch of them.
Normally we do an episode on the first Thursday of each month with an occasional bonus episode. Hey, we're doing one a week for as long as it takes to work through many of your questions. So our team looks at all the questions, and we saw some common themes.
I'll tell you what we'll be talking about in the weeks to come. A lot of you're asking about, how do you lead up when you're not in charge? You talked about lateral leadership questions.
How do you lead your peers? Many of you are wanting to know how do you develop emerging leaders, or what do you do when you're starting a new role? Lots of questions about team building and about how to create a great culture, and many of you are dealing with burnout and kind of self-care issues in leadership.
So we're gonna hit those themes and more. Let's dive in today. Matthew from YouTube asked the question, "Craig, what advice do you have for speaking up when you're a part of a team and no one is making the calls?
" What do you do if you're in a meeting and everybody's talking and at the end of the meeting, there's no action, no one's making decisions? Matthew, I'm glad you asked that question, and I'm really glad that you're noticing and you're wanting to do something about the problem. Because it's important to remember that anytime you're in leadership, in a meeting, you're with a group of people, remember, no decision is a decision.
If you're not making a decision, you're actually deciding not to decide. And it's impossible to do nothing and make consistent progress. I always tell our team that indecision is the enemy of progress.
You have to decide, I'd rather make kind of an average decision, a decent decision, and keep things moving, then just stall with no decision at all. And it's a challenge, if no one's stepping up and no one's making the calls, and let's say maybe you're new to the team or you're somewhere in the organization, kind of in the middle, you're gonna wanna approach this problem with a helpful tone, not a critical tone. And this is really important, and I'm gonna talk real straight with you, Matthew, anytime you point out a problem, an insecure leader is gonna get defensive.
When you come and say, "Hey, I don't like this," or "This isn't right," or, "We could do this better. " Anytime you do that, and if your leader is the least bit insecure, they're gonna get defensive. And the reality is, most of us have at least a little bit or a lot of insecurity in us, so you need to be really careful how you approach raising the issue that there is a problem.
So what you wanna do is you wanna approach this with a kind of a helpful or a curious spirit. And what I would suggest you do, is you start by asking questions. And again, watch the tone of your questions.
What you're not doing is coming and saying, "Hey, why wouldn't anyone step up and decide? " You're not gonna come in like that. Or like, you know, "How do all you guys get promoted into leadership anyway when you won't make a decision?
" You're not gonna come in like that. You want your questions to be kind of innocent and kind of curious like this. I'll give you a suggestion.
You'll say like, "Hey, yeah, I may be the new person here and I know I'm less experienced than everybody else, so please forgive me if I'm being naive, but can I ask? " And so you're setting the tone like that, you're curious, you're not coming in with an arrogant attitude. And then you wanna ask some version of these three questions, and they won't be just like this.
You'll put 'em in your own words, but I'm gonna say 'em, and then I'm gonna say 'em again. Then we're gonna talk about 'em. You're gonna ask some version of, "Hey, what do we think is our ultimate objective?
" Number one, "What is our ultimate objective? " Second thing you're gonna ask is, "What is the best way to accomplish this objective? " And then the third thing you're gonna ask in your own words is, "Who's gonna do what and by when?
" So you're gonna say, "What's our ultimate objective? What's the best way to accomplish the objective? And who's gonna do what and by when?
" Let's talk about each of them. Matthew, first, you're gonna say in your own words like, "Hey, I'm kind of new here, and you know, I'm just kind of curious, so, you know, it would really help me out to understand like, what are we trying to accomplish? What's our objective?
What decision are we trying to make? " So you kind of start there. This is a non-threatening way to bring closure into the decision or decisions that you need to make.
And this is crazy simple, but you wanna remind yourself over and over again, and that is this, we cannot do what we don't define, we cannot accomplish what is not clear. So what you're doing is, if you've got some people that aren't making any decisions, you're kind of zeroing in on what decision do we need to make? We need to define it so that we can do it.
And so you're gonna ask something like, "What's our objective? " You're not gonna use those words, but like, "Okay, I'm just kinda curious, like, what exact problem are we trying to solve? " Or, "What's the question that we're trying to answer?
" And so you're gonna give them a chance to kind of say, "This is what we're trying to do. " And so your first question kind of innocently is gonna be, "What's our ultimate objective? What decision are we trying to make?
What are we trying to accomplish? " And then you're gonna ask, again, in your own words, some version of this. Like, "Hey, what do you think is the best way to accomplish this objective?
" Or "What you think is the best way we can get this project done? " And you're asking it again with kind of an innocent, "What's the best way to solve this problem? " And this is a polite and respectful way just to start moving the group toward a decision.
You're not coming in saying, "This is what we need to do. " You're not being arrogant. You're just saying, "Hey, what do you think we need to do about this?
" About this point, if you're still kind of actively engaged and you're able to keep it moving, you wanna try to help the conversation keep a focus on potential solutions, you wanna keep the flow moving toward ways we can solve the problem, instead of getting stuck on objections. A lot of times what'll happen is if you're looking for a good solution, a good solution often follows an unusual suggestion. For example, people will say, "Well, there's no bad suggestions or no bad questions.
" That's debatable whether it's true or not. But the reality is, in a brainstorming session, when you're trying to solve problems, I mean, just throw anything out there. And what we don't wanna do, is we don't wanna start shooting down any ideas.
We just wanna let the ideas flow. If someone says, "This may be a dumb idea," it may be a dumb idea or undoable, but it starts the discussion and it gets us moving toward what may be a good idea. So you're gonna say, "Hey, I'm new here," or "Hey, I'm just kind of curious, like, what problem are we trying to solve?
What's the objective? " And then you're gonna, in your own words, like, "How do you think we could go about doing this? What's the best way to accomplish this?
" Then once you kind of start to get movement, you might ask, if it's appropriate, some version of, "Who's gonna do what and by when? Okay, if we know what problem we're trying to solve, and we know what's our next step, who's gonna do what by when? " This is really, really, really important.
At the end of most meetings, if your meeting is just to communicate information, you may not need to ask this question, but most good meetings don't exist just to communicate information. Most good meetings exist to push decisions. You have to remember that.
And so at the end of a good productive meeting, you'll generally ask some version, especially if you're the leader, you're gonna ask, like, "So what did we decide? Who's gonna do what and by when? " Why are we asking these questions?
The reason is because, Matthew, if you've got people that won't make a decision, you've got some passive leaders in the room, passive leaders tend to pass responsibility. It happens. Maybe they're not confident, maybe they've got some issues going on at home and they're not on their game.
But passive leaders tend to pass responsibility. And so what your goal is, is you wanna try to close the gap. You believe the best in all the leaders around you.
Everybody's got good intentions, but what we wanna do is we wanna close the gap and clearly define what is the next step. This is really important. Let's say you're leading a church and attendance is going down, or let's say you're leading a business and you can't get a product out in time.
So you're defining, here's a problem we're trying to solve, and then here's how we think we need to solve it. At this point, what you wanna do is you don't have to resolve the whole problem. You don't have to finish the project, you're just trying to create any kind of movement.
What you wanna do is define what's the next step. If our church is falling apart, you know, the next step might be to go interview people and find out what's going wrong. Or it might be to go talk to another pastor and get his opinion.
If you're in business, it might be to set an appointment, or make a phone call, or get a bid or meet with the board. What you wanna do is you wanna be specific on who does what and by when. We're trying to drive, not the whole project, but just what is the next step?
And if you're always taking the next step, eventually you're gonna be taking ground, who does what and by when? Then what you wanna do is like ask, you know, "What are we gonna do about this to create accountability? " Whenever you say who does what by when, you're bringing some accountability to the promises that are being made in this meeting, okay.
So Mark's gonna get that, and Blake's gonna get this, and Leanna's gonna get that. And we're gonna have this by next Tuesday, and this is gonna be by the next meeting, we're gonna have all this done. And what do you do?
You're creating accountability. What is the purpose of accountability? Accountability closes the gap between intentions and actions.
We all want, we've got good intentions, this is gonna close the gap. So Matthew, as we covered a lot, and I just wanna compliment you on noticing, you've got really, really good instincts, if you're in a meeting and you're not driving a decision, that's not generally an effective meeting. So again, you're gonna come humbly, and say, "What's our ultimate objective?
What's the best way to accomplish this objective? And who's gonna do what and by when? " And it's really amazing and it's really special what a team of people can do together when you've got clear objectives, when you've got a clear strategy, and when you've got accountability, you can make a big, big difference.
All right, let's deal with another one. Harold asks this, "When you're meeting a leader that you wanna learn from, how do you ask good questions? " Super glad you asked this, Harold, because a lot of times people will get with a leader and they'll talk the whole time, or they won't ask good questions.
What you wanna remember, and the fact that you raise that question shows that you know this, is if you're talking, you're not learning. Anytime you're meeting with someone, if you're in there doing all the talking, you're not doing any learning. So you wanna come in with good questions.
How do you ask good questions? I'll give you some thoughts. I would suggest, Harold, first of all, that you start with intentionality.
What do you wanna learn? By understanding very specifically what you wanna learn, you can kind of define the objective of your time with that leader. You might wanna learn how to make better decisions.
You're maybe indecisive, maybe you procrastinate, maybe you get caught and you can't move a decision forward. So you might wanna learn how do you make decisions? You may wanna learn, how do they manage resources?
One of the most important subjects in leadership that not a lot of people talk about is resource allocation. How do you decide where you put your time? How do you decide where you put your money, your best talent?
So you might wanna learn about that. You might wanna learn their leadership philosophy, not just what they do, but how they think. What are their values?
What's their strategy? What gifts or mindsets do they have that make them unique? You might wanna learn how they juggle responsibilities or how they handle criticism, or how they delegate effectively, or how they create momentum or sustain momentum, or help an underperforming team member.
So I gave you a lot there, but before your meeting with a leader you respect, you wanna be able to finish this statement. This time will be successful if I learn, what? This time will be productive if I learn, what?
You want to go into the meeting with a real specific idea of what you wanna learn, you're gonna be intentional. Second thing is, I suggest, is focus on how and why questions. Focus on how and why.
You don't wanna just know what they do, but you wanna know how they do it and why they do it. So you might ask like, "Why did you choose this strategy? " Not just what strategy did you choose, but you wanna understand what was the thought process?
What were they analyzing, what was behind their decision? You might ask, "Why do you prefer longer meetings? " Or, "Why do you prefer shorter meetings?
" Or "Why do you not like meetings? " Or, "How do you approach your meetings? " The quality of your meetings will determine the trajectory of your organization.
If you've got bad meetings, unproductive meetings, you can't have a productive organization. So how do you think about meetings? You might ask, "How do you build trust with your team?
" Or, "How do you learn to delegate? " So you're coming in not just what, but why, and how. And you wanna ask questions that help you discover principles instead of just practices.
It's so important. You can't copy what they do, but you can learn how they think. You wanna try to get into their minds, and in a similar lane, number three, I would always ask this, ask about who or what influences them.
Super important. "Who do you learn from? Who stretches you?
Do you have a mentor? Do you have a favorite podcast? What books have impacted you?
Are there any conferences that you recommend? " And this is super helpful because if you can find the source of who or what shapes someone that you admire, that can open windows of learning opportunities for you to get better based on the people that are helping them get better. And finally, I mean, almost every time I'm interacting with any leader I admire, I always ask, "Hey, what have you read or listened to recently that's impacting the way you think?
What have you read or listened to recently that's impacting the way you think? " I wanna know every single time, what's current, what's shaping them? Every great leader is a growing leader.
If you admire them, they're growing, they're not the same as the last time you met with them, I guarantee you there's something new shaping them and you wanna find out what it is. Number four, finally, try to find the story behind their story. You're interviewing a great leader and you wanna know, "Hey, what makes you tick?
What's the story behind your success? What's the story behind your ministry? What's the the story behind your influence?
" And I wanna slow it down here for a minute because this is a little bit more advanced than what it sounds like. What you're doing is you're looking to discover what's in their heart, not just what's in their head. And this is really important because what makes a person great isn't just head knowledge, but there's usually something else.
There's a drive, there's a hurt they're overcoming, there's a promise they made that they'll never, or they'll always, and you wanna find out what's in their heart. And most people never get to this level of a conversation. And so what I like to do is I like to say something like, you know, toward the end of a conversation, we're clicking, we're close, like, "Man, there's something special about you.
There's a reason you're different, there's a reason you stand out. " So you set it up like that because most people don't ever say that to 'em. And then you say, like, "Can you tell me the part of the story that most people never think to ask about?
" Or, "Can you tell me the part of your story that most people don't know about you? Can you tell me the part of the story that most people wouldn't understand? " And what you're doing is you're digging deeper, and if you can go deeper, you can hit a well of wisdom.
And I found that when you can take, I call it taking the levels down, so surface questions, normal questions, we're going deeper and deeper and deeper. We wanna find the story behind their success. And there's always one, and people rarely ever talk about it.
A couple of more thoughts on this subject. When you're digging like that, as often as you can, you wanna find someone several steps ahead of you. You wanna talk to someone whose business is five times the size of yours, not just 20% bigger.
You wanna find someone whose ministry is 20 years advanced, not just six months or whatever. And the reason you're doing this is because it's helpful to meet with someone one step ahead, but when you do that, you just learn what I call tweaks. They're doing, "Oh yeah, I didn't think of that.
" And here's how they save a little time and here's how they're a little more productive. But if you can find someone several steps ahead of you, way ahead of you, they're gonna blow your mind. They're gonna tell you stuff like you thought, "I never saw that.
I've never thought that way. " They're going to take something that you're sure is this way and they're gonna tell you the exact opposite. And when you meet with someone many steps ahead of you, they give what I call the gift of disorientation.
You're like, "Whoa, I didn't see that coming, I'm disoriented. " I've had a few meetings like that in my life where I've walked away confused, excited, disoriented, I'm off center. It's like shaking me out of what I was sure was true and opened up my mind to ask questions of like, "Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I didn't see that.
" And this is really, really important. I want you to pay attention to where you push back the most. Whenever they tell you something and you're like, "Nah, that's wrong.
Ah, that's stupid. No, not in my case. " Whenever you do that, this might be revealing a blind spot in your thinking.
And I promise you this, they didn't get to where they are by being dumb. And a lot of times, they don't just have a better perspective, it's just entirely different than yours. They've seen more experience more.
And so the point at which you push back the hardest is often the place you have the most to learn. Let me say that again. The point at which you push back the hardest is often the place you have the most to learn.
I found in my leadership and ministry, the times when I've said like, "Ah, they just don't get," "Oh, they're wrong. " "Oh, that's dumb. " "Oh, they don't know my place.
" Most of the time, whenever I push back like that, it's only because my mind hasn't been open to what's possible. I haven't seen what they've seen, haven't experienced what they've experienced. And that's the point where I generally have the most to learn.
So I wanna say, Harold, thank you, and to the rest of you for your questions. Email us anytime. And I'm not done yet, I got more to tell you, so don't go away.
Email us anytime at leadership@life. church. And I wanna encourage you to think about your story behind your story.
The reality is that wherever you are in leadership today, you may not be the leader today that you want to be, but you have in you already very real leadership potential. When I was 25, 28, 30, 35, 40, 42, 47, I wasn't the leader that I am today, but God had already put in me then what was necessary to develop to help become the leader that I am. And I want you just to give yourself permission to think back to your childhood.
Think about promises that you made, like, "I will never be like so and so," or, "One day, I promise I will," whatever. These are very powerful shaping forces, even the painful times in your life. And I'd say, like, especially the painful times.
And I would say, again, the purpose of this podcast is to develop leaders, not to push my faith on you, but I would just say respectfully that God is writing your story and I would encourage you to trust Him and seek Him. If you're a person of faith, cry out to Him, and don't ever underestimate the spiritual side of leadership. What's amazing to those of you who share my faith, we believe that whenever we're weak, our God makes us strong.
And that whenever we go through something difficult, God comforts us in the same way, so we one day can comfort and lead others in the same way. And that He's working together all things together for good in our lives, even the difficult things. So be encouraged.
God is writing your story and I believe it's gonna be a good one. Before I tell you about what's coming up, I wanna give away some books today that are related to our subject. My good friend, Dr John Maxwell is the best of the best of best and he has a book called "Good Leaders Ask Great Questions.
" If you'd like to win one of five copies, hop over to YouTube if you're not there yet already, go to YouTube and type in the comment section, "I want to ask great questions" if you'd like to win. We'll pick one of five names, give out five copies of the book, and just type in the comment section, "I want to ask great questions. " So here's what we're gonna do.
We're gonna drop one episode per week and I'm gonna work really hard to bring you valuable content. We're gonna be short, direct, your time is valuable. I'm gonna give you my best to help you get better.
What you can do for me, that's a real gift is if you haven't subscribed, subscribe now. Hit the Subscribe button. If you've never written a review or rated the content, it's gonna take you 30 seconds.
If you do that for me, it'll help us reach more people. And my goal is to bring you the highest value per minute of any podcast you listen to, my goal. Hope you join us next Thursday for more.
My goal is to help you get better because we know that everyone wins when the leader gets better.
