How Do We Get Better When We're Already So Good? --
CHOICE #3 and the Questions that Lead to Improved Results
What does it take to get improved results in your business? A viable business plan, a growth strategy, a marketable value proposition, cash flow, capable talent, the ability to attract and maintain customers…the list goes on. Chances are, you have these in place and already manage them for growth. What else is there? How do we get better when we are already so good?
Truly great leaders know from experience that even their highly refined ability to see what is needed is limited by their own assumptions and beliefs. They recognize the choice they make daily: to accept things as they are or seek new actions that lead to improved results.
Executive coach Mark Sturgell, offers Choice #3. He demonstrates how the fundamentals of greater success and growth are in the questions we ask, questions that stretch our assumptions, beliefs and the results we can produce. The right questions help you see what you're not already seeing. Mark offers questions that you cannot always answer right away, questions that require hard thinking, questions that test your assumptions, reveal possibilities and lead to right action that you and your team might not otherwise have conceived - game changing questions.
1. HOW DO WE
GET BETTER
WHEN WE’RE
ALREADY SO
GOOD?
!
Mark Sturgell, CBC
Performance Development Network
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2. — David Hutchens, Outlearning the Wolves, 2nd Ed, 2000
!
— Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline:The Art & Practice of the Learning
Organization, 2006
Every organization is faced
with the challenge of finding ways
to create the results it desires.
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3. HOW DO WE
GET BETTER
WHEN WE’RE
ALREADY SO
GOOD?
!
Mark Sturgell, CBC
Performance Development Network
3
5. THREE CHOICES
1. I am defined by my circumstances.
2. I can brainstorm new ways to act.
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6. THREE CHOICES
1. I am defined by my circumstances.
2. I can brainstorm new ways to act.
3. I can see the world in a new way.
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7. CHOICE #3
Think of a time when you needed to change or
learn something new…
• How did you know learning or change was needed?
• What were the characteristics of the environment?
• What did the leader(s) do?
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8. 8
How do we get better when we’re already so good?
What does “so good” look like?
What does “better” look like?
10. THE MEASURE
OF A LEADER
Their actions are a
reflection of your
leadership.
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Measure of a Leader, Daniels & Daniels, McGraw-Hill (2006) 2012
11. WHAT DOES ‘BETTER’ LOOK LIKE?
The five CORE* agreements are:
1.
As Is — People must agree on the current
situation as it really is.
2.
Environment — People must agree on
what’s happening around them, which
they’re unable to affect, but which will
affect them.
3.
STAKE — People must agree on what’s at
stake if they stay where they are and don’t
change.
4.
To Be — People must agree on a cogent
vision of the future they desire.
5.
Strategy —Finally, people must agree on
how to break out of the As Is and chart an
irreversible course toward the To Be.
*Chris McGoff,
The Primes: How Any Group Can Solve Any Problem
2012
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13. WHAT DRIVES NEW RESULTS?
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New Possibilities
NEW
Possibilities
Passion drives results;
but then
what drives passion?
Passion
What drives hope?
Hope
14. To create new
possibilities, we must
CHALLENGE our
Assumptions
Passion
CHOICE #3
Passion
Hope
NEW
Possibilities
Challenging our
Assumptions sometimes
means CHOOSING our
Attitudes... And owning up to our Dreams!
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16. WHAT DOYOU WANT?
“If you REALLY want to go there,
why haven’t you already been?”
!
FIELDWORK:
Make a list of at least 100
dreams: what you want to Do, to
Have, to Become…with your
Family, Friends, Finances, Faith,
Followers, Fitness, Fun, Freedom
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100+