The Questions that Build Leaders and Sales

New ED's Playbook to Creating and IMpactful Community Cultrue

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Transcript

1:05

Hi guys. We are now in the month of December, which is the busiest time of the year, some people's favorite time of the year, but it's the busiest and I wanna help you find ways to make your life easier. And we're gonna do that by helping you understand that questions. Are the best asset that you have, the best tool, the best skill to work on.'cause there are two kinds of leaders, folks, two of them, the ones who solve everyone's problem, and the ones who build people who can solve their own and help other people learn how to solve problems. Only one of those leaders. Create capacity in themselves and others. Only one of those leaders create trust, and only one of those leaders can survive senior living long term. Doesn't matter what role you're in. What, what leader do you think it is? I love this quote by Tony Robbins. He says that the quality of questions create the quality. Of your life, the quality of the questions that you ask will create the quality of life that you want. And I'll add this. Quality questions will create a quality leader, will create a quality experience for the people that you serve. Because the questions that you ask determine the leadership and the culture. That you build. So stay with me today because I'm going to give you the five capacity building questions that you can start using immediately. and one of them is so simple that it will change. It will change your standup or a team meeting that you have tomorrow. So let's get into it, do you feel right now today inside of your community that everyone is coming to you for answers? Do you feel. It necessary to solve them immediately so you can move on. That's a good question. What's the answer to that one? do you feel exhausted from solving all the problems all day long? Have you ever had those days where it's like, I cannot make another decision. I don't care what you eat today. I don't care if I eat today. I'm done choosing. I'm done solving decision fatigue. If that's you and you have more of those days than not, and you want to stop having more of those days, and you want to start having a team that thinks for themselves, this episode's for you, we're gonna give you the exact tools to do that. This is in theory. These are the same tools that I used as an executive director or will say that I learned over a course of time as an executive director that I have really leaned into now as a coach, as a leadership executive coach, and what I believe innately I have a strength in this area and I didn't know it. I just was a curious person and asking great questions. But I struggled with wanting to solve everybody's problems because I wanted to be a hero because of the dopamine hit of somebody saying, thank you, that was great. I, okay, so sometimes we just have to get out of our own way, and so these are the tools. That I'm using now as a coach where my job is to ask better questions, and I wanna give you the five reasons as to why you should start asking better questions. you and I both know that we deal with a lot of drama inside of our communities, Most of our time and energy are sucked into a drama vortex, whether it's associate drama, family drama management, drama, vendor drama, market drama, corporate drama, whatever it is, we get sucked into it. And there was a time where I spent a lot of time trying to understand. Or give people time and space to vent. But then I started realizing, my time is valuable. And I started seeing patterns where the same people would be returning to my office to have the same conversation and there would be no resolution. I gotta stop giving people my time. And start helping people solve their own problems. Otherwise, we're gonna be sitting here doing the same thing. I had a friend who once said, stop picking the weeds when it should be the roots that you're going after, right? Don't just pick the surface level weeds. When you're picking the weeds. Pulling the weeds. Make sure you're getting the root and take the time to dig and try to find them.'cause otherwise it's gonna keep coming back. So how did I shift my mentality from giving people time, space, and energy, and sometimes a long time, a lot of energy to talk their way out of it? I started asking questions. That's it. Well, what did you think was going to happen? Why did you say that to her? What do you want me to do about this? These are questions that I would ask associates during their drama and better questions that I ask family members after listening to their main concerns is, what does success look like here? What can I do to resolve this situation? I think one of the biggest opportunities that we have as leaders is to really work on our ability to repair relationships, problems. Situations that didn't go right and questions can help you do that. On a personal note, I will add that I have a 13-year-old son who's on the spectrum whose energy would make the energizer bunny look like the tortoise and the tortoise and the hare, and. I have to ask him questions now instead of telling him what to do and lemme tell you something that's hard because I want him to understand. I wanna tell him what he did that made me feel bad or how what he said to somebody else made them feel bad or how he's not listening. But that doesn't work because he argues with me. But when I say to him. Did you mean to hurt my feelings? When you said that, did you mean to hurt their feelings when you kept doing that after they asked you to stop? Do you want to choose good behaviors today? If you do, you have to stop doing that behavior and that gets through to him more than anything else. And in the moment, it is so hard to take a deep breath and learn to respond appropriately. To pull the best out of him to get the result I want, instead of demanding that he understands something because he doesn't. That's the difference. That's the skill that I'm now using on a personal level that I've used in a professional level that's making my life a little bit easier. the day that you realize this. And life and leadership is the day that your life will change, that you get the behavior that you reward. And when I was rewarding people by coming and staying in my office and really talking about it and having this venting session and letting them feel like I honored and valued them, guess what happened? They wanted to come back. Because it made them feel good and I, my day was lost. But when I transitioned, when I shifted that session from venting to real solution oriented questions that caused them to take accountability and be responsible for the outcomes, the times got less. The people came less because they didn't want. To take the accountability, the responsibility, but it grew them, and honestly, it grew me questions, grow capacity, and we're gonna talk about that. So number one of the importance of why it is in your best interest. To learn to ask questions skillfully and intentionally is that the answers, the best answers, that create the best outcomes are the answers that are already inside of the people coming to you to solve their problem. that person asking for help knows more about the problem than you do. Maybe you have experienced, maybe you've solved similar problems, but in this particular problem, that person coming to you knows more about the problem than you do. And if you're jumping in to solve that problem too quickly, you're robbing them of a capacity building moment. You're robbing them of being their own hero because those people understand. The work that's already been done, they understand the context, the barriers and the details, they what they need from you. More than the answer, more than the solution is just the clarity of what to do and maybe what's holding them back from doing it. So if you have somebody coming to your office and they're asking you to solve their problems over and over again. I want you to think about these questions, so you may wanna write these down, pause it, write'em down, or put take notes inside of your phone. These are some great questions to ask a repeater, a problem solver, repeater in your office. What do you see that might be part of the root cause? I've noticed that this problem keeps coming up. I think that we're pulling the weeds without making sure that we're getting the root. So what do you think is a root cause of this problem? Can you tell me what feels off in this situation? Is there something that we're missing? Is there something that I am missing because I'm not really understanding the big picture? And if there was something that you could do. To solve this problem with one solution right now, what would it be? What could you do to make this better? And when they tell you what their thought would be and you think it's a good idea, say to them, that's a great idea. What's stopping you from doing it to me? When you allow people to answer and solve their own problems, you realize that my job isn't to solve every problem. It's not to be the expert. It's to reveal their expertise. And let me tell you something. If you are a leader inside senior living and you want to build more time in your schedule for yourself and your family, you want to equip. And build leaders that can solve their own problems. And if you were to stop listening to this episode right now, and you could change one thing in your life right now, I would tell you it's this right here. Ask questions. Take a minute when somebody comes to you, even if there's a line of five people waiting to talk to you and help them solve their own problems. Don't be the solver, be the influencer and ask questions. Be the equipper and ask questions. All right. Number two, why do I want to make asking questions a skill that I invest in? Because questions will create buy-in from your team. One of the things that most leaders struggle with or that leaders in general. Who may get fired is because they don't have the buy-in of their team. They can't convince their team, they can't influence their team, and they can't control their team to do the things that need to be done to win football games, to, create, experience for the residents to do the problems, solve the problems, and create the products that need to happen. Okay, buy-in is the reason that leaders can't be successful. Whether it's inside of a community or a football team, or a car salesman, whatever industry that it you're in, whatever layer of leadership that you're in, if you can't get your team to buy in, you're not gonna be successful. Because you can't do it by yourself. And in fact, if you're a leader, you're not supposed to, your job is to influence people to get a job done and done well. Okay? So buy-in. If you're not successful right now, is what you're missing And how do you create it? And I'm here to tell you it's by asking questions. People are more committed to solutions that they generate themselves. Than the solutions that you just give them because they asked. I'm gonna say that again. People are more committed and motivated to do the solutions that they generate themselves. We as the leaders, often assume resistance is a competency problem. But it's not always a competency problem. It's actually an ownership problem. and when we allow people to be a part of the solution to create the answer, odds are they don't sabotage it, they protect it, they own it, they wanna see it through. So if you wanna create more buy-in for your team. If you wanna create a team synergy, if you wanna build confidence and capacity inside of your leaders, specifically your department heads, and then I'll go even further. If you're working inside of a community, the nurses, the shift leaders, right? Stop solving their problems. And let them start solving their problems by answering your questions, because they will create buy-in if they want more synergy on the shift they're leading. They gotta start solving their problems themselves because they'll just defer to you the entire time, which means that you'll get called at two or three o'clock in the morning to solve a real simple problem. Ever been there? if you wanna create buy-in for these shift leaders, for these LPNs, these RNs, these department heads, and heck, even yourself, here's a few questions that you can ask. if I wasn't here or if I was on a cruise and my phone wasn't working, what would you try, based on your experience, what would you try? What would be one solution, one thing that can bring immediate results right now? What could you do to alleviate the tension on the shift? What is a creative way that we can solve this problem, and what do you think would make it stick, make it last, right? People don't resist their own ideas, and I challenge you to run an experiment on that inside of your community. easy to think that resistance is a competency problem. I am a great resistor, okay? And it wasn't a competency problem. I will tell you it was a confidence problem. It was a capacity problem. It wasn't a competency problem. So your job as a leader, when we create buy-in, when we see resistance, is to try to determine. Is it competency or is it confidence and asking questions and using the questions as an experiment to uncover if it's competency or confidence, is by getting them to create solutions of their own and empowering them with, that's a great idea. Why don't you try it? I like the way that you think, right? Because if it's a confidence problem, you're going to have to boost it. They're going to have to try. And if they fail, you can help them fail forward. And that is building capacity, building buy-in because you're building them up even though they're trying and failing. the next part is huge. number three is. An area that most leaders skip and it really ties in to buy-in. It's building confidence. You know, we've talked about it a little bit, but people don't lack knowledge. People don't resist because of competency problems, right? They don't necessarily lack the knowledge of what to do. They lack belief, the confidence. That they can do it. When you ask someone their opinion, you're saying to them, without really saying the words, I trust you. I trust your experience. I value your insight. I believe that you can do this. Tell me what you would do. What could you do? What do we think the real problem is here? This is capacity building in its purest form because you're understanding it's not competency, it's confidence. And confidence is in the way of the majority of our leadership inside the communities because we're scared to fail because we believe the past and we don't believe what's possible in the future. It's a huge opportunity for us. To ask questions, to build buy-in, and to build confidence inside of our leaders and letting them know that I have your back and I trust you to try. That's important. So stop thinking that resistance is a competence problem and start investing and investigating if it's a confidence problem and what is their best tool for that. Questions to pull it out of'em. I have learned that when you say out loud what you think, you get embarrassed because what you say out loud, you can actually judge because it's real and people heard it. But what you think to yourself stays inside and it just repeats. And so that's when we're asking questions we can pull out of them, pull out the words that are keeping them stuck. Because we realize how silly, how silly it is to think that we're not capable of solving our own problems. So here's some questions that can help strengthen confidence. What part of this do you already know how to handle? That's a good one. What are you afraid that might go wrong? Bing, Bing, bing, bing, bing. That's it. And what is the story that you're telling yourself as to why you think that you can't solve this on your own? Huge clarifying questions here that build confidence. And I'm gonna tell you the clarity or the lack of it, is the reason why people stay stuck. Clarity in their strengths, clarity in their confidence, clarity in their vision, clarity in. The way that they think is really holding them back. It's huge. Confidence grows the fastest when people hear themselves think and realize, my God, that just sounds ridiculous. Truly, it sounds ridiculous. My husband gets mad at me all the time because I still struggle in this area. Even though I preach it to you, I still struggle in this area. He looks at me and he's just like, what is wrong with you? But I still do it. I still overcome it. It's still a default mechanism that I'm trying to overcome. number four, Questions, develop leadership capacity. Okay? We already know that questions that people have the answers inside of themselves. When they come to you asking you to solve their problems. You gotta realize that, number one, you wanna respond instead of react. Number two questions, create buy-in. And all resistance isn't a competence problem. Number three, questions build confidence because usually they just lack the belief what they think that needs to happen. And questions will build leadership capacity. And when your leaders have more capacity, guess what? You have more capacity and more time. if you didn't like the top three, this one is for you. Because if your leaders have more capacity to solve the problems and move on and build and equip and empower other leaders, you have more time, and now they're creating more time. But you have to be the one to do it first. If they're not used to this skill working in their favor, leadership is a responsibility. And it's accountability as well. You build that responsibility, that accountability, by returning responsibility back to the leader or the person who's asking you to solve the question or solve their problem. So if they're bringing a problem to you, what they're doing is bringing the responsibility. Of it to you and washing their hands of it. They're saying, here's a problem. Why don't you solve it? Okay, now all of a sudden, they have no responsibility, they have no accountability. And when they, and when you solve the problem and it doesn't work out the way that it's supposed to, who is the person that they will blame you? Your job as a leader who wants to save and build your own capacity, your own time, your own energy, is to say, Ooh, this sounds like an interesting problem. What can you do about this? How can you solve this? Let's talk about it. You're shifting that identity. You're saying, oh, I see this problem. It is a big problem. What are you gonna do about it? All of a sudden it moves from passive to active on their part, and you're gonna feel a little resistance because they don't want to solve the problem. They're coming to you to solve their problem, and maybe you've solved everybody's problem, but you've turned over a new leaf and you wanna build and equip, create, buy-in, create confidence. Create capacity inside of your leadership team, and now you want them to help solve their own problem. So maybe they feel a little overwhelmed at the beginning showing a little resistance, and you say to them, I know you're capable of solving this problem. I'm gonna be right here. Let's figure it out together, but I want it to come from you. So what's the next right step? The. Which is a question that I ask myself all the time, and it's a question that most of us miss because we're always just trying to figure out the end result. We're moving on, we're doing whatever, but the next right step is simple and easy to solve. What's the next right step? Typically, it's communicating something to somebody, repairing something that went wrong. Not ignoring it, identifying it, becoming aware. What's the next right step here? Who needs to know and what's the one thing that we can do immediately to stop the negative momentum? It's those type of questions that don't just solve the problems for people. It pulls out the growth in leaders and they see it. And they feel it themselves. People change when they learn enough that it's easy. And questions help people learn and grow confident enough to take the next right step. And there's one more, there's one more reason why questions matter, and it might be the most important reason of all questions. Create authenticity and questions, create trust. I feel as if all of these questions, all five reasons as to why questions become one of the best skills a leader has, can look, be looked at from an operational lens and a sales lens. Because authenticity and trust are required for change, required for transitions, required for transformations, and we know that change happens at the speed of trust. And so what can create authenticity and trust that can speed up change, can speed up a decision that can speed and grow capacity? It's questions. It's questions. Everyone wants to be known, to be valued, to be seen, and to grow. And the sit in the situation or the role that they're in.'cause if we're not growing in any kind of way, we're dying. We're just stuck. And questions are how people feel seen cause they feel you caring if you listen. If you listen. So asking meaningful questions can communicate to people that that they matter. That your insight is valuable, that you want to understand them, and then it means, I want you to solve these problems. Create the solutions. Let's talk about'em. I'm here with you and I also trust that you can do this. We're gonna do it together, but you're gonna get the glory. You are gonna solve the problem. You are going to feel like the hero. This builds the relational ship, the relationship capital inside of your work environment, inside of the sales tour with the families. This is the foundation of influence. Influence based leadership is going to get you a lot further than control and fear-based leadership. I'm gonna say that again. Influence Will going, is going to get you a lot farther than fear or control based leadership. And so when you are asking people questions and listening and they're able to speak out loud, some of the things, holding them back, asking the questions that help them solve their own problem, that tie you as the solution to their problems, if it's in sales, that ties them to be the solution. Of the problem inside their department. From a leadership standpoint, you're building trust, you're form, you're allowing them to be vulnerable and to build authenticity and courage through the process. So what are some questions? Some trust building questions, right? From an operational standpoint, or even maybe from sales, you can say something like, how's this landing with you? How you feeling? What's going through your head right now? what do you wish that I knew about your experience? What is the one thing that's preventing you from understanding that this community is the solution to your overwhelm right now? And then what kind of support feels right, right now to this family who may be struggling? How can I support you? How can I support you through this change, or transition that's going on? These are important questions, especially if you're on a one-on-one meeting. You know, how can I support you? You know what feels right, right now? What's in our way of collecting the ar, right? What's in our way of getting these assessments done? How many more people do we need to hire to reduce the overtime? These are questions that will allow people to answer with authenticity, to be vulnerable, and to maybe look at the problem from a different perspective, which is key. So lemme summarize one more time. The answers are already inside of the people who are bringing you the problem. Don't take away their ability to be their own hero and encourage them to try and solve it with you. Okay? you need to be able to take a deep breath and respond instead of react and solve. if you solve everybody's problems, you absolutely have no time. No time. You will never have time. Okay? If you want more time, if you want more energy, allow people to solve their own problems with a little bit of help from a few questions that you ask people own what they help create. Resistance is not always a competency problem. If they solve their own problems, they're motivated to actually do the work, ask the right questions in the moment, questions will reveal confidence because normally, or you can say there's a high probability. That confidence is in the way of them being able to solve their own problems. They just need you to give them clarity questions, build leadership responsibility and accountability. And when your leaders are responsible and accountable, you have more time. And they learn that they can help train and equip and empower their teams to be more responsible and accountable as well. And questions create real trust. Between teams, they create and it helps create the buy-in. And buy-in is important for the success of your team and your community. So stop giving answers, stop reacting and solving. Take a beat, take a pause, prioritize the right questions in the moment, and then ask them, empower, and speak into your leaders. And your influence will grow every time You help them solve their own problems and work, and it works with your own kids. and maybe even with your spouse too. The other thing about questions that I think is interesting, and I learned this from a friend of mine, David Posner, and he says, as a referee, as a basketball referee, and he was actually on an episode, of this podcast. But he said that referees and leaders should not answer statements. You only answer questions. Now, I want you to stop and think about something. How many times have you answered statements? How many times have you sent emails where you expected a response, but there wasn't a question in there for someone to answer. Answer questions, ask questions, but don't answer statements and determine whether that statement deserves your energy or if it just deserves time to go on by and be forgotten That. Is a maturity and a level of leadership that will help reduce the drama inside your mind and inside of your community. Are you answering statements or are you answering questions? It's important for you to know that, and it's important for you to answer only questions. And then don't get upset when people don't respond to you if there wasn't a question to respond to. So think about the emails that you send, and if you want a response, make sure at the end of the email you request a response by asking a question. This is a lot of the topics that I love to, that I discuss inside my a hundred percent leader program, which is now open for enrollment, and we start our next group cohort January 14th. A lot of this is stuff that I work with, my one-on-one coaching clients and things that I'm working with on personally and reading and investing in for myself. Your future inside your community is solely depending on the growth. And the effort and the capacity that you're trying to build within yourself. Yes, your company can invest in your leadership, but you can invest in it too. Take this opportunity to say, I wanna be inside of a group of like-minded, like-hearted individuals who have the same mission and who want to be successful to gain perspective. Group programs like the 100% leader will multiply your growth because there's multiple people to learn from when you change your perspective. You can change your life. And when you see that other people are going through the similar things, then you don't feel so alone in the struggle.'cause when you learn more, you'll change more, right? People only change when they fear enough that they have to, when they hurt enough that they have to, or when they learn enough they want to. I want you to learn enough. And to grow enough that change, that growth is something that you want, I want you to learn enough that change isn't scary, it's part of the process. So. Give 100% leader a chance. And if you want one-on-one coaching or if you're a company who's listening and want to provide a mentorship program inside of your community, that is what I do. I want to grow your leaders so they and everybody inside of their community, including their occupancy will rise I appreciate you. listening to this podcast is certainly an opportunity for you to grow and to take what you listen to and, apply inside of your leadership and your life. and thank you for your time. I really appreciate and honor the time that you spend with me, and I would love to hear feedback from you. So follow me on LinkedIn, leave me a note on the podcast webpage. I would love to know your big takeaways and if you take anything from this episode and apply it into your life that works, I would love to hear it. Have a great day and as always, aspire for more for you, knowing that you are already enough.