Unleashing Clarity and Motivation: How Asking Three Questions Can Enhance YOUR Team Performance

In one of my previous articles named ‘’ The Feedback Dilemma: Why Leaders Struggle and Then Fail to Give Effective Feedback’’ I mentioned that, for leaders to give effective feedback to their team members, they need context in the form of incidents and information.

And for this to happen, they have mainly 3 options. And one of these options was ‘’to be skilled in asking revealing questions’’.

And when I work with new clients, I often start my first official meeting with them by asking them three questions. These questions always work like magic because they trigger them to pause and to think deeply.

And trust me when I tell you that they will work with you as well. Through the past 8 years, I served people from over 15 countries and different backgrounds. I served executives, business owners, and leaders. And these questions never failed to bring them more clarity and boost their motivation regardless of their age or titles.

So, you can use these questions with your team members if you are leading a team. And if you use them right, they can highly boost the performance of your team members.

But to use them right, you need to have already a good relationship and trust between you and your team members.

If your relationship with them is not good, or there is no trust, or if you usually never cared about sitting and trying to mentor them or to ask them deep questions and then suddenly you started asking them these questions, they will be reluctant to open up and speak.

Now let us jump to the questions. And the first question is, what is one thing that you know deep inside of you, that can make a difference or bring the business forward, but you are ''reluctant'' to do?

Depending on the situation, you can replace the word ''business'' above, with any other word. For example, instead of the word ‘’business’’, you can use ‘’project’’ or ‘’team’’ or ‘’performance’’, or any other word that you prefer.

Why is this question powerful?

Almost all of us know exactly what needs to be done to step forward in our private lives, as well as our professional lives. We usually know what action we need to take to make progress.

But because of some psychological barriers, fears, and insecurities, we feel reluctant to take these actions.

And that is why it is important to ask this question because it brings to the surface, to you and your team member, the next action that this person needs to take.

And here is the best part about it. If your team member mentions a specific action and you help him or her take this action, you will boost his or her self-confidence and this will automatically impact his or her performance.

But in order really to be able to help, you need to give space to your team members to answer this question as well as the other questions that we will speak about later, calmly and freely.

If he or she takes time to think, stay silent and do not try to interfere. Interfere only if you feel that he or she didn’t understand your question correctly. But generally, as soon as you ask, stay silent.

One important tip to mention is that fears and insecurities are not related to age or titles. So, if you have a team member who is old or he or she is filling a high leadership role, still do not avoid asking these questions.

After he or she answers, listen carefully and show that you truly care. If you ask him or her this question but your body language shows that you are just asking but you really don’t care, your team member will not open up.

And then you must follow it with the ‘’why’’ question. Why is he or she not doing this action?

This will give you deeper insights about how you can help.

One pro tip: In a lot of cases, your team member will mention a lot of factors related to why they can’t take this action. You have to go beyond these reasons and see through your team member to know if these reasons are really the ones stopping him or her or if it is something related to his or her psychology like fear as I mentioned previously.

Now let us move to the second question which is, what is a decision that you know you need to make but you are not making?

So, the first question was about action, here it is about a decision. And for some moments they may seem similar but, in their core, they are not the same.

And as I mentioned previously, ask the question. Pause. Give space, and then ask him or her the ‘’why’’ question.

And the final question is, what is a discussion that you know that you need to have with someone, but you are avoiding?

Every one of us has a delayed discussion with someone. With your spouse, business partner, colleague from another department, or any other person.

We always have a discussion that we know that we need to have with someone, but again, because we do not know how to run these discussions and because we are afraid that the outcome of these discussions can lead to any damage or hurt us emotionally, we keep avoiding them.

But here is the catch, growth and maturity happen when we become eager to have these uncomfortable discussions because we know that, even though they can be sensitive, they need to be made and they can make us move forward.

So, if your team member tells you that he or she is avoiding a specific discussion with a colleague at work, follow his or her answer with 2 questions:

Why this discussion is important to have?

And why are you avoiding it?

And according to the answers, try to be the driving force behind your team member so that he or she gathers the needed energy and power to have these discussions. Trust me, your team member will thank you later.

Not only this, but you can also use this opportunity to train your team member and prepare him or her.

For example, you can ask him or her to prepare for this discussion and then come and make some sort of demo with you. This will not only help your team member grow in a crucial area but will also strengthen your relationship with him or her and will show that you truly care about them and their growth.

One last hint, these questions are not to be used one time only. You can ask them to the same team member every few weeks, and if the answers are different, then this means that your team member is growing.

Try these questions and share with me your opinion in an email (mohamed@mohamedhanbal.com)