Questions to engage the humanity in your team

I've been some fabulous teams - great because of the way that they were led as much as anything. The one thing that these team leaders did was to create the space for people over agenda. Each of these leaders began each meeting with a question that helped us know and better appreciate our peers. Anything from "Where did you go for your break?" to two truths and a lie (a fun game, look it up).

Read More
Andrew MowatComment
What makes a good, or even a beautiful question?

❓ What differentiates a great question? The simple answer is that great questions move something or someone forward. They deepen knowledge, they build capability.

More than anything, great questions have implicit cognitive load. They create effort, and it is this effort that creates legacy learning in the brain. The transformation seen is proportional to the amount of cognitive effort given.

Read More
Andrew MowatComment
The under-rated power of questions

🗣 There is one language pattern that is singularly responsible for all human development. Do you know what it is?
It is the humble question.

I say humble only because the power of questions is often masked by the frequency with which we use them. And because there are a bunch of poor questions that are habituated into daily life.

Read More
Andrew MowatComment
Why do call them difficult conversations?

⚔️Difficult conversations. Crucial Conversations. Courageous Conversations. Tough Conversations. Fierce Conversations. Do you see a pattern?

Why do we place this sort of energy around conversations that matter? When we say we are about to have a 'difficult' conversation, we have already primed our brain this *will* be difficult. And it often is.

Read More
Andrew MowatComment
A key question to accelerate your growth

❗️There is one question you could be asking that will supercharge your development and performance.

"What feedback can you give me?"

💥You see, most people have at least some sort of problem with receiving feedback - it activates the threat architecture in most brains.

Why? Read on to find out…

Read More
Andrew MowatComment
Two critical questions for you

I have two questions for you: what is the unique value that you bring your world, and is this value what your world needs?

When I started teaching, the value of a teacher was to bring subject matter expertise to a classroom. Kids no longer need or value this, and in any case, Google has been the content expert for some time now.

Once, for middle leaders, it was about supervision. Now, these leaders have far more demanding roles.

Read More
Andrew MowatComment
How to antifragile your leadership 💪

Antifragile things strengthen from volatility or stress, and as Nassim Nicholas Taleb points out in his book, there are plenty of antifragile examples around us. Our bodies, when exposed to exercise stress, become stronger.

Cast your thoughts to people who surround you. Some will be fragile, they 'weaken' under stress, while others are very much antifragile. What differentiates these two types?

Read More
Andrew MowatComment