I believe this is one of my important blogs.
Reading about the different self-made experts made me
realized that they all used the same technique to uncover the current or coming
problem.
I call this
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| Picture Source: Unkown |
All top experts of any field have ability to ask specific
focused questions; and in the process of answering these questions, they
discover the innovative solutions.
In this blog, I’ll share some of the ‘questions’ which
experts of different field used to ask to get the solution of the problem. You
can ask these questions to answer both organizational and personal problems
both.
[I solely take responsibility for the explanation of each
question]
1. Where do you
hope to be in 5 years? And
How will you reach this goal? By what method?- W. Edward Deming (Father of Quality)
This was the question which
Deming used to ask from his clients to know exactly what his clients want; and
do they have any plan of action.
2. What is our
Business? Who is our Customer?- Peter
Drucker (Father of Management)
Most of the organisations fail to
answer these two questions ‘honestly’ and this leads to their downfall.
3. What we will
not do?- Jim Collins, Author of Good to Great
Jim Collins, in his book, studied
11 visionary companies and found that all visionary companies know what they
will not do, no matter what happens. Knowing what we will not do is equally
important as knowing what we will do.
4. How do you
want people to remember you when you will die?
- Stephen Covey, Author of Seven Habits of Highly Effective People
Close your eyes. Imagine that you
are dead and your soul has left the world. Ask yourself- What exactly do you
want people to say at your back. Write those things on a piece of paper. Start
living the life you want. Prepare your life for death.
5. What are the
things which make me jealous?
- Susain Cain, Author of Quiet: Power of Introverts
We can learn a lot from our
negative emotions, if we can keep our mind open. We all have some amount of
negative emotions inside us, but instead of suppressing them we should study
our emotions carefully. This small practice can reveal some hidden facts about
our personality.
6. What is the
Reality? – Jack Welch, CEO of General Electric
I remember, once I met a woman
who had a goal that within a year she would become a millionaire. She didn’t
have any job or business, and her boyfriend was also not a rich guy. After the
year passed, she wanted to give million dollars in charity. Many people in life
live in a strange type of mental illusion. They have constructed their own
mental world and live a fool’s life, ignoring all the facts. Realism is a point
between optimism and pessimism. One of the traits of great leaders is that they
are realistic in life. Before, making any assumption ask yourself- what is the
reality? Be brutally honest while answering this question.
7. Have I visited
the market myself? – Kim Moore, CEO of LG Companies
Sometimes, when we become
supervisor of large team we start avoiding meeting customers directly and
visiting the market because we believe that our team members should do that and
not us. This could bring major downfall in the life of executives and companies
both. Meeting customers, dealers,
sub-dealers, etc. gives us clarity about the market, for instance, once my team
member told me that he was unable to find a caterer in the Block, in which he
was posted. I myself went to that Block and identified three caterers for him.
He accepted his mistake because he didn’t explore the nearby areas properly.
Though it is a very small example, but let me tell you we all are human beings
and we can do mistakes. Therefore, never come to an conclusion if you yourself
have not done the monitoring.
I have a long list of questions,
which top people asked themselves or others and made a great change. But, I
selected only these 6 questions because I personally have liking for these
questions.
Whenever, you are in a problem-
simply start asking questions about the problem, for instance, What is the real problem? What are the causes? Why I
want to solve this problem? How can I solve this problem? Who can help me in my
work? These simple and focused questions can give great clarity to our thought
process.
