The Four Questions

Ron struggled to explain his claim that he had given his power away, but he was unable to do so. He knew things intuitively that he could not explicitly explain. A few weeks after the meeting Ron attended a training program for business executives titled "Leading the Positive Organization." In this program he learned about an area of research called positive organizational scholarship that examines the best of organizations and the best of human behavior in organizations. It is similar to positive psychology, in which researchers seek to understand positive emotions, strengths, and virtues and how human strengths can contribute to better communities. The professors and participants in the training program that Ron attended discussed topics such as how to create a culture that helps organizations and their people to thrive, tools for fostering high-quality relationships in the workplace, ways to energize the organization, and new ways to think about positive leadership. Ron learned about the fundamental state of leadership in this program.

The fundamental state of leadership drew Ron's attention because he recognized it in his own experience: such a state of leadership was the "place" that he was no longer in, and was the "power" that he had given up. He also recognized that the reason he had experienced the fundamental state of leadership so often in his work prior to the staffing meeting was that a series of difficult life events had pushed him to rise to the occasion and be his best self. This worried him; what if he could only experience the fundamental state of leadership when critical circumstances called him to do so? What about the rest of his work and life? Given this concern, Ron felt empowered when he learned four questions, developed from scientific research, that could help him experience the fundamental state of leadership in any situation:

1. What result do I want to create? When people answer this question they become less comfort-centered and more purpose-centered.

2. What would my story be if I were living the values I expect of others? When people answer this question they become less externally directed and more internally directed.

3. How do others feel about this situation? When people answer this question they become less self-focused and more other-focused.

4. What are three or more strategies I could try in learning how to accomplish my purpose? When people answer this question they become less internally closed and more externally open.

These are not magic questions. There are other questions, methods, or circumstances that can also help you experience the fundamental state of leadership. We offer examples of such questions in table 1.1. But we use these four questions throughout this book because they are carefully worded to reflect the scientific understanding we have of this psychological state. Our purpose for writing this book is to give you these questions. When people ask and answer them, they tend to move out of a normal psychological state and into the fundamental state of leadership, lifting themselves and others.

When Ron learned that he could experience the fundamental state of leadership by answering the four questions, he began using them to experience the state as often as possible. For example, after the training, Ron was supposed to attend a meeting in which he and his coworkers would make decisions about employee pay. These decisions were more complicated than usual because Ron's company had just been acquired by another company. The two companies had different forms and procedures for paying people, but there were no directions about how to handle the different forms and procedures. In fact, these forms and procedures were just one of many problems caused by the acquisition of Ron's company. There were no instructions for dealing with any of these problems, and Ron's boss—who was their contact with the parent company—was afraid to ask for directions. Ron worried that all these problems would make the compensation meeting a frustrating waste of time.

TABLE 1.1 Alternate Questions for Experiencing the Fundamental State of Leadership

Becoming Purpose-Centered

What would my story be if I were living up to the values I expect of others?

What would I do if I had 10% more integrity than I have right now?

How can l live my core values in this situation?

What could I do right now to be more authentic?

If I were not worried about negative consequences, what would be the right thing to do?

Becoming Other-Focused

Becoming Externally Open

Ron prepared himself for the meeting by asking himself the four questions. The agenda for the meeting was to decide how to pay employees, but this agenda was problem-focused given the companies' conflicting procedures and lack of direction. When Ron asked himself the first question, he decided that the result he wanted to create was to come up with an approach for working with the new company regarding how to pay employees that people in both companies could stand behind and work on together.

Ron then asked himself the second question, determined not to react automatically and get frustrated with people while he was in the meeting. When he did he realized that the value that he expected from his boss was candor: he wanted his boss to have a straight conversation with the people in the other company so that they could find out what they needed to know. As a result, he decided that he should speak to his boss with as much candor as he expected the boss to speak with when he met with people in the parent company.

When Ron asked himself the third question he stopped seeing his boss (and others in the meeting) as either tools to help him achieve his goals or as obstacles preventing him from doing so. Instead he empathized with the pressure that his boss probably felt in approaching the people in the company that had just acquired theirs. Because of this empathy he wanted to support his boss as well as to be frank with him.

When Ron asked the fourth question, he stopped worrying about what feedback he might get for taking initiative in the meeting, or what feedback he and his coworkers might receive from the other company. Instead he was open to using many different strategies for developing new approaches to paying employees and was eager to learn which approach might be the best.

When Ron entered the meeting, his boss began to work through his agenda. He suggested that the group should make the best decisions they could with the information they had. Ron asked if he could stop the meeting. He asked if the group could discuss what they needed to achieve that afternoon. He suggested that the group try to come up with an approach for paying employees that would work out well for both companies and their employees in the long run. As they did this, Ron's boss remembered new and relevant information that he learned from the parent company but had forgotten to share. This helped the group to more clearly adapt and specify what additional information it needed to move forward. Once the group was clear about what it needed, Ron's boss agreed to ask the managers in the parent company for more information. When he talked to the managers from the acquiring company, the conversation went well. They were impressed by the boss's clarity and objectives.

Before Ron's boss brought their questions to the managers in the other company, Ron and his colleagues had believed that the managers from the acquiring company displayed a demeaning attitude toward them. After Ron's boss talked to these managers, however, the feeling changed. Employees from the acquiring company began to invite people from Ron's company to give input and to help them design the integration of the two companies.

Ron was thrilled by this experience and others like it. He now uses the four questions on a regular basis. He is increasingly purpose-centered, internally directed, other-focused, and externally open, lifting himself, his coworkers, and his organization.

Anyone can do what Ron did. Social science and practical experiences help us understand how people can lift themselves and others, how people can experience this more often, why asking these four questions can change a person's psychological state, and how one person's psychological state influences that of other people. Our first step in learning the answers to these questions begins with a description of the metaphor behind the science we present and an explanation for why the four characteristics are all necessary for a person to lift themselves and others. This step of the journey occurs in chapter 2.