Ask the right questions to get the results you want
What is mindset?
If you were to use your favorite search engine (i.e. Google) and type in “definition of mindset”, you will be given various definitions for this particular buzzword, including:
- a person’s way of thinking and their opinions
- the established set of attitudes held by someone
- mental attitude or inclination
- personal beliefs or attitudes
The Many Types of Mindset
Since “mindset” has become so popular, there are many different comparisons of mindset across various fields. The following are some of the common mindset comparisons that have been developed. Some of the common phrases that are typical of each mindset are also included.
Closed Mindset | Open Mindset |
- think you know all that there is to know; don’t want to learn new perspectives “I can’t do this. I should quit while I’m ahead.” | - open to learning more; know you have limited knowledge and others might have a different perspective or experience that you can learn from “I can learn. I can ask for help. I’ll try.” |
Judger Mindset | Learner Mindset |
- judgmental; reactive; critical of others and of oneself; close-minded; problem focused “What is wrong with them? It’s all their fault. Why can’t I do anything right?” | - accepting of others and of self; open to ideas, perspectives, and learning; solution focused “What is the opportunity here? How could I find a solution? I can learn how to do this better.” |
Fixed Mindset | Growth Mindset |
- believe your talents and skills are fixed; can’t learn anything new; believe you are who you are and nothing can change that “I’ve always done it this way. I can’t do it, and I’ll never be able to. I give up. You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” | - believe that skills and talents can be learned; know that there is always room to grow with practice and effort “Failure is an opportunity to grow. Mistakes are part of learning. I can learn anything with effort and time.” |
Scarcity Mindset | Abundance Mindset |
- think there is a limited amount of opportunity in the world; need to fight for your fair share and prevent others from getting too much; risk is dangerous “Why bother? I’ll never be able to afford that. It’s their fault I can’t get a job. There will never be enough.” | - realize there are an abundant number of opportunities and there is room for everyone to grow in their own ways; feel grateful for the ample opportunities already given “What is possible? I am grateful for the opportunity or challenge to grow. There will always be more.” |
Poverty Mindset | Wealth Mindset |
- limited amount of money in the world; money is hard to get “Money doesn’t grow on trees. Use debt for spending so I can live now. Those with lots of money are crooks/evil. Rich people got lucky.” | - not necessarily spending more, but seeing money as a tool that can be wisely used to grow abundant lives; make wise investments “Focus on net worth. I have everything I need to succeed. I am in control of my own success. There’s an abundance of money and opportunity.” |
As you can see, there are really two types of mindsets in various forms: one set that believes we are fixed in what we can do, learn, or own. The other believes that anything is possible as long as we put the effort and time into learning how to get better.
So why does your mindset matter? How could it be impacting your results in your everyday life?
Monitoring your Self-Talk
Even if you aren’t saying the exact phrases in any of the above, the importance of mindset can be explained further when we look at self-talk. When we say self-talk, we are talking about that internal dialogue that you have with yourself as you go about your day. A lot of the time, we are not even aware of our own self-talk, as we are making decisions based on our surroundings or our biases without much thought.
We all know that self-talk can be very negative – we are typically our worst critiques. Negative self-talk tends to put us into victim mode, where we become a victim of our situation or circumstances instead of the one in control.
But as you become more self-aware, you can help shape your self-talk to be more purposeful, more intentional. This can help shape self-talk into performance improvement, mental health improvement, and even improve your relationships, both at work and in your personal lives.
As you practice positive self-talk, it becomes more natural.
One of the ways to improve self-talk is to look at the questions that we ask ourselves when we are going through difficult situations.
How do your questions affect you personally?
At a workshop that I led recently, I experimented with questions. I was able to do this for two groups so far, and the word clouds that came from both exercises were very similar.
The first exercise asked the types of questions that might be considered more of a closed or judger mindset. They included questions like:
- Whose fault is it?
- What’s wrong with me?
- Why am I such a failure?
- Haven’t we already been there, done that?
- Why bother?
As you can likely guess, the word cloud included a lot of negative emotions and thoughts. Things like unmotivated, sad, negative, defensive, frustrated, stressed, defeated, and downward spiral.
Then we did a reset and went through a new set of questions. Some of the questions asked included:
- What do I want?
- What can I learn?
- What am I assuming? What are the facts?
- What are my goals?
- What is the opportunity?
- What is another perspective?
This time, the word cloud erupted with very positive emotions and thoughts. Words like hopeful, optimistic, forward looking, in control, and everything is possible popped up right away.
Hopefully this little experiment helped you see the importance of asking the right questions. Whether you are asking them internally or if you are asking questions to your team, spouse, children, or even community. How we ask our questions can influence not only the response that we get, but also how open the other person is in communicating with us further.
Asking the Right Questions is an Important Leadership Skill
As you can likely guess – the ability to ask the right questions is a great leadership skill. By asking yourself the right questions, you can develop more self-awareness, curiosity, and a growth mindset. You can look for new perspectives or see an obstacle as an opportunity to learn and grow.
Asking the right questions of your team members is also important. It can lead to a better understanding of team members, as well as of the problem or obstacle that the team may be facing. However, you can ask the best questions in the world – they will mean nothing if you don’t know how to listen to the answers.
This brings in the importance of developing another great leadership skill – active listening and being open to understanding your team and their values, goals, and obstacles.
So, what are the right questions?
Now, you may be wondering – what are the right questions?
The best way to start asking better questions is to focus on more open-ended questions. These include questions that being with “what” and “how”. By asking these open-ended questions, you tend to get longer and more thought-out responses. You also avoid any deflection or feeling of blaming that questions like “why” can tend to provoke.
Some of my favorite questions as a certified leadership coach include:
- If you could do anything you wanted, what would you do?
- What have you tried so far?
- What resources or options do you have?
- How could you go about finding more information?
- What is the lesson in the situation?
- If this happened to your friend or colleague, what advice would you give them?
- How important will this situation be in 5 years?
If you are having a hard time finding the right questions, Marilee Adams suggests a question brainstorming session with a small team (see Change Your Questions, Change Your Life below). In these sessions, your team can get involved on developing a list of questions. No matter what questions come to mind, they get written down.
Once you have a long list of questions, you can go back as a team and find the ones that are best to focus on. Coming up with a quick list of questions can help promote openness among the team, as well as shift perspectives on what kinds of questions to ask.
If you find yourself in a negative spiral with questions that are not helping your mindset, you can even use questions to reshape your mindset by doing a reframe.
For example, if you are stuck in a loop of “How can I be so stupid?” or “Why do I always get into situations like this?”, you can use questions to pull you out of the negative loop. These questions reframed could be “What can I learn from this situation so that I can avoid it in the future?” or “What has led me into this situation? What has helped me get out of it in the past? How can I avoid it in the future?”
Now go out and ask new questions!
Personally, I keep a small list of questions that I find help me switch out of a negative, closed mindset and into a positive, learning mindset. These help me when I’m feeling stuck and can even help me shift my perspective so that I can look at a particularly difficult situation in a different way.
What question are you going to take away with you today?
References and Recommended Further Reading
The Coaching Habit* and The Advice Trap* by Michael Bungay Stainer
Asking Good Questions is a Leaders Superpower -https://learningforward.org/journal/building-community-in-a-divided-world/asking-good-questions-is-a-leaders-superpower/
Why Asking Questions Is Critical to Leadership Success -https://www.hr.com/en/magazines/leadership_excellence_essentials/february_2022_leadership_excellence/why-asking-questions-is-critical-to-leadership-suc_kz59r7z5.html
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