.jpg)
The People Gardener Podcast with Rhonda Delaney
The People Gardener Podcast with Rhonda Delaney
Transforming Business Outcomes with Better Questions
What if asking the right questions could transform your leadership skills and elevate your business outcomes? Join me, Rhonda Delaney, as I share my enlightening journey from a recent business retreat led by my coach, James Wedmore, where I had to craft specific, outcome-oriented questions. Discover how the precision of your inquiries can lead to better insights and decision-making processes, and learn about the challenges and discomfort that often accompany this crucial skill set. Whether you're a business owner or an employee, becoming adept at asking and answering quality questions is essential for overcoming obstacles and managing your immediate needs efficiently.
As we wrap up this week's discussions, don't miss out on staying connected! Subscribe to my email list via rondadelaney.com for regular updates on people, gardening, and leadership. Plus, get the scoop on the Raving Fans Society app available on the Apple Store and Google Store. With both free and paid membership options, the app offers a treasure trove of resources, including all my teaching content, a comprehensive resource library, monthly group coaching, and exclusive quarterly guest speakers covering small business and leadership topics. Let’s grow together and become better leaders through the power of asking quality questions!
Well, hey there, welcome to the People Gardener podcast. I'm Rhonda Delaney, your host, also known as the People Gardener, thrilled to put this podcast together to help small business owners, new business owners, frustrated business owners and aspiring leaders, whether they're inside business or outside. Each week, we bring you some actionable steps so that you can actually improve your skill as a leader. That's what we're about. We're here to help you become a better leader by giving you access to lots of different perspectives. By giving you access to lots of different perspectives, the guests are varied. We're thrilled to have them. Get out your pen, get out your paper and be ready to learn Every single episode. You're going to be able to take something away that you can implement. Are you ready? Let's get to work. Well, hey there. Welcome back to the People Gardener podcast. Happy to have you here.
Speaker 1:This week we are going to be talking about asking questions, not just any question, but quality questions, and what makes a quality question quality question? I'm going to contend that it is specificity that actually makes a question be an okay question to an incredibly effective question. The more clear we can be and specific we can be when we're asking the question, the better the information that we're going to receive is, and I know, for me, one of the challenges is asking the question soon enough, soon enough. It's really hard to ask a specific question or a question with specificity at the last minute because when you are so specific, it may require time to research in order to get the information that you're asking for, and then your decision making time has passed. You needed it sooner rather than later and, let's face it, a lot of times we put off asking questions because we feel like it might be uncomfortable for the person that we're asking, or we might feel uncomfortable asking the question because our skill level at asking the questions is not there and we haven't done our homework on practicing how to ask great questions, practicing on our delivery, practicing on words that we could be using to replace words that might be triggering offensive. There's lots of ways you could go with that. So how are you doing asking specific questions, and what do I mean by that? When you're listening to this, I will be attending a retreat, a business retreat, and James Wedmore, who is my coach, he asked us to come up with five questions before we arrived at the retreat that we wanted answers for, and so the reality of that is, we're setting an intention of thoughtfully going through and processing questions that we have about ourselves, about our business, that we really want to get answers for.
Speaker 1:And specificity was the requirement. It had to be outcome oriented. So let's talk a couple of questions One that is not specific and one that is it's like why is this happening to am doing or not doing on a daily basis that is contributing to our lack of sales? Now you tell me the first one absolutely you could wing it off the top of your head the answer to the why, why is this happening? The second one you have to spend some time figuring that out because you have to go back and look at your actions. It could be what you're physically doing in the day. It could be your thoughts during the day. Day could be your thoughts during the day. It could be your words during the day. It could be your interaction. So you've got to go and you've got to get all those down and look at them and figure them out and then stop and critically look at okay, what am I not doing that I should be doing or could be doing or need to be doing? It takes time.
Speaker 1:Sometimes the really specific questions are uncomfortable because they require you to go into depth on the specific topic that that question is addressing, and it's not always easy to look at yourself objectively, critically, and assess what you're doing and what you're not doing. It's the same for your employees. It's the same for anybody on your team. Getting to the place where you are comfortable asking specific questions not specific questions, asking for specifics inside your questions it's something that everybody has to start to feel comfortable with. You as the business owner need to be comfortable asking them. Your employees need to be comfortable answering them, and one of the ways that you help them to be comfortable is to give them time to process that question so they're not feeling frantic and hurried about coming up with an answer. Another way to have them comfortable with those questions is to invite them to be hyper-specific with you when they're asking questions, and that forces you to have to do some digging of your own.
Speaker 1:The better questions that we ask, the better information we get. The better decisions that we ask, the better information we get, the better decisions that we can make. It's not something that is mean-spirited. It's not something that is should be heavy. It's something that is going to give everyone clarity, and that's what we want. We want to be clear on what is and not what we think is. So specificity in your questions is super important. The other thing that he was having us to do is to identify areas that we felt stuck. So how do you do that? Where are you stuck? Where do you feel stuck? Where are you unclear? Don't be shy about just stopping and thinking and being and coming to some understanding about yourself, about your business, about the people in your business, and just getting really comfortable with where you are.
Speaker 1:This is something that I've struggled with for a long time. Yes, I've got this goal right. We've all talked I mean, I've talked about it before the Raving Fan Society. I have this goal of having this membership to support small business owners, you know, and every month I'd be in there working, you know, getting them what they need, bringing in other people to talk about specific topics. But what's happened is I keep going over there instead of being present in the now. What do I need to be working on now? What does it need to look like now? How do I help people now, right now? I have no doubt that that's going to happen, I mean whenever it happens. But we get being present in the now, and you do it as a business owner, I do it as a business owner.
Speaker 1:You think, even in your families, right, you could have little kids. They're in daycare and you're thinking about school. You're thinking about, you know, when they're going to graduate, when they're going to go to college, it's like no. Be with them where they are right now. Be with your business where it is right now. Be with your people where they are right now and start asking the quality questions that are going to help you to make the decisions you need to make right now, that are speaking to that long-term goal and where you're going with things. But you're in the now, right now helps and maybe spurs you on to just write some questions down and start really expanding your skill level of being specific inside the questions that you're asking of yourself as well as your team. I know that the results will be amazing, because when there's clarity, there is always the opportunity for growth and advancement of you personally and also your business.
Speaker 1:That's it for this week. We'll talk to you again next week. Well, thanks for joining me today. Just a quick reminder if you are not on my email list, go to my website, rondadelaneycom, and there's a place there that you can subscribe, keep you up to date on all things people, gardening and leadership. And also a reminder that the Raving Fans Society app is available on the Apple Store and the Google Store. I do have a free membership in there that you'll be able to access some of my material, and then there's also a paid membership, and right now it's $49 a month and you will receive access to all of my material, all of the teaching content. Access to all of my material, all of the teaching content, including a resource library that will really help you along, as well as group coaching every month and then quarterly bringing in guests that will talk on topics that pertain to small business owners and leadership. Thanks again for listening and we'll see you again next week.