Ayesha Jahan Bibha

Why do you get paid?

Please don’t feel attacked, because, I do really believe that it’s the right time to start with this basic and straight question.

When I ask this question to my participants, I often find them answering like, they are getting paid for their experience, for their leadership capability, for their skill to manage too many people etc. But if I may narrow these down and ask back, what is the one single think that you get paid for? Whatever the answers were, there is one respond which I observed is obvious – a few seconds silence.

Believe me, this silence speaks a lot. This silence means ‘thinking’ and yes, it is this only reason why we get paid for – thinking.

How do we think?

We may find leaders commonly using the tool of Six Sigma called “5 whys”. This model is simple to peel away the layers of symptoms which can lead to the root cause. It’s also good to use for knowing the difference between the cause and problem.

If we take ourselves little bit away from the case, and have a look at the bigger picture, what do we see we are doing here? Actually we are dedicating our thinking toward the details, getting more understanding about the problem and knowing the aspect about the present situation. I am not saying there is something wrong with all these detailing. The big wrong thing we are doing here, without even knowing, is we are not dedicating our thinking enough toward the future, the solution.

And most importantly, the word “why” itself is a negative start to ask anyone on anything.  Whenever, we ask “why”, we immediately create a threat-state into the thinking of us/others and that negative mental state stops to think better.   

How do we make others to think?

This is one of the key tasks of the leaders – making others to think. As leaders, we often do it while talking/asking/having a conversation to others. This is how we are also leading others to behave. Thinking is the basic to make anyone to behave with their own will power. When we can activate someone’s thought, we actually help the person’s brain to get the hit of dopamine to act with motivation. As a leader it’s also our job not to think on their behalf, rather activating their thinking – and to the right direction. We need to remember; we are not leading the machines; we are leading the knowledge workers.

 So, how do we do this? I know your answer is – by asking, not telling.

Here I would like to suggest, before asking others, let’s ask ourselves, are we enough aware of the thinking that we are generating to others? Is it positive and future focused or negative and problem focused?

Being the leader, we need to be mindful that, our every single talk, comment, activity and even nonverbal cues are speaking and generating thought into others. Everything we are doing cautiously or non-cautiously are the reflections of our thinking.  Like many successful leaders, let us also start making a habit of slowing down. This is only how we can generate more insights in us and others. And let’s think to think.

Let me finish here by referring the quote by Anthony Jay, the author of the book called Management and Machiavelli: Discovering a New Science of Management in the Timeless Principles of Statecraft,

“The uncreative mind can spot wrong answers, but it takes a very creative mind to spot wrong question.”