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A Boring Question?

· Leadership,Coaching,Questions

I make space for boredom, gazing out of windows, daydreaming, walking without a destination…

Do you?

Do you miss the boredom that your devices have eliminated, or does social media cause your ennui? Is boredom necessary for your creativity?

Do you notice when your boredom arrives? Do you notice when it leaves? When you are lucky enough to be bored, do you notice what it brings you? How does your boredom add value? Is it a vacuum or a vault or a vault of treasures?

If you feel bored in a meeting today, what will you do with your boredom... will you offer it as data to the room? If your boss bores you, then what? If the slides drag, will you interrupt? Will you do something with it or about it? How will colleagues react when you say you are bored? How do you signal your boredom to others?

Are you bored yet?

Your true traveller finds boredom rather agreeable than painful. It is the symbol of his liberty - his excessive freedom. He accepts his boredom, when it comes, not merely philosophically, but almost with pleasure. – Aldous Huxley

Here are the #Leadership #Coaching #Questions I asked on Twitter in May. I share this work in progress in the spirit of working out loud. Thank you to the clients, friends, authors and serendipity that inspired the questions. Notice which questions are productive for you and tell me where they take you. You can read more as I post them here. Enjoy the journey.

Do you look for the good more than the bad? Who are you competing with?

Where do you go when you need some quiet time?

How do you construe vulnerability?

What parts of yourself are you holding back?

If you feel bored in a meeting today, what will you do with your boredom?

Are your followers following you?

What would Sheryl do?

Who do you dress for at work?

Does your team know the difference between knowledge and experience?

Should you niche your leadership?

How did you find your belonging at work?

What does your Talent Management language tell your staff? Does it send messages of inclusion or division?

Does going deeper prove its worth?

Which part of you hears criticism most keenly?

How are your salary and motivation connected?

Who is the first to accept your explanations?

How will you spread happiness at work next week?

Power up or power down?

How do you master a brief?

How do escape from the judgement zone?

How many scenarios are enough?

Are you running on an innovation treadmill?

Who treats you like their most valuable customer?

What will happen if you cut them some more slack?

If you agree that everyone should teach, what are you doing about it?

Is the question the reflection or the guts of the answer?

How do you evaluate your team for follow-through?

Do you need novelty?

Is your leadership a platform for others to perform?

Do you map out what rejection means before you say, ‘that is not acceptable’?

What will be the quality of your first and last interactions tomorrow?

What hard evidence do you have that less is more?

Can you hear criticism and choose whether or not to act upon it?

What makes work experience relevant work experience?

What feelings are heightened when you exhale?

How does your influence spread?

When you say, “Well, I didn’t know" do you mean “I made an assumption”?

What is your optimal span of control and how do you know?

Which do you practice more often: giving or receiving advice?

How long does your bruised ego take to heal?

What motivates you to give others advice?

How do you go from vagueness to focus?

Does your decision-making improve with each decision you take?

Are you continuously renegotiating your role based on changing circumstances?

Whose work and life are you balancing?

Are you curious how leadership will emerge this week?

Are you happy when people are talking about you?

How do you measure your power?

Does your HR team have a unique expertise that you cannot find anywhere else?

Does your boss bore you? Will you do something about it?

Dared or daring?

Whose imperfections can you not accept?

Can you tell them why?

Does the team of your peers share a binding purpose?

Culture before ethics or ethics before culture?

Who don’t you argue with?

Do you restrict experimentation with your new behaviours to the crucial or the normal situations?

What have you learnt but not applied?

Is time a useful measure of experience?

Is it easier to avoid or to filter the noise?

How do you want to be remembered?

Is excessive self-confidence more of a hazard if you are leading the change or resisting it?

Can you say that again?

How do you advise your staff to navigate the matrix?

Is confidence a gift or a skill?

What does it take to hear personal criticism and feel better for it afterwards?

How does your team score for innovation?

Which of your strengths are you persistently underusing?

How often do you talk about talking?

Do you need to be present to connect?

Can you see the evidence around you that everyone changes every day?

Who are you scaring when you think you are delegating?

When does your team become less than the sum of its parts?

Is your happiness a ‘narrative trap’?

What’s your plan to beat the robots?

How do you actively explore opinions that you don't age with?

Please contact Andrew here if you would like to discuss how you may go further in this topic through Coaching.

Please use the comments section at the foot of the page to suggest resources you have found useful on this topic and I'll add them for the benefit of others.