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My friend Mark Green of Performance Dynamics Group LLC recently wrote this great article on asking the right questions and the price of not asking the right questions. I've found that asking the right questions is indeed critically important in my work helping business owners.

The Art of Asking the Right Questions

What makes a good question? Is it really that hard to ask a question that will open up discussions, create learning and sharing, and result in productive communications?

The truth is, most of us don't know how to ask good questions, or when we do ask a really great question, it is by accident. There are several ways to ask questions. Some people seem really good at it, while others use a random, what-ever-pops-into-head approach.

Fifty percent of good communications is good listening. Asking the right questions must precede good listening. Good questions pave the way for good communications.

We have all encountered problems with bosses and colleagues, and especially with spouses from asking the wrong question at the wrong time. We scratch our heads and wonder what went wrong? After all, we were just asking, right?

The problem is that we were raised by parents and teachers who asked the wrong questions for most of our lives. Parents ask their children questions designed to teach them something. Teachers also use questions that are rhetorical or Socratic, designed to make us think and come up with the right answer, as predetermined by them. There is usually only one right answer, the one they are looking for.

Here's a clue: these people-parents and teachers-aren't really asking questions. They are trying to tell us something. They do not ask questions to learn something, but to teach what they determine is important. We learn from parents and teachers the wrong way to ask questions in the adult world.

What Real Questions Are Supposed to Do

Real questions are designed to learn about the other person's way of thinking, and to gather information. A truly neutral question is rare. Most of us ask leading questions designed to influence others to our way of thinking, just like our parents and teachers do.

Instead of gathering information about the other person's perspective, our questions lead someone down a thinking path of our choice. One needs only to view TV courtroom dramas to see prime examples of leading questions.

When you ask leading questions, you must hold your own agenda in sight, and design your questions to end up with a predetermined answer. The person asking the question is focused on getting to this result, and therefore is not really listening to the responder with an open and receptive mind.

While this can be an effective teaching method, it is not a way of developing true and meaningful communications, because the listening is cut off by predetermined goals on the part of one person.

Different Kinds of Questions

Managers overuse this leading style of questioning, and then wonder why they don't fully understand the actions of employees. They don't have a grasp on what is really going on, because they aren't asking open questions designed for learning.

People in relationships, including spouses, often fall into the "leading question" trap, in persistent attempts to influence the perspective of the other person. People communicate better when they start asking neutral questions to learn about the perspective of the other.

Some authors define questions as being empowering or disempowering. Empowering questions are positive ones, such as:

• What works best for you?
• What are you doing right?
• What is your favorite part of this?
• When are you most effective?

Disempowering questions are also called judging questions. They bring up negative feelings and focus on what is wrong:

• Why did you do that?
• What went wrong?
• Who caused this?
• How could this have happened?

Notice that these disempowering questions can appear to be neutral. They resemble information-gathering questions. It depends on the source, the context, and tone of voice. There is a fine-line between information-gathering where one is exploring causes in order to find solutions, and questions that judge and blame. It also depends on who is asking the questions, their position of authority, and their prior history of being judgmental and blaming.

In order to frame questions in a neutral, exploration context, it may be necessary to qualify questions with statements such as:

• Help me to understand this situation...
• I just want to clarify the sources of this problem so we can solve it...
• Without blaming anyone, can we identify where we went wrong here?

Questions are clearly the way to create open discussions, deepen relationships, and create a learning environment necessary in any relationship, be it at work or at home.

We all fall into the trap of trying to influence through our questions, because it is so ingrained in us from early childhood on. It is hard to ask truly neutral, non-leading questions without influencing.

Asking Coaching Questions

Here are some guidelines for creating a more coach-like approach in our communications and questions.

When problem-solving with another person, remember these three kinds of questions designed for three different levels of interactions (Argyris):

Single loop questions: How can you fix this problem? What needs to be done differently? How can this be done better, faster, more efficiently?

Double loop questions: Is this the right problem to fix? What else needs to be considered? Is there another way to get better results?

Triple loop questions: What is your role in this, and how do you need to be in order for this to be solved? What shifts in your thinking and being need to happen?

Clearly there is much that goes into asking the right questions at the right time. There is a body of research designed around Appreciative Inquiry, in which people are taught the effectiveness of keeping discussions and questions positive.

We live in a culture that readily diagnoses what is wrong and focuses on how to fix things, without adequately investigating what is right. Research shows that people learn better when reinforced positively rather than negatively, yet we continue to focus on what is wrong, gaps in performance, and areas for improvement.

About The Author

Mark Green, Founder & President of Performance Dynamics Group, is the New York Metropolitan Area certified Coaching Partner for Gazelles International & the Rockefeller Habits Methodologies. Gazelles International is the premier Executive Education and Coaching Solution for leaders of mid-size firms with 30 to 2000 employees. In fact, over 20,000 executives and their companies have benefited from Gazelles programs since 1997. Our goal is to bring you:

• Actionable, practical tools and support for creating and managing growth.
• High-impact consulting, coaching and education with high ROI.
• Access to the business thought-leaders of our time and the best consulting and coaching resources available.

Find out more at www.time-for-change.biz.

Many companies have made operational changes during the recent down turn in the economy. If you are one of the ones who have not, your company may need to make some quick and aggressive changes. When doing so you must consider the business risks in addition to the immediate financial gains. For example, by eliminating certain jobs or products you may be taking out critical components of your business not realized until after the fact: short-term gain, long-term disaster. This could make your company vulnerable in the future. This holds true for the delay of critical capital improvements and inventory levels in your business as well.

When times get really tough, making expense reductions alone will not be enough. So when looking at cuts and expense reductions, one will need to look for opportunities in operational processes and products to make the necessary financial improvements. This means deeper changes to operations and products or eliminations of branches/divisions may be in order.

An Operations Review  An operations review focuses on the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats within the organization (SWOT analysis). Often, someone with operational and financial experience from outside the company will be contracted to review the operations and financial affairs of the business. This review provides insight into how a company operates and how well it is prepared to deal with the changing market and diminishing cash flow. The operations review helps companies make critical decisions. It also assists the company in taking a methodical "proactive" approach opposed to being reactive in dealing with short and long-term cash challenges.

The review will also help identify key revenues, personnel and expenses. As a result, you will gain a better understanding of the key components of your business to keep the company operating at minimal levels. By identifying these key elements, you will be able to make intelligent decisions during difficult times. The operations review will also evaluate the type of financial information you are receiving. It can determine if the key operating reports being generated (if they are being generated) are accurate and sufficient to monitor the business. Knowing that you have the right reports gives the confidence you are making fundamentally good business decisions.

Another benefit of an operations review is that it will identify areas of risk within the company. A company usually has a certain risk level during good times. However, in an economic downturn this risk level is likely to be magnified. An operational review will help you identify these risks.

Additionally, the review will further mold and validate the company's business plans and financial projections – the road map to success. During this process, it will shed light on where changes need to be made to improve profitability and save money. It will also look at back-up plans in the event that the changes do not work out; a proactive vs. reactive approach.

 A "realistic" financial model will need to be developed and modified to reflect the operational changes required. Often the numbers do not always work out or additional changes are required so it may take many variations to get to where you need to be. Plans and market conditions always change so it is good to have the model at arm's length.

Caution! The operations review is driven to maintain or generate additional profits or to fix an unprofitable business. Accordingly, the company will need to continue to produce timely and accurate financial statements and key operating reports; often more reports will be required. It is imperative to have the proper accounting staff and an experienced CFO, regardless of the business's size, to accomplish this. Often in difficult times the accounting department is trimmed down so far that getting good data on time is impossible. When a company is in a tailspin and terminates accounting personnel the spin will only accelerate.

What can the CEO do today? Get started now! Make sure you have a good management team in place and they are all on board with changes. You will need everyone's ideas and support to make changes. Make sure your CFO or controller has the experience to get you to your goal. If necessary, seek outside help even if it is for a short period of time. It is always good to run your ideas by someone who has experienced this before.

Make sure you have a clear understanding of your goals and have a realistic financial projection that can be monitored monthly. Make changes to your plans as necessary. Have a set of key performance indicators you can review daily and weekly so you can make adjustments along the way.

When evaluating your operations, ask yourself what you "really" need vs. what you "want" to operate the business. If you do not know the answer to this question you should seek outside opinions. It is never too late to start the process; so start the process today! Putting in place the tools and review processes now will only help your future success and profitability.

 

Good friend and colleague Chris Ruisi recently interviewed Karen Cooper, Senior Account Representative for Transworld Systems, Inc. She has excellent advice for almost any business on how to generate CASH from better management of collections. Take a quick listen!

http://www.timbremedia.com/breakfastwiththecoach/mp3/ste-000.mp3

 

I just had Breakfast with the Coach! Chris Ruisi, a professional business coach known as "The Coach", and I discussed the Top Five Rules of Cash Flow. You can listen to the podcast by clicking here.

And, while you're at The Coach’s Zone, take a look at other Breakfast with the Coach podcasts.  Chris is a true management expert that brings a fresh approach to helping small businesses.

A company can never have too much cash!

A company can, however, easily run out of cash and get into The Danger Zone, as explained in the book written by jerry MIlls, the Founder of our firm, B2B CFO®. The process of protecting, generating and maximizing cash can be broken down into three phases - Past, Present and Future.

This is the first in a series of three articles to get you thinking about cash and how to get it!

Past

You must protect the cash your business has accumulated to date. In order to do this, you should be thinking about and more importantly, acting on:

•  Risk management:  What are the major systemic sources of risk for your company? Some are obvious and insurance is used to protect us from them. Are your plans all adequate and up-to-date? What risks are not insured? These may be strategic and long-term in nature.

•  Fraud prevention:  This may be as simple as asking, “Who’s watching the Controller?” Is there an independent senior financial executive reviewing the financial results and transaction every month? Are there simple systems in place to ensure separation of duties in all cash handling and accounting processes? Are critical employees required to take annual vacations? More complex processes in larger companies may benefit from a formal fraud prevention assessment.

•  IT systems security:  Are your computer systems up-to-date in both hardware and software? Do they fail regularly causing loss of productivity or worse, loss of data? Are you budgeting for and purchasing regular hardware and software updates and upgrades? Are all files backed up daily and off-site on a regular basis? Are you protected from outside or inside attacks or data loss?

•  Disaster recovery – backups, offsite alternate, etc.:  In addition to day-to-day IT security, how would your business survive in the event of a fire, hurricane or national security event? Many businesses not in Lower Manhattan were damaged or lost after 9/11. Are your disaster recovery plans tested regularly?

•  Cash management:  Are your cash reserves invested safely with maximum returns? Have you forecast your cash flows to know when you may need funds from your investments?

•  Tax planning:  Have you consulted with competent tax advisors to make sure you won’t be sending too much to Uncle Sam, both on an annual basis and when your business exit arrives? Have you been surprised on April 15th?

 Now that we have examined some of the ways to make sure you protect your hard-earned cash, in future installments we will look at ways to maximize current cash flow in then present and maximize the value of your business in the future.

My friend Chris Ruisi of The Coach's Zone recently interviewed Caryl Felicetta of Single Throw on the subject of email marketing. I found Caryl's advice to be clear and right to the point. If you use email marketing or are thinking about using it, this advice will be of value to you.

I’ve known Joe since he became a charter member of the Financial Executives Networking Group (FENG) chapter in Ocean/Monmouth, New Jersey. He has been a loyal and valuable member of the chapter, always ready to assist other members. Unlike most FENG members, he continued to attend meetings and be of assistance even when he was “between searches.” When he joined B2B CFO^® he volunteered to become chapter Co-Chair, in which capacity he still ably serves. Joe has been a tremendous asset in doubling the size of our chapter by upgrading the level of speakers and programs we provide for our membership.

Joe is a highly experienced CFO who provides real value to businesses in our community. He is also very active in the Lakewood Chamber of Commerce (of which I’m President this year) and the Monmouth Ocean Development Council. He has a broad and deep network and is always quick to refer mutual friends who can use each other’s help.

Jim Farrell

Chief Financial Officer

www.singlethrow.com

www.moveahead1.com

Excellent help in assisting new CFO adjust to his job and advising CEO on evaluating the capabilities of the new CFO.

 Eric Rackow, M.D.

CEO

www.seniorbridge.com

What can I say, I scored an American hero. Great mix of pragmatism and focus along with empathy - I'd want Joe in my foxhole any day.

Jeff Lichtenstein

CEO

www.gourmetguru.com

Joe Worth is a superb financial professional. Responsive, insightful, reliable, experienced and dedicated to helping us take our company to the next level. We couldn't be happier about our affiliation with B2BCFO and look forward to a long and successful relationship with Joe and B2BCFO.

Kitty Kolding, CEO

corp.houseparty.com