{"id":275,"date":"2016-02-22T09:18:49","date_gmt":"2016-02-22T17:18:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/encouragement.com\/blog\/?p=275"},"modified":"2016-02-22T09:18:49","modified_gmt":"2016-02-22T17:18:49","slug":"a-good-question-to-ask","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/encouragement.com\/wordpress\/?p=275","title":{"rendered":"A Good Question to Ask."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Without a doubt, good questions lead to personal improvements. That&#8217;s because they bring to the surface important understandings and neglected insights. They push our buttons to pause, and consider.\n<\/p>\n<p>For leaders, a good question helps us reevaluate ourselves and our methods \u2013 assessing the ways in which we think and act \u2013 and stimulating our desire to make changes for the better.\n<\/p>\n<p>So what&#8217;s a good question to ask?\n<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s one: &#8220;What if you only had the people tomorrow whom you were thankful for today?&#8221;\n<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s my take on the most powerful question I&#8217;ve heard in a long time, because the implications of this inquiry are significant to our ability to be effective in harnessing the energy and effort of the people we lead.\n<\/p>\n<p>It points out the necessity to truly appreciate &#8216;all&#8217; of the people in whom we are entrusted \u2013 because they are the means to accomplishing the objectives of our organization. And if we&#8217;re only appreciative of a small segment of our workforce, everyone else gets the hint and withdraws something from their contribution.\n<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s tough to do, because working with some people can be so difficult, as we wade through a lot of &#8216;stuff&#8217; that impacts their level of production and cooperation. But, that&#8217;s the work we&#8217;ve been given; the work of relating to people.\n<\/p>\n<p>How well we do with that determines how well we lead.\n<\/p>\n<p>Good relationships all the way around. It&#8217;s good and necessary \u2013 so good luck with that.\n<\/p>\n<p>\u2013\u00a0Jerry Strom\n<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color:#333333\"><em>Twitter: @JerryRStrom.<\/em><\/span>\n\t<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size:9pt\"><em>For more information about our leadership and team development programs, please visit <a href=\"http:\/\/www.JerryStrom.com\">http:\/\/www.JerryStrom.com<\/a> . Join the mailing list to receive new articles as they are published. This article is based on research conducted for the *&#8217;The Relationships Report: The Linkage between Leadership and Relationships,&#8217; by Jerry Strom &amp; Company, Inc. Find &#8216;How Leaders Build Relationships at Work&#8217; at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jerrystrom.com\/research\/js_relationships.html\">http:\/\/www.jerrystrom.com\/research\/js_relationships.html<\/a> short insights on Twitter at #RelationshipsRPT<br \/>\n<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Without a doubt, good questions lead to personal improvements. That&#8217;s because they bring to the surface important understandings and neglected insights. They push our buttons to pause, and consider. For leaders, a good question helps us reevaluate ourselves and our &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/encouragement.com\/wordpress\/?p=275\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-leadership-articles"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>A Good Question to Ask. - Encouragement for Leaders<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/encouragement.com\/wordpress\/?p=275\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Good Question to Ask. - Encouragement for Leaders\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Without a doubt, good questions lead to personal improvements. 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