#75: Unsticking Your Thinking

You're listening to the Proteus Leader Show with Erika Andersen, where you'll get practical tools and insights for leading, managing, and staying ready for the future. Erika is the founding partner of Proteus, a firm that focuses uniquely on leader readiness. A nationally known executive coach and bestselling author, you may already know her as one of the most popular leadership bloggers on Forbes.com. Ready for something you can use today? Here's Erika.

Welcome back to the Proteus Leader Show. My guest today is Mitch Ditkoff, an internationally acclaimed thought leader in the fields of creative thinking and team development. Mitch has served as an innovation consultant to over 100 leading-edge organizations in 11 countries since 1987. A master facilitator of the creative process, He is also an accomplished poet, writer, and storyteller. Most recently, he is a founding partner of the advisory consultancy Sage Catalysts. Welcome to the show, Mitch.

Thank you, Erika. Thank you so much. Happy to be here.

I'm so glad to have you. Now, we should also— full disclosure— you and I have been friends for almost 50 years. I know that just seems crazy and impossible.

You must be more than 50 years old.

As must you. And, you know, we've seen each other through most of life's major events, right?

Absolutely.

So knowing you and having known you all these years, I know that our listeners will benefit from your deep wisdom about life and how they can get unstuck. So I know you're always about thinking in fresh, powerful ways.

So it's true.

To talk about. Yeah.

All right. All right.

So let's dive in. So as you know, my first question is, you and your colleagues at Sage Catalysts talk about the importance of asking the right question or questions. Can you tell us more about why you see that as being so key to success?

Totally.

I'm gonna start with one of my favorite quotes in the world, and also on this topic. From Albert Einstein. If I had an hour to solve a problem, I'd spend the first 55 minutes thinking about the question and the last 5 minutes solving it. Most human beings, most people in business do it the complete opposite. 5 minutes thinking about the question, if that.

If that, yeah.

And then 55 minutes to 55 days or months coming up with solutions and ideas and brainstorming strategies. But when the question isn't articulated clearly, isn't thought through, it's a secondary, tertiary, or the wrong question altogether, you get a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing. And this, unfortunately, at least in my experience, is the, is the norm.

Yeah.

With a lot of people.

Yeah, yeah. Boy, I really agree with that. So, so then what, what's the shape of a right question? Like, how do you, how do you personally know, how do you guys know when somebody's getting near the right question?

Great question. And shape of the question matters. So I'll start with that and then kind of reverse engineer what I'm talking about. When I work with people, they, and I ask them what their question is, they usually talk around it or about it. in a very oblique, fuzzy way.

Yeah.

Like, uh, they're talking about their day. Well, then I went to the laundromat and, uh, I, I almost bought some potato chips. It's like, can you get to it a little bit? So I ask people if they can frame their question either as a beginning with, how can I—

Yeah.

Fill in the blank and a by when date. Or if it's a team challenge, and it often is, how can we? And then I ask them who the we is.

Yes.

Giving shape to the question matters. It's like, Erika, if you and I are going out for lunch, if I say to you, hey, let's go out together for lunch sometime, right? You might go, yeah, that's a great idea. Okay, bye.

Right.

Chances of us having lunch are very slim.

Yeah.

But if I pick a time and a place and I frame that request in an intelligent way, we're going to have lunch in the next week or two. Same with framing the question or the problem.

Yeah. Oh, this is great. I, I, how can I, how can we question is a question that we, we at Proteus have used for many, many years. And I really agree with you. I don't, I don't have actual data about this. So take this with a grain of salt. But it seems to me that it makes, it does, it makes your brain act in a whole different way. than different kinds of questions do. How can I just loops you into the, the mode of wanting to solve the problem.

Exactly right. It's— it changes the mood because often people enter into the so-called problem-solving phase or the, you know, the ideation phase with this low-grade virus of Bummer, we have a problem. I don't feel good. I'm stressed.

Yes.

I'm a victim of the situation.

Yeah.

When you frame it as how can I, it opens up the conversation. Like, there's a way. I don't know the way.

Yes.

But there is. And let's consider this.

Yeah, I think that's exactly right. As you're talking, I realize that there's a kind of silent unarticulated question that, like, smashes your brain, which is why we can't— why can't we? Why can't we? Versus how can we, right? And that just unleashes your possibility. Maybe we can. Let's look for it. What could it be?

Well, a lot of this is informed by a classic kind of naysaying behavior of a lot of teams and, and people that give feedback. So if you pose an idea or a question, usually people, first thing they say is why it can't happen. Well, we tried it already, we did it last year, you don't have the budget, we don't have the money. And so immediately a possibility or a contemplation of something is framed as a problem.

Right.

And that Closes the mind and puts the mind in a reactive mode.

Yeah. So we're already starting to wander over to the second question. So let's go there. The second question is, what are the signs that you've seen that a person or a business is starting to stagnate and needs to get unstuck?

2, 2 ways of answering, 2 sides of that coin. One is external. Whatever their measures or criteria are to define success, they acknowledge that they're not meeting that. It could be revenue, sales, certain performance indicators that are off. And if they are mindful that they actually have criteria, and if they revisit them from time to time, Right. They can go, you know what, we're 40% under our, you know, goal or X or Y.

Right. And all that you're saying, plus don't gaslight themselves about, well, but it's all outside of us and there's no possible way we could actually be meeting our—

All of that. All of that. And then there's the other so-called softer, but maybe even more important criteria, which is the feeling level, which shows up as restlessness, discomfort, stress. Something's off here. But I don't know what— it doesn't feel right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I got this gut feel that we're going down a rabbit hole or we're, we're 40% off to the left, but they haven't really articulated what's off or what the problem is. So they're just going with their gut. That matters because often that's the first way to get at it.

Okay, that's great. So there are often both objective and subjective flashing red lights.

Precisely.

Yeah.

And then sometimes a third party, if they invite a third party into the conversation, will notice something like a blind spot that the person whose business or venture it is, is either in denial or avoiding, or they're just not looking at the criteria in a meaningful way. But a third party might just go, hey, Mitch, Blah, blah, blah. And they go, oh, that's a really good point.

Yes.

I've been avoiding that question for the last 6 months.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. That's very helpful. And I suspect that you, you and your colleagues at Sage will end up doing that a lot. We end up doing that a lot too. We're, we're often the person who says, huh, have you noticed that same thing I'm noticing?

Well, I'd say ultimately, This is— I'm gonna make up a percentage— 80% of the work. To have somebody who you trust, who is not bound by their own agenda, who's listening, who's able to process input quickly and wisely, and reflect back to the other in a mirror-like way what they see or what they feel or what they think based on the input. That's actually rare.

Rare and so valuable. In our lexicon, our term of art for that is being a fair witness.

Beautiful.

That you're just— you, you are— you— everything you just said. You don't have an agenda. You're neutral in the situation. You're not trying to curry anybody's favor, and you can just be objective. And that is rare. It's very rare.

And I want to add one thing: not trying to sell anything to anybody.

Yeah, yeah.

Often, I mean, you know, people in business or consultants or anybody who has something, a hidden agenda or an unspoken agenda, will tend to bend what they hear in relationship to what they have. I think it goes back to the Abraham Maslow thing. If all you have is a hammer, everything seems like a nail.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, yes, yeah, very important.

Yeah.

So being, you know, being able to see, see the situation clearly And, and, and we always say this about our clients. I think this is what you're saying, having their best interests at heart. We, we want to do things that are mutually beneficial. We will never do something that's bad for you, you know, good for us at your expense, right?

100%. And in our process of, of, of interacting with the prospect who may become a client, there's an intake call, and that intake call may reveal that it's not a good fit.

Yes, yes.

Like, no, we don't do heart surgery, or I'm sorry, I can't fix your, you know, the engine of your Toyota. I don't have that skill.

Right, right, right.

And we'll just come right out, like, no reason to fake it.

I love that. So let's go to the, you know, we always promise practical takeaways. So what are a few things that our listeners can do right now to help themselves just think and act in fresher ways?

Well, I'll double back to the question framing aspect of it, because that leads to the ideation part. Some people are wired to want to get— if they believe that it makes sense to come up with the right question, the act of attempting to come up with the right question sometimes compresses their thinking. They get a little bit binary, yes or no, black or white, good or bad, and even self-conscious. So what we do is invite people longhand, not on a Mac or an IBM or any kind of laptop or device, just feeling level with an old-fashioned pen and paper. Write down as many questions as come to mind about your project, venture, business. Don't analyze it. It's going good or bad, just like a mind dump.

Yeah.

Just blurt. Okay?

Yeah.

Then after you blurt and, and don't take forever, like maybe 10 minutes or less.

Yeah.

I actually give them, uh, that timeframe because if I don't, they might go on for hours and then they become overwhelmed.

Right.

So it's like a fun little game we're playing. Frame it, gamify the act of coming up with a question. Then after your 7 or 10 minutes, pause, look at it. And just sort of notice which question jumps out at you. There's probably a motherlode in there. There are some smaller ones that aren't really worthy of their time and attention at this point, but there's probably a core motherlode question. And then if they find that one, circle it. Actually, I give them something to do. Oh, look, I'm making progress.

Yeah.

And I'm circling things. This is working. And then just to pause and ask, is there a question behind this question? Is there a more core elemental question? And often there is. Write that down. And then after that little process, pick one or two and frame them as either how can I or how can we with a by when date. Don't leave it open-ended forever. And if they are still in the zone, they're still connected and feel energized, or they can do it later if they— that exhausted me. The next step would be the ideation phase, again with the kind of mind dump, blurt, no censoring of oneself. Just let it out. Ideas in response to—

Ah.

The question that they've identified.

Yeah.

And then, you know, circle or check the ones that are intriguing to you.

Wow.

Almost always, I mean, in the high 95 to 99%, something is going to materialize or emerge that is going to be exciting. And then they can decide at a later time to develop it. I would encourage them to seek out the council or brainpower of a friend or a colleague to dive deeper. Because when you get a second set of eyes, often people can see something you're not seeing.

Yeah.

And that, that's also going to energize the whole refreshing of this issue.

Wow, that's great. Very practical. Oh, Mitch, I love this. As always, we could keep talking for 6 hours. But let's, let's stop here.

And okay.

And, and listeners, if you want to learn more about the support that Mitch and his colleagues at Sage Catalysts offer, you can go to sagecatalysts—

S with an S. Yep, you got it—

.com. So thank you so much.

And thank you, Erika. It's so good seeing you, so good talking with you.

So great. And listeners, also, to find out how Proteus supports leaders to make necessary change, you can go to proteusleader.com and click on topics and choose change from the inside out. So thank you for listening, and until next time, here's to creating the life you truly want.

We hope you're feeling better equipped to create the career, the business, and the life you want. For more insights and tools for leadership and management, join us at thethirtiestleader.com. Have an excellent day, and thanks for listening.