288 Part IV: Using Words to Entrance
With this second question, your colleague or client may get confused
or even cross because it’s challenging to answer. Yet, this question’s
critical to hold on to if you’re going to get a switch in perspective and
come up with a more empowering belief that helps someone shift
forward. So stick with it.
✓ Question 3: ‘If you knew that [your new freeing belief]... what ideas
do you now have to help you move towards your goal?’
This question completes the process. At this point, the person comes up
with their own ideas on how to move forward: ‘Oh well, if I knew that I
was good enough, I’d do X, Y, and Z.’
This questioning works by putting somebody into an ‘as if’ way of thinking.
If you act with the belief that something can happen, you can then find the
behaviours to achieve the aim.
Kate worked with a managing director who wanted to be successful in her
business and yet was struggling to make a decision on having a child. Her
limiting belief was ‘It’s not possible to be a good mother and a successful
businesswoman at the same time.’ By working through the three questions,
she evaluated the new opposite assumption that ‘It’s possible to be a good
mother and a successful businesswoman at the same time.’
By working in this ‘as if’ framework – that is, operating as if it was possible
to do both well – she opened up many ideas on how to run the company
differently in order to pursue motherhood at the same time as being successful
in business. Not only did she go on to have two healthy well-adjusted children,
she also put in place more flexible policies that benefited the men as well as
the women in the company.
Finding the Right Person for the Job: A Question of Motivation
Getting the right people in the right jobs at the right time can be a tricky
problem. Asking the right questions can help you to match people to the
qualities needed to succeed in particular roles.
To get somebody lined up in the right job, you need to ask yourself about
the personal qualities that are necessary to do that job well, as well as the
technical skills involved. How is that person going to behave? The following
questioning begins before you recruit: