If successful organizations manage to merge different ideas 
under vast galaxies and creative motion, through use of two footed questions, it seems to me that this tool could also help leaders to draw the best from diversity.
Let’s face it …traditional diversity training works from a deficit model, and most people who take it tell you they resent it. First the word “training” assumes that one person has all the 
answers and others need to be "trained" by them… That’s not only starting with a deficit – it’s also starting on a fallacy….
Let’s start with an enriched model – where people discover that they too can teach, and where leaders learn at times. If you agree that no company follows a single vision, you’d likely be open to new ideas that help people to capture and develop diverse visions…. Ah, there’s a word to replace “training” – I like the word “develop.”
Here’s a two footed question to start your group: What have you learned from another person at work this week, and where is the evidence that it improves what you do here?” United departments, instead of criticizing, begin to support cross-company visions that come from growth and adaptation, rather than a sense of fixed intelligence in leaders….through emergent research, rather than through water-tight results. Like stars lead astronomers through a desert at night, two footed questions direct different ideas onto a common pathway…. What question could you ask leaders to help them advance the firm's bottom line and move their department ahead at the same time?
How could your two footed questions unlock people’s potential through the curiosity your inquiry created. One organization reached a new summit through challenging personnel in a retreat with the question, “Where would you like to be 5 years from now in this firm and what will it take you to get there?” Hold a contest and expect growth and quality responses back… Over the week at work, people’s minds begin to move in the direction of two-footed questions, as if they too had a part in controlling destiny to arrive there. So answers come…
» 5 Tips to Zap Boredom From Your Weekly Staff Meeting from BrainBasedBusiness
I once worked with a man who turned both hearing aids off weekly as we stepped into another boring meeting where managers rambled on and workers tried to stay awake. We all envied Gordon’s choice… and he pitied our... [Read More]
Tracked on: July 11, 2006 9:58 AM | Permalink to Trackback