Monday Musing - What do you Want?

(Oh Gosling you fox....) Such a simple yet extremely powerful question. "What do you want?"

A friend of mine was listening to me ramble on one day - I don't remember what it was about but I was probably complaining about something - when he looked at me and said, quite directly, "Joe - What do you want?"   

It hit me like a brick in the chest - crap, I didn't know what I wanted… I guess at the moment I wanted to complain about my job or circumstances. As I sat there, 1/4 full beer in my hand, wondering what the heck DID I want, it occurred to me that he had slapped a very powerful question on me.  I loved it!  It instantly allowed me to re-focus towards a solution.

People often don't know what they want, and asking this simple yet powerful question can definitely help re-focus the effort.

Ask anyone you work with that's going through a challenge - "What do you want the outcome to be?" and (maybe after a little prodding) you'll get a clear defined goal: "I want Sarah in accounting to approve this purchase request." After that comes to light we now have something to work with. But if all they're doing is complaining about "those accounting folks" then we have no mythical dragon to slay. (so to speak, sorry Sarah, you're not a dragon. You're also not real so…)

So anytime you see someone looking a little frazzled, unfocused, or even just a little aimless - look them square in the eye and ask them directly: "What do you want?" The answers may open up a great conversation.

Cheers,

Joe

((P.S. Big shout out to Tom! You're a great leader and I think about this story often.))