9 Mobilize Hearts and Minds Forward

As Powell’s Grand Canyon explorers descended deeper into the unexplored territory, the tales of horrific waterfalls and no-way-out scenarios loomed in their minds. A dark fear rippled under their thoughts every day. What would we do, they wondered, if we came upon a mighty waterfall, with steep walls of rock on both sides (so there’s no place to land the boats), and an enormous current of water that doesn’t let us retreat?¹

Would you go forward with your plans to do big things if you found yourself in a similar situation?

Nearly everything about the future for Powell’s crew was a mystery. “We have an unknown distance yet to run, an unknown river to explore,” Powell wrote. “What falls there are, we know not. What rocks beset the channel, we know not. With some eagerness and some misgiving, we enter the canyon below.”²

Would you go forward if you couldn’t see a clear and certain path in front of you? Would your team put its whole heart in it even if they risked meeting unimaginable calamities at every turn?

Powell’s ragtag bunch could only guess at what the exceedingly diverse landscape and conditions held in store for them. The big thing they had to do required that they execute a plan without seeing their challenge in one comprehensible assessment.

“You cannot see the Grand Canyon in one view, as if it were a changeless spectacle from which a curtain might be lifted,” Powell recorded.³

If your Grand Canyon—the big thing your team must do—is truly significant, it’s probably difficult for team members to articulate with certainty what the work ahead looks like exactly from beginning to end. Powell may have spoken for many of us when he wrote, “The wonders of the Grand Canyon cannot be adequately represented in symbols of speech, nor by speech itself. The resources of the graphic art are taxed beyond their powers in attempting to portray its features. Language and illustration combined must fail.”

All Powell’s team could do to know the future was to move forward—in his words, “to toil from month to month through its labyrinths.”⁴

River runners of this era recognize the I-don’t-want-to-get-into-the-boat-today fear. When you wake up in the morning next to the river, there can be a strong inclination to stay in your sleeping bag. The evening before, all eyes were on the map that read “big rapids ahead.” Stories were told of people who have gone before you only to reach a disastrous fate.

Somehow, you slowly force yourself to stand. Your stomach doesn’t welcome its breakfast. Your muscles tighten and you are loath to pack your gear. A certain gravity pulls you to the land. But you get on the boat. You go. Because you know that doing significant things doesn’t always mean doing easy things.

Teams that flatline sit on the shore too long. They speculate and watch those in other boats row toward the obstacles ahead. They stall their energy and disengage because they create a false future in their minds that the ego and body choose not to suffer.

Teams with their whole heart in it ultimately succeed because they take great care to manage their focus and the direction of their energy. Therefore, they are compelled to take action and mobilize themselves forward. This means that individually teammates use their self-awareness to summon the emotional courage necessary to actuate their potential. The team then comes together and puts in motion a forward-focused energy that has the power necessary to achieve the significant objective in front of them.

Is your team compelled to take action because of what team members see—and can’t see—in the future?

Leave the Abstract and Make an Impression

“I felt really good about my presentation,” the vice president of human resources told us. As the new member of the leadership team, he had just delivered to the 15,000-employee organization his vision for the function he was responsible for leading. He shared, “As I walked off stage, our president approached me as if he was irritated and asked, ‘What was that?’

“‘What do you mean?’ I asked him. I thought I’d done exactly what he told me to do—deliver my vision for how the function will support the organization.

“He shook his head, and said, ‘You can see it all clearly in your head, can’t you? Like an impressionist painting by Monet, you can see the path in the garden. But telling them what you see doesn’t mean they can see it. You just left thousands of our employees seeing nothing but an abstract vision of the future. You have a painting of Monet in your head; they have an abstract painting by Kandinsky in their minds.’”⁵ (See Figure 9.1.)

Figure 9.1 The Impressionism of a Monet-like Drawing versus the Abstraction of a Kandinsky-like Drawing

We see it often as we support organizations: A team begins its work energized, but the power needed to move forward quickly disintegrates because it’s not concentrated toward a common vision. If the members of a team all see their business imperative differently or don’t share a common path to get there, the chances of impacting the business are minimal.

Teams that do big things aren’t attempting to create and share a Rembrandt–type still life where the image of the future is perfectly clear. After all, the team is moving fast. Plus, the richness of diversity in perspectives and ideas are an asset for every successful team. The president’s plea for the vice president of HR to share an impression, an image that depicts light and the inclusion of movement like Monet’s Garden Path, is a must for all teams to succeed.

This is where far too many leadership methodologies fail teams today. The emphasis is on the need for the team leader to transfer his or her vision to the team. This approach may have worked back when the leaders had more time on their hands and the team spent endless hours together. But it reflects outdated thinking today.

While the leader must be certain of the direction the team must go, to do big things today, there’s no time for the team to sit around on the shore and wait for a constant download or transfer of vision and planning from boss to worker. The longer a team has to wait for the boss, the greater the likelihood the team will flatline.

As a friend of ours said, “The notion of a single team leader is over.” Because this friend is responsible for developing leaders within a global organization with nearly 340,000 employees, that’s saying something. He added, “Distributed leadership must occur so the team is able to flex, person to person, and adapt to each issue or situation they face.”

A team’s ability to succeed today is directly correlated to a team’s ability to cocreate an image of where they’re going and how to get there. This chapter is devoted to how teams that do big things move from the abstract of Kandinsky to creating their own Monet—thus generating a shared impression of the future that mobilizes hearts and minds forward.

End the Suspense: Make the Unknown Future Known

He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.

–FRIEDRICHN IETZSCHE

What does your team see, and therefore anticipate, is going to happen in the future? Teams that do big things effectively answer this question quickly. Consider this example.

Dan Robinson, the CEO for Longs Peak Hospital in Longmont, Colorado, is taking his team into its own Grand Canyon. As the CEO for hospitals in the past that have earned the prestigious Malcolm Baldrige Award for Healthcare, Top 100 Hospitals award, and been recognized for clinical excellence, among other accolades, Dan has plenty of experience leading teams that do big things. When we interviewed him, the Longs Peak Hospital only existed on paper and as a construction site locals looked curiously upon as they drove by. It would be another six months before an idea that had been in development for years would become tangible.

“It’s an incredible challenge building a hospital of the future when you don’t know what the future looks like,” Dan told us.¹¹ The difficulties the team faces are rocky and severe. Dan laid out what he called the high-risk challenges:

• “The future of the health-care industry has never been so unclear.”

• “We’ll serve the fastest growing area of population in the state of Colorado. We have to effectively predict what that will mean for us.”

• “We’re going to bring the most advanced tele-health services ever. When we pull this off, it will mean that a patient can be in our ICU unit and get full-time access to expertise from around the world. Few hospitals are doing this successfully yet.”

• “We also have the ability to bring in advanced services and enable technology in ways that have never been done before.” Then he laughed and added, “It’s amazing, though, because the technology we were building our plans around a year ago is already outdated.”

Despite the challenges of all these unknowns, Dan’s team is on plan and on budget as they near the delivery of their business imperative. As they “toil month-to-month through the labyrinths” of their effort, how are they empowering and mobilizing forward? When you listen to Dan, you quickly understand that he’s cocreating the image of the future with his team. They anticipate the same future because everyone on the team is contributing to creating it. They see Monet instead of Kandinsky.

“What I’m most motivated by is bringing to life the dreams of our team members,” Dan said. “Bringing a new hospital to life is in their heart and soul, not just mine. Together we share a deep understanding of what we want our patients to experience. We know that every hospital says that the patient is the priority, but what we’re doing is different. From the start, our priority is to develop the culture that we know we’ll need to succeed, a culture that makes certain when a person leaves our care they’ll say, ‘Wow. That was truly exceptional.’

“We’ve got 5,000 things to do on our checklist before we see our first patient, yet the focus and engagement is easy. When a team believes they can deliver on their dreams, it drives big energy,” Dan told us.

If you like suspense, you wouldn’t like being on Dan’s team. The “will we succeed, or won’t we?” nail-biting that makes so many average teams hopelessly stressed doesn’t exist as the team grows at Longs Peak Hospital. Instead, there’s a certainty. The team embodies success because they anticipate success. This mobilizes their hearts and minds forward.

How to Mobilize Hearts and Minds Forward

Imagine you’re in a meeting with two teammates: Chen is participating via video and Ava is sitting at the table across from you. As the meeting nears its end, you realize: We’ve got to come together and act—now. I’ve got to mobilize this team forward.

Many people we’ve observed in similar situations say something like this to their teammates: “So, we’re all aligned and ready to go then. Any questions?”

Chen nods his head. (Or was that an interruption in the video feed?) Ava lifts her eyes up from her smartphone and replies, “I’m ready.”

To which this common follow-up is offered: “Good then. Thanks for a great meeting. Let me know if you need my help with anything. And let’s check progress next week. Okay?”

Chen, however, has already signed off; the screen is black. Ava smiles as she picks up her laptop, then puts her phone to her ear and begins a different conversation as she walks out the door.

Teams that do small things ask questions that aren’t intended to solicit answers. Like this imagined one, they merely take repeated small actions. Instead of mobilizing hearts and minds, there’s only nudging, prodding, and hoping.

Teams that are serious about achieving their objectives execute brilliantly on the seventh step of the Do Big Things Framework. The fact is there are a lot of ways to mobilize hearts and minds. History is replete with the effective use of these and other methods:

• Fear or threats (Powell’s team certainly had a good dose of this.)

• Commands and directives (At certain moments, people look to leaders to tell them what to do.)

• Narrowing people’s options (“We can do this or that.”)

• Leverage what motivates others (“Why we care is what will get us through this.”)

• Tell inspiring stories (“I remember when I was in a similar situation.”)

• Appeal to a shared world view (“All of us care, so all of us are responsible.”)

There is only one technique, however, that enables you to leverage any of these methods listed and make certain that an intrinsic response is activated within teammates. What do you suppose that technique is?

We just modeled it: We asked you a question. And by doing so, we began your exploration, discovery, and visualization of a more defined future.

It’s a fact: The human mind cannot resist a well-timed or well-phrased inquiry. Try it: Ask someone next to you what time it is and watch what immediately happens to their focus. The moment any of us hear or think of a question our focus is concentrated on the thought that was triggered by the question. And, as established with the Energy Map, whatever direction your focus goes, so does your energy.

Experts such as David Cooperrider, Diana Whitney, Kurt Wright, and others pioneered the understanding of how certain types of questions prompt people to certain action. The method is so effective, Peter Drucker even said, “The leader of the past was a person who knew how to tell. The leader of the future will be a person who knows how to ask.”¹²

That future is most certainly here, and it’s different than even Drucker imagined: It’s not enough for just the leader to ask questions. If teams are going to do big things, then every team member must be equipped to ask the types of questions that mobilize hearts and minds forward.

If Dan Robinson, in his pursuit of building the hospital of the future, had been in the meeting with Chen and Ava, you would have seen a teammate be far more effective in mobilizing the team forward. The primary reason why: Dan cares enough about people that it affects his behavior. He doesn’t see teammates as people that need to be tolerated to get business done; they’re human beings with remarkable stories, hearts, lives, and talents. He also understands that it’s not his heart and mind that will mobilize the team forward; it’s the hearts and minds of his teammates that will get the job done. (That distinction is key.)

Therefore, in the meeting with Chen and Ava, Dan would have asked different questions. Specifically, he would have combined his wisdom of the Energy Map with Questions That Trigger Hearts and Minds to strategically guide focus. Doing so enables Dan to take the focus of his teammates to the area of the Energy Map that will best enable them to move forward.

Here’s what merging the Energy Map and Questions That Trigger Hearts and Minds looks like to mobilize hearts and minds forward:

Backward Focus Questions: Questions like those shown in Figure 9.2 bring forth an emotional energy that triggers people to drive their focus deeper into the back side of the Energy Map.

Important reminder: Sometimes teams strategically use backward focus questions when the team needs to process and let go of emotions that are holding them back. More often than not, however, we observe unaware teams sprinkle backward focus questions throughout their meetings; the result is a halting effect. Just when the team is ready to move forward, another backward focus question is asked, and energy again moves away from the future.

Figure 9.2 The Back Side of the Energy Map Lends Itself to Strategic and Important Questions for Processing Emotions and Thinking Related to Problems/Issues/Challenges

Figure 9.3 The Middle of the Energy Map Lends Itself to Strategic and Important Questions for Assessing Data and Aligning on Facts, and Framing a Shared Reality

Middle of the Energy Map Questions: These inquiries are neutral emotionally and stimulate the focus on data, info, and facts in the middle of the Energy Map. Figure 9.3 shows some examples.

Forward Focus Questions: These types of open-ended questions trigger a focus that leads team members to the front side of the Energy Map, as shown in Figure 9.4.

If you have ever spent time on or around a team like Dan’s, where people are more consistently inspired, it doesn’t take long to notice that they’re having different types of discussions compared to most teams. Importantly, they’re not waiting for an event to talk about the vision and motivation for the future; instead, they sprinkle their daily discussions with questions that activate their hearts and minds forward so the collective vision is consistently being crafted and reinforced.

They do this by using what we identified in our book, ONE Team: 10-Minute Discussions That Activate Inspired Teamwork, as a specific type of forward focus question that applies key words.¹³ The highlighted portion of the three forward focus questions leverages and elevates the actions of your team by putting heart wisdom into motion.

Figure 9.4 The Front Side of the Energy Map Lends Itself to Strategic and Important Questions for Discovering and Focusing on the Path Forward in a Manner that Brings People Together

Of the three directional questions, which are your team asking the most frequently? Your answer correlates to how frequently your team is shaping a shared and inspired future.

What Does Your Team Anticipate?

We can promise you this much: Dan’s team is utilizing forward focus questions. That’s because he knows that if a team is not focused together, it’s not due to a lack of focus; it’s because the members of the team are not focused together. They haven’t collectively developed the discipline of focusing on what will best support the team’s purpose. Such an inability is easy to observe, too. Perhaps you’ve seen it: Like members of a symphony all playing their instruments following different sheets of music, some teams attempt to have meetings with teammates scattered across the Energy Map.

If left adrift to focus anywhere they want without any strategic focus-guiding questions, things can quickly get scary for a team. According to Daniel Goleman, the periods of our day when our minds wander the most are when we’re at work, using a computer at home, or driving to and from work. To add more emphasis to this step in the Do Big Things Framework, in this I’ll-let-my-brain-determine-where-I’ll-focus state, the average mind generally skews to the back side of the Energy Map. Even when provided with seemingly neutral content, Goleman said, the undisciplined mind shades that content with negative emotional tones.¹⁴

Dan Robinson and his team members did not let the future success of their new hospital be determined by minds that were adrift. For example, consider this all-too-common scenario that plays out in hospitals around the world: A highly educated and trained physician named Dr. Smith is entrusted with the lives of her patients. Routines among the doctor, nursing staff, and administrators are established. An event occurs, perhaps a nurse hands the doctor the wrong instruments during surgery, or over time the equipment becomes outdated. The doctor gets upset and demands to speak to the CEO of the hospital.

Dan has encountered similar discussions many times and succeeds in mobilizing the team forward by using all parts of the DBT Framework. “I stay focused on the best ways forward,” Dan told us. “I’ve learned that when people get frustrated, it’s because they have a very high bar of expectations—which is precisely what we want. My job is to facilitate and bring out their expertise and move us beyond egos to a future that’s team driven.”

While Dan would rather meet with the entire team, often calendars won’t allow that. Using the common scenario just described, here’s what Dan looks like in action in a one-on-one discussion with Dr. Smith.

Dan’s first question is this: “What’s upsetting you, Dr. Smith?” (This is a backward focus question, designed to safely allow Dr. Smith to tell her truth and process emotions.) Then he asks, “Tell me what you’re seeing?” (A middle of the Energy Map question that Dan likes to ask. He told us, “I want us all to be able to see the real problem we’re attempting to solve.”)

Then Dan goes with two forward focus questions: “What would make this better, Dr. Smith?” and “What’s your vision to better care for the patient?”

“Every time I ask these questions, in this order, they shift their focus to where they want us to go rather than staying stuck,” Dan reported.

The value of “where they want us to go” is enormously important for any team that wants to do big things. Experts in Appreciative Inquiry—a method of asking questions to leverage what’s working and other strengths—identify what they call the Anticipatory Principle.¹⁵ Because humans always project and have expectations of the future, deliberately shaping the image of that future is a tremendous mobilizing agent. Because our mind goes toward its focus (Mind Factor #3), an entire team will move in the direction of what they collectively believe about the future. A more positive and optimistic image of the future correlates to more positive actions today.¹⁶

When Dan asks forward focus questions, he further develops an image of the future. His team doesn’t paint abstractly like Kandinsky; they create an impression of what’s to come like Monet.

What is your team talking about? Whatever they’re talking about, this much is certain: Their words reveal where they’re going and what you can anticipate in the future.¹⁷ At any moment of your choosing, you can focus the team on what they need to talk about to do big things. All you have to do is ask them the question that will take them where the business needs them to go on the Energy Map.

As you think about the question you’ll ask, consider this: The hearts and minds of your teammates are waiting.

To Execute Masterfully, Use these Classes of Mobilizing Questions

Six minutes into the meeting, we knew exactly why the team we were observing was nearly immobilized and struggling to improve productivity. These scientists and engineers led an R&D organization that took three times longer than their competition to get a new product to market. The pressure to execute their plan was intense: Losing market share always gets every stakeholder’s attention.

We sat at a large table with 15 members of the team. Three other teammates were on the phone when a fourth caller “beeped” in.

“Who just joined the call?” Terrell, the team leader, asked.

“Oh hello, Terrell. This is Alex,” the voice on the phone said. “Sorry I’m late. I got double-booked for this meeting. I’ve got my other meeting on a separate phone line, but I’ve got them on mute. Your meeting will be the only one I participate in.”

We thought it was a joke, so smiles crossed our faces. In fact, however, the fourth caller wasn’t attempting humor. Everyone else’s face in the room stayed straight as they stared blankly at Terrell.

As the one-hour meeting carried on, we tracked the ratio of information exchange: Three people in the room, including Terrell, spoke a combined 75 percent of the time; one person on the phone spoke 15 percent of the time; and three others in the room combined for 10 percent of the verbal engagement. The remaining 12 people sat on the shore, reluctant to get in the boat.

In defense of this team, they didn’t know they were close to flatlining. As one member of the team told us later, “This is how we’ve always run meetings here.” Like a person who enters the hospital with a bit of fatigue, only to discover that three of the four valves of their heart are clogged, this team wasn’t aware that the energy of their team could be significantly stronger than they were experiencing day-to-day.

Sandy Pentland, who directs the MIT Connection Science and Human Dynamics labs, made it clear what sort of information flow and patterns are necessary for teams that want to do big things. In his Harvard Business Review article, “The New Science of Building Great Teams,” he cited these variables as paramount.¹⁸ We’re aligning these criteria with the 3 DBT Decisions your team is now more equipped to make.

• The team communicates frequently. (Contributor and Activator Decisions)

• Members of the team talk and listen in equal measure. (Contributor and Activator Decisions)

• The team engages in frequent informal communication. (Contributor and Activator Decisions)

• Members explore for ideas and information outside the group. (Connector Decision)

Few of these criteria were being accomplished by the team members we’d just observed. When we met with them later in the day, we told them, “You run expensive meetings!” The salaries invested in the 12 people who made little or no meaningful contributions to the team’s efforts were significant. Plus, there was little wonder why so few people were not participating in delivering the future of the business: They couldn’t see it.

The team for which Terrell is responsible is humble and hungry. Each team member has incredible passion and commitment to the team’s purpose. All they needed was a mechanism to bring that energy forward as they executed their plan.

Researchers make it clear: The human brain only works with activated thoughts. Information that isn’t retrieved from the recesses of our mind (and heart) might as well not exist.¹⁹ The members of a team may be people with good intentions, but unless something occurs to bring forth and put those good intentions into action, potential productivity is never realized.

That something is this: the forward focus questions teams use during their meetings to mobilize hearts and minds. To be certain, Terrell’s team was asking and discussing what we call the boilerplate or standard execution questions. See if you recognize this sample list:

• What’s our plan?

• What needs to be done in this meeting to enable us to meet our objective?

• Who’s heading this project, and what role clarity do the rest of us need?

• What resource commitments are we making?

• How will we communicate updates?

• Where and when will we reconvene to assess progress?

You likely recognize this list and have a few favorites of your own that you’d add. That’s because these questions are standard; if you want to be a team that does anything, your team has to be well-versed in boilerplate execution questions. Yet, from our observations, there are three insights that are critical if you’re going to do big things:

1. A minority of teams use questions, like those above, as the primary method to improve the team’s ability to execute. Most teams rely on the old-fashioned telling method: the person in charge mandates what needs to be done. These teams are far more likely to struggle in their ability to execute.

2. Those teams that do ask the boilerplate execution questions improve their execution; yet, they still struggle to differentiate themselves as a team that’s capable of doing big things. Clear and obvious potential remains unactivated.

3. As we’ve studied teams that do big things, this is clear: They go beyond boilerplate execution questions and mobilize hearts and minds with questions that are in classes of their own: purpose, vision, motivation, accountability and objective. What’s striking in organizations that underperform is that discussions that address these classes of thinking are relegated to upper management. Conversely, teams that do big things, regardless of where they are in the hierarchy, effectively integrate this higher-level thinking into their daily work. This is how you accelerate enterprise thinking, developing the team to think of their work in the context of the organizational whole. The improved results are undeniable. Let’s explore.

Imagine that the big plan your team must execute is the running of a river, just like the Colorado that Powell’s team took through the Grand Canyon. To succeed, it’s going to take hearts to be all-in and sharp minds that are focused and able to adapt to changing conditions. In other words, you’re going to need different and elevated types of thinking or consciousness. All too often teams get stuck in basic thought patterns typified by the boilerplate execution questions: “How will we do it?” Or, “What do we do now?” While these are essential questions to answer, that level of sustained thinking, however, doesn’t create a Monet-like impression of the future. It doesn’t get hearts pumping, nor activates the energy needed to do big things. Much more is needed to succeed.

Research supports the fact that for your team to do significant things it’s going to require the focus and thinking triggered by the strength of five classes of mobilizing questions. Those who raft down actual wild rivers know that the rapids they encounter are categorized by classes. The higher the number or class, the greater the danger and risk to the boater. Class I rapids signify a ripple. Nearly any boater can safely and comfortably move through such rapids. Ultimately, Class V rapids have the most extreme torrents of crashing water, requiring master-level skills to navigate. When you enter a Class V rapid, every person in the boat better have a clear understanding of their purpose and a vision for how they’ll succeed or risk being thrown from the boat.

The classes of questions that mobilize hearts and minds work the same way. The more severe the circumstances a team faces, the higher the class of questions will be necessary to persevere. Another way of looking at it: The higher the class of question, the greater the level of consciousness activated within team members—resulting in an increased effectiveness to execute even through the most challenging situations.

Figure 9.5 Classes of Questions That Trigger Hearts and Minds

When a team encounters an intense challenge (such as the loss of a customer, product recalls, or a vendor who can’t provide materials on time), only those teams that are deeply motivated and clear on their vision and purpose will thrive. Those teams that aren’t, flatline.

The focus points of the five classes of questions are outlined in Figure 9.5. These are all execution questions that go beyond the boilerplate questions. They are proven to demystify what’s necessary to improve a team’s performance, because they’re categorized in a way your mind wants and needs to make sense of the world.

Class V Questions: Identify, clarify, or support purpose. Importance: To execute and deliver big things, the team must comprehend and internalize its reason for being.

Examples:

• What specifically is our purpose as a team in the broader context of our organization?

• How does the purpose of our team align with your purpose as a person?

Class IV Questions: Establish, illuminate, or simplify vision. Importance: While the directive of what the team must accomplish is likely mandated, what it looks like to arrive at that objective must be clear to all team members in order to execute effectively.

Examples:

• What exactly does success look like for us when we reach the next milestone?

• What do you see our customer doing differently or better because of our efforts?

Class III Questions: Determine, reinforce, and amplify motivation. Importance: Only when team members are intrinsically motivated by their personal why do they put their heart into the work they must do for the team to successfully execute.

Examples:

• Beyond external rewards, why are each of us so committed to succeeding in this effort?

• Why is it important to you that we consistently put our values into action?

Class II Questions: Enable and ensure accountability. Importance: Because being accountable is a personal choice, team members often exceed expectations in delivering on targets when they are involved in defining what success looks like and the consequences of failing to execute.

Examples:

• How will we measure success in a way that exceeds expectations others have of us?

• In moments when we think we may miss a target, how will we use the Energy Map to model high integrity and accountability?

Class I Questions: Articulate and align to the objective. Importance: Efficiencies, quality, and other aspects of strong performance better occur when all team members have a common understanding and fully comprehend what must be achieved.

Examples:

• What is our ultimate business imperative from your perspective?

• As a team, what is our shared and common objective?

Terrell’s team readily admitted that they were not asking anything beyond basic “how do we do this” boilerplate execution questions. In fact, from our observations, many teams know how to execute a task, while still not knowing how to succeed. This precedent means certain doom for any team attempting to execute the raging river-of-a-plan in front of them.

Terrell’s team didn’t flatline. Far from it. His team accepted our challenge of applying Questions that Trigger Hearts and Minds, representing each of the classes. With practice, they realized some important lessons:

• The needs of the team determine the class of question they should use. As an example, it’s best to ask Class V questions regarding purpose only when the team needs that focus. To ask too many Class III, IV, and V questions when the team only needs I, II, or III can feel manipulative and have a counter, de-energizing effect. (For example, if someone is repeatedly asked “What’s our purpose?” or similar Class V questions while the team is experiencing smooth sailing, that person is likely to tune-out questions asked in the future.) The timing of which questions should be asked is important.

• To be certain, questions with a hidden agenda or desire to manipulate someone to behave a certain way are not mobilizing questions because they ruin trust. True forward focus questions work because they allow team members to cocreate the path forward together (Monet versus Kandinsky). Any of us can better see what we discover and create on our own—and doing so together builds trust.

• When a team member generates his or her own idea, it comes wrapped in the emotions of ownership. The heart and mind are more likely activated. And that’s the energy needed to get through difficult rapids.

• Sincerity in hearing answers to questions asked is paramount. In fact, if you aren’t interested in hearing an answer to a question, or the person already knows the answer, the question shouldn’t be asked.

• Forward focus questions are not about masking what’s not working or being positive. When perfectly timed after discussions on the back side or middle of the Energy Map, they’re perfect for mobilizing the team toward positive outcomes.

The tools of the DBT Framework work because they’re based upon how the brain is naturally wired. It wasn’t a surprise to us when we shadowed Terrell’s team in a meeting just a few months later and found remarkably different circumstances.

In contrast to the previous experience, this time seven people were in the meeting, five in person, with two remotely connecting. Terrell started with a Class III motivation question, “We’re slammed. Given we’ve got more projects in our portfolio than we’ve ever had as a team, I want to ask you: What is it that drives each of you to make certain we succeed yet again?” Instantly, a short discussion ensued that activated motivations and gave them the confidence to adapt to the challenges they were about to discuss.

Of the seven people in the meeting, five combined to speak 65 percent of the time. Terrell spoke 20 percent, while one person spoke 15 percent. They expertly spent only a few minutes on the back side of the Energy Map; they were feeling a bit overwhelmed and stressed and needed to say so. Then, nearly half of their meeting was focused in the middle of the Energy Map, assessing the current state of all projects.

The remainder of the time was spent on the front side of the Energy Map, predominantly using Class I- through IV-type questions.

Teams that masterfully execute are those whose members find more meaning in their work. Their hearts and minds have been mobilized. This is accomplished by asking higher classes of questions that activate a greater consciousness.

The impact to the business Terrell’s team has had by elevating the team’s consciousness through asking forward focus questions has been significant. Once three times slower than their competitors in developing new products, in just one year they leapfrogged the industry and are now twice as fast. They’ve delivered seven new products in twelve months, while only delivering one in the previous year.

Equally important, they didn’t have a heart attack while they did these things. The business unit’s employee turnover dropped from 12 percent to just over 4 percent. Their culture and engagement scores registered the best across the division. As Terrell said, “We always had talented people here. We had the leadership. Once the culture piece was put in play the results came.”

Achieve Something Bigger

Here’s a fact that may or may not startle you: During the day, the discussions you have with a teammate influence the type of discussions they will have with their family when they go home in the evening. When you make the Activator Decision and ask Questions That Mobilize Hearts and Minds, you increase the odds your teammate will bring their best to their family, too.

Then, later in the day when a child pulls his or her chair up to the dinner table, and their eyes search Mom and Dad for clues about their mood, something important will happen. Because of the experience your coworker had with you, a ripple will have been created. And an inspired, more joyful discussion will occur. As a result, the child will receive a crucial gift: They will know that life is good.

Are you startled? What does it mean to you knowing that you influence the quality of others’ lives in this way?

The members of Do Big Things teams don’t just care about the results their teammates are producing. Because they intend to make an epic impact, they also care about the quality of lives their teammates are leading. That doesn’t mean they take it easy on their teammates or lower their expectations of their effort and work to protect their feelings. Indeed, from our experience, we know the opposite is true. DBT team members set and expect a higher standard of living for each other, knowing that the work each person does is a key expression of that life. They insist that team members bring their best and bring out the best in others everywhere they go.

You can wait years—a career—to finally be on a team where people function this way. Or, you can get there faster by intentionally creating these relational dynamics.

There’s no doubt that it sometimes requires emotional courage to ask powerful forward focus questions, especially those in Class III, IV, and V. Sadly, doing so is not common in the workplace, but for reasons we believe many people misinterpret. Such questions are not asked because people don’t believe in mobilizing hearts and minds—they simply don’t know how.

The truth of the matter is that this work of doing big things is eclipsed by something bigger: the opportunity to discover who each of us is as a person. The business imperative in front of us is a gift in disguise. It’s in the pursuit of achievement that we get to discover and experience what each of us craves—the richness of a human experience only possible when collective hearts and minds are mobilized. It’s this actualization, this fulfillment that’s at stake. It’s why your team needs you to step forward.

Go ahead. Ask the bigger question. Then another. As you stay the course, the reward is bigger than can be imagined.