Quiet Leadership: Six Steps to Transforming Performance at Work

David Rock says in his book Quiet Leadership that leaders who want to improve their employee’s performance should improve their employees thinking instead of telling them what to do. Rock offers a six-step guide, the dialogues he offers as examples throughout the book make this approach very concrete. And they offer handles to start conversations like these yourself: •Step 1: think about thinking (Paul says to Sally: -I really don't know how to lift our sales right now-. Sally then does what most managers do, and says: -It's important to get our sales moving so we hit our targets. I think you need to get more focused and put more time into this, the deadline is coming up fast-. Here Sally is trying to help Paul to perform better by telling Paul what to do. In another approach where Paul would do more of the thinking, Sally could ask: -How can I best help you think this through?- and -When you say you're not sure about the project, which part of this do you want to discuss with me?- p. 37) Here it is also important to focus on solutions instead of problems. In relation to this Rock introduces an interesting distinction: -Why versus Learning-. He says that questions with the word 'why' in it usually do not lead to learning, the lead to reasons and justifications. Learning questions sound different. The why-question 'why did this happen?' has a learning-question equivalent: 'what do you want to achieve here?'. •Step 2: listen for potential. And that means that you concentrate on not listening for opportunities to sound intelligent, not listening to get information you want, and even not listening to see how you can help. •Step 3: speak with intent. That means: be succinct (express yourself compact and don’t waste words), be specific and be generous. In this chapter the author also shares his way of dealing with digital communications in his own company. They have several rules for sending emails: Use emails for exchanging information; if emails are longer than one screen, delete the email and email an agenda instead and use mail to schedule a phone call. Never send an email that could emotionally affect another person unless it’s pure positive feedback. •Step 4: dance toward insight •Step 5: CREATE New Thinking •Step 6: Follow up What I like about the book is its starting point that we can’t think for others and that therefore good managers don’t offer solutions but rather help their people think. The dialogues he uses to illustrate this approach make it a very useful book.