Nov 15, 2023
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You're listening to the Oracle Maven podcast, where we bring people
together from the veteran affiliated community to highlight
employees, partners, organized actions, and those who are
continuing the mission to serve. Welcome to the Maven podcast. I'm
your host, Chris Spencer, and in this episode I'm joined by our
co-host David Cross, senior vice president and SAS Chief
Information Security Officer within Oracle.
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How do we know what questions to ask? What happens when you feel
like asking but don't? There's a lot going on in today's world
where we either have too much information or the feeling of not
enough time. Sometimes both. Where do we begin to understand how we
fit into a situation and take away more than what we start
with?
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Asking the right question includes a lot of understanding about
yourself. Your needs, the needs of others, and many more
considerations. And it's best to bet on yourself to know how to ask
the right question at the right time. This episode touches on
several places to start, so take a listen and continue your
discovery journey. We have all we need to become the person we want
to be.
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So let's remember how to connect with others with sincerity and
genuine intent. As we continue the mission to serve. Thanks for
listening. We hope you enjoy this episode and please remember to
check in on your buddies and family. David's contact details are in
the podcast description and you can always find me on LinkedIn Good
morning, David. How's it going?
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Great, Chris. You know, I'm always looking forward kicking off
Monday morning when we record these. You know, after the weekends,
this is a top priority. That's why it's, you know, exciting to be
part of this podcast community.
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Yeah, no, you're right. It is You know, some some would say that
Mondays is probably the most active depending on how you set up
your time. But, you know, for everybody out there, we usually kick
this off when David and I are speaking early in the week, early in
the morning, fresh mindset, clear thinking, and hopefully it just
paves the way for the solid 40 something minutes to talk about some
things that are either introducing what we had talked about before,
but not in too much depth or, you know, we've now just had
something transition from something we had mentioned before and you
know, we think it's a good idea to dove into some of that
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So in the past, we've talked about visibility, you know, making
yourself visible to others based off of your performance in your
activities. Or others can see it good, bad or indifferent. It all
culminates into building and establishing credibility in the things
that you're responsible for. But extend your opportunity to
network. Of course, now that more people can see what value you
provide, you're able to you know, provide the details in a way that
they can make it relevant to the needs for whatever they're trying
to achieve.
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And then we talked about communication, and there's levels to that
right? There's the verbal, non-verbal, but being effective and how
you communicate these things as as you know, when we're writing
certain things down, you know, a misplaced word and context of a
structured, you know, you can have a definite different meaning
than what was intended. And so we want to make sure that we're able
to articulate things in a way that's making it relevant to the
perception or the potential perception that one might take on where
you stand within their circle.
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And so today, we'll talk about asking the right questions.
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That's right, Chris. And certainly we're going to ask lots of
questions here and kind of push the envelope, you know, and some
people may asking, why in the world do we try to target, you know,
45 minutes or so for this podcast, right. Well, the answer is
everybody, let's be open, honest, is that because we're all
runners, right? And we want to listen to a podcast that takes about
45 minutes because that's how fast we all run our ten ks, isn't
it?
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Yes.
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Yes, yes. I will say until you actually challenge me to where I
have to demonstrate whether or not going to do it that way.
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Yeah, we're going to roll, Chris, and so we're going to push this
year. Let's see if we can do a 25 minute ten K sound good.
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Let's do it. I might be limping along there for the last part of
it, but that's all right. Don't quit. Yeah. So asking the right
questions, I think you would. Situational awareness. You're kind
of, you're, you're not kind of you're sitting around in, in a
moment and observing and then you're trying to find probably the
spots that you can pick to either add value or, you know, obtain
more information through some method.
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Right. And so asking questions, of course, is is one of the ways to
do that. Of course, if you sit and listen more, you probably, you
know, learn more than you anticipated. But, you know, finding the
right time to ask a question, I think David is probably where we
should start. Right?
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I absolutely you know, and I think it's like everything that I
think is we should always be thinking about like, you know, the
book Atomic Habits, right? You actually want to build a habit of
always asking questions, you know, is like every day, every hour,
maybe not every day, every week. You know, with things like with
your managers, your peers, your organization.
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Right. You should be thinking about. All right. Have I ask any
questions today? And it's not about, you know, to play a game. It's
more of that. Hey, am I delivering the right results today? Right.
Am I meeting expectations today? Is my focus on the right
priorities today? Right. It sounds simple in a sound sometimes not
necessary, but it's it's a great mindset.
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And so I got to build that habit with everybody.
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You know, and this wasn't planned. But you'd mentioned the book and
what's funny is this last weekend, I had I had gone away for a
couple of days off grid disconnected. No, no cell reception. So it
was forced. But also a convenient way to not be tempted because you
just even if you wanted to connect, you couldn't. There was a book
who's in a cabin there was that book.
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It was one of the three books in the house, in the cabin. That was
one that was sitting on there. And I didn't pick it up, but my eyes
gravitated towards it. And you just mentioned it. So let's let's
kick this around a little bit, you know, because you mentioned
about asking asking questions at certain times and, you know, the
philosophical approach.
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And am I doing enough for my doing the right things and things like
that? Well, maybe we kick this thing off and say, well, how do you
get to that part? Right. And I believe that if you're immersed into
a situation where there's intensity, pressure, stress, maybe you're
not thinking as clearly as you as you could or should unless you've
conditioned yourself to where you introduced it.
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And we've talked about it before. You've conditioned yourself to
have the right mindset. Right, and you become resilient in that way
to know that in in in sometimes high pressure situations, I'm able
to think about what's necessary for for me to be valuable in that
moment.
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That weekend, this last weekend was an opportunity for me to be
able to clear, clear the room, if you will, of congestion. Right.
Or you know, just high volume or high amount of activity that had
me, you know, probably not prioritizing things the right way or
following a path that I could make sense of the right questions to
be asking at this point, given the situation I'm in.
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What are your thoughts on how do you get to the part of
understanding whether or not you need to do something different
related to questions?
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Well, let's go back again to the atomic habits like I could I'll
say something that, okay, if you have a family, right, I see a
significant other. You know, sometimes you'd ask the question to
your significant other, like, am I doing the right things for our
our marriage right now? Yes. Your kids and my I am I being a good
dad or mom, you know, to the two to you right now, you guys asked
your mentors or friends.
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It's like, you know, how am I doing right now? What's your
perception in sounds like, why in the world would you ask these
questions? But if you take a step back right now, you know, I love
to hear what your feedback process is like. Would you not want to
know exactly what they're thinking when you ask your kids?
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Like my being a good dad, your your significant other is like my
being a good partner right now or your friends, like, what's your
perception of me, you know, and in some ways they may be a really
excited or even surprised that you're asking, but when you want to
know exactly what they're thinking when you ask that question.
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Yeah. And I have jokes in my head, if I'm asking my kids, Am I
being a good dad to you? And then be like, No, because you've got
to give me money, you know? So yeah, everybody wins on that one. I
guess I got my feedback and they maybe get some cash it, you know,
you said it the feedback, right?
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So another, another scenario which my thoughts will include is, you
know, recently if somebody is coming to you that doesn't normally
come to you and they're and they're, you know, it could be a
manager, somebody, some position of influence authority that
matters less. But you're not used to the answering questions in a
way that they aren't. So they ask.
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So like different levels of questioning right. So, you know, you
being a senior vice president, probably high level, you have an
enormous amount of knowledge in the details of something wherever
in the topic that you have because you've conditioned your mindset
to understand that stuff. You know, it it's your it's your thing.
Whereas maybe I don't because I'm not I'm not at that level.
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I'm not exposed to it on a regular basis to think that way. So I'm
a little bit more in the weeds and whatnot. So if you ask me a
question that I'm not used to hearing, I may not answer it
accurately, especially if it's over Slack or text or something like
that written. Then I, I may answer it.
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And then you walk away thinking a certain kind of way about my
answer where it wasn't wasn't complete. I have learned in that
sense to where there's some people out there that hear things and
they answer a question, but they don't understand the context or
the spirit or the essence of the question to be able to follow up
and be mindful of the things that I'm taking the long way around to
answer your your or respond to your your statement is the selfless
thought that goes into wanting to know, did I answer your
question?
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Am I serving you in the way that you expect? Am I delivering the
things that are of value to you? And I think if we learned to
become habitual in responding to people when they ask a question
you say something along the lines of and you can make it your own.
Does that into your question? Was that helpful?
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You know, that way you can kind of calibrate whether or not you did
answer it.
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I think it's a very important point, Chris, just like is that when
you're asking questions, you get an answer, or if you're giving an
answer to some ask you questions it's the follow up questions.
There's sometimes even more important. Right. I think you just
said, is that did that answer what you were looking for is did I
provide you in that the right direction?
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Getting that clarity right? That's a big part of communication.
Likewise, I think when sometimes you let's say you ask your manager
or a peer saying, hey, am I doing the right things for the team?
No, no, you're wasting everyone's time or you're focused on the
wrong things. Now, sometimes people immediately will be defensive,
right? And say, oh, hang on, the most important point is saying,
oh, I'd like to understand that more.
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Speaker 2
Right. You then asked them an additional question to get the more
context so you can reflect and internalizing on it. And that's the
most important thing because it's there especially you now open up
the door that's a positive door, a getting a a wealth of
information and feedback loops in and it's a safe place to do so.
You know, I know I said a million times, especially on this topic,
is that whenever you get feedback you always have one answer.
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Thank you for the feedback. You never be defensive on it. If you
ever respond, it's more of like can it's about asking more
questions to get more feedback in a safe way because then that you
never, ever, ever want to close that door because that means you're
shutting the door on your career.
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Yeah, there's missed opportunities. I mean that there's the can we
open it up? So the missed opportunity, I mean, the engagement
through dialog I think is kind of a, for me, a simplistic way to
approach it, right? If if relationships are key to the things that
we are trying to achieve right? Because we never do it alone. We
may think that that's not accurate.
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If relationships are key to the things that we're trying to
achieve, the kind of the base premise right? The the fundamentals
of the foundation of that comes through the dialog where we learn
more about the types of individuals that we're engaging with. And I
think you just nailed it is one, the candor which you've talked
about before is all is all most of us need is because if
everything's good in our head, then we don't really grow because
we're not being challenged.
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You know, it's all perceptions virtual virtually, depending upon
how you perceive things in the timing of things. But if the dialog
isn't occurring where it's it's inconsistent of just facts, right?
It's just we're just talking and I'm sharing with you based off of
our, our relationship and the value that we provide each other in
the roles that we're in.
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I'm giving you information so we can together continue this to grow
this relationship and then be able to, you know, how do you say
drive towards common goals?
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Yes. You know, common goals, shared goals, shared outcomes,
Absolutely.
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Yeah. So it's the you know, like you said, is, you know, taking the
information in for what it is, you know, avoiding the temptation to
be take it personally. I was going to say not be emotional about
it. Maybe you should be emotional about it. Maybe maybe you should
be upset that somebody is coming to you and sharing with you.
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Now, delivery is also the thing. I want to I want to be clear here,
right? So you have to be we learned this in the military, but, you
know, anywhere you learn this tact is important, right? How you
deliver it. It's not necessarily sometimes what you say, it's how
you say it that carries the impact, too. So but even then, we can
dissect that and say, well, that's all relative perception.
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Based off of the person you're speaking with, how they feel at the
moment, maybe the lens they have, maybe they are in a you know, not
in a great mood. And then, you know, some you could say the same
thing twice and it be interpreted differently each time. But
depending on the mood of the individual, you're saying it, too.
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But I think I think you're right. It's it's a matter of
understanding the timing of everything that we share with each
other and the information we share has got to be relevant. And you
had to be able to tie it to something that's important to what
you're trying to do together.
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I think you brought up a really important point, Chris. It's they
it's not just about tact. Right. And I think as we learn, it's
about IQ right here, the emotional quotient. And I'm going to put
that one down me. That's why we have a future podcast, right?
Because you may be as factually correct and accurate as possible,
but if you don't have your IQ in line, right by the the the
communication flow, the result can be very, very negative.
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So I'm going to see that on our list here for that for the
future.
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I wrote it down.
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You know, with that said, you know, I think that there's also a
little bit of the time and place of when to ask questions, right?
So just like, you know, the IQ being in a safe place is that you
really want to understand the and think about the context, the
situation that you're in, right? Is that asking questions at the
wrong time, right?
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Can be create the wrong perceptions and things like that. And you
always make sure there's a a safe place. Right. It also likewise is
that knowing you know, you may get, you know, not the you may get
feedback that may be painful. Right. So for example, one of my
favorite things I told many mentors is that once a month, you
should ask your manager, you know, what's the one thing that you're
doing wrong, right?
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What's the most painful, you know, failure, right? And you want to
do it safe. That your manager gets to emotion that into a position
that they're very comfortable sharing with you because you want to
know the things that are the back of their mind that they're
holding back. They know it's going to be painful they don't want to
share it because we're human.
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So certainly don't do this on a Friday, you know, because in a
Friday, it's like, yeah, the weekend's going to be kind of
miserable for you. Right? You know, the idea is like maybe doing a
Monday or Tuesday. So that night you're going to go home, not feel
so good, but you're going to get through it. Right. Versus dwelling
on it.
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Over the weekend. But once you get used to it, you also want to do
it. You want to continue doing it, but you're going can be ready
for it. So it's about planning when you perform things.
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Yeah, it's a good point. The you know, this is classic. So time
time is is a factor in everything that we're doing, right? I mean,
that's I think everybody understands that if you have time for it,
you try to bring it up. But here's a common thing that I've
noticed. You know, maybe you've you're in a you're in a
conversation with somebody like, oh, I have to go like, wait one
more question.
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And it's it's the big question that probably should have been asked
earlier. But you drop it when somebody has already said that
they're in a rush, in a hurry, needing to now, you know, leave the
leave the conversation and then you give them this this deep
question that significant in everything that's happening. And like
you on the Friday, what you're saying on a Friday is, you know,
sometimes you don't want to do that for whatever reason.
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I think it's a matter of that IQ that you're talking about. The the
situational awareness and we've experienced this where if under
pressure the timing of it is to say, hey, we got we have to go. We
have to execute well. If that's the case, then recognize read the
room to recognize, you know, is this a question that I need to know
the answer based on the severity of the time of where we're in at
the moment, or is this something that we just table and we can
learn after?
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Or I can ask somebody else. And I think that's what it all it's an
infinite loop that comes back to the individual and understanding
if you're not contributing at the right level where you bring in
value that's par with the team that you're in or the group that
you're in, then it's probably better safe than sorry to hold the
question and take it offline instead of consuming time with
everybody else around.
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That is probably already on the table. Now we can go back and pass
it back to you, but you go back and say, Well, maybe everybody's
thinking the same thing and nobody's asking it. And then now that
important question doesn't get asked. That's a tough one.
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Actually. I think you raise some great points here about is the
timing of like in the audience when it's a one on one audience. For
a larger audience, there's the times of things that you'd say that
now I need to ask a question because there's an elephant in the
room and no one's raising it, and that's the right thing to do.
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There's other times that they're everyone's maybe afraid to ask the
question and you need to step up and lead through that. There's
also other times that you need be careful that you may have an
issue with one person. You may have an issue with, you know, one
thing, that thing of sometimes asking the wrong question at the
wrong time can derail everything and be very damaging in saying
that you may want to choose to take it offline or go to
individual.
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And so to be very careful and thinking through that. Right, is that
whose impact would be the question, is it everyone in a positive or
negative way or is it just one person? And being very strategic and
thoughtful on that is equally important yeah.
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Yeah. And actually just kind of rolling my eyes, looking for a way
to explain it. If you're really dialed in to the room where there's
multiple people or maybe it's just one, you know, that you you
probably see the right person to ask the question. So maybe it's
not necessarily to everybody, but then you've already identified
that this person is demonstrated to be skilled in this area.
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Let me not consume time from everybody else to ask the question
that's probably most relevant to only that one person that I'm able
to now be aware of, because historically we've learned that these,
you know, these positions that we're in and roles that we're in,
you know, we know who to go to. And we can we can target the
question specifically being more efficient.
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But that's the work that we're talking about, is to be able to
share the information, to know who's bringing the value in
particular areas. This is what we're talking about. You're
developing a group of people around you to know who to go to for
very specific things to optimize time.
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Yeah, absolutely. Now, let's take it to the next level is thinking
about best practices. And sometimes that that there's a topic,
whether it's a meeting with others or topic with, you know, with a
manager or a peer. And you need to ask a hard question or
exploratory. Well, sometimes you want to be do it in advance and
saying, hey, for the meeting later in the week, here's the
questions I'm going to ask.
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Right. Or here's the questions here's the things that I'm looking
for feedback on, or here's the things that I'm concerned about, or
here's things I need clarity on in how you can do the, you know,
the prep work. I love I'm a big fan of pre read, right? When you're
helping everybody understand is what's going to come up, they can
be ready for it.
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They can be they can think through it. They can, you know, be
thoughtful about it versus being a surprise right now. We all admit
that sometimes that is the right tactic to surprise someone when
things are going wrong. But think about it. You know, what is going
to be a tactical hit? You know what's going to be a strategic, you
know, motion and the timing is is critical planning.
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That's another one that we talk about planning, right? So you're if
you know, you're going to a conference, it's a mindset you've
talked about it. But drilling down into that, if you know you're
going somewhere, you know you're going on a trip, you can travel
you want on a plane, taking a road trip, going to a conference, you
plan you prepare.
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That level of preparation is to get you to be more present wherever
you're going as much as possible. To know that where you are is
what's relevant to what should be on your mind. But you've prepared
for it no different in planning a conversation. And I think that's
probably what some people I don't know how many I don't know.
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Some people don't consider that and they wait until the meeting to
introduce something. So they create an agenda or they say, hey, I
want to talk to you next week, let me know what's good and then
leave it at that with the common question that comes back. But some
people just probably have become accustomed to receiving it that
way.
00;22;25;01 - 00;22;46;13
There isn't a follow up. Say Hey, great. Yeah, I can try to find
time. What is it that we want to talk about? You can fire that
question off and help somebody grow around you to be better
prepared by planting the information early on what the general
topics would include. So we have more meaningful depth and
substance in the conversation when we get to that part yeah.
00;22;46;14 - 00;23;01;03
Chris, I can't resist commenting on this one. It's like one of my
personal pet peeves is people that as you didn't become a manager,
an organization, you know, over time, if you're like, Oh, David, I
want to have a one on one with you. And I'm like, all right, what's
the agenda? What questions you want to ask, right?
00;23;01;13 - 00;23;18;14
Is like, I don't want to meet unless I know what's upcoming is
like, am I the right person? Is can I be prepped on the questions?
Are we going to be surprised on it? Right. And I think that is it's
a my personal pet peeve. But I also, I think in being a better
leader, being a better person is kind of like, all right, here's
the agenda.
00;23;18;14 - 00;23;29;27
Here's the questions I'm going to ask so that it can be the most
productive, you know, in optimized conversation versus being
surprised and then it's like great questions. I need to follow up
on that because I got to go look into it.
00;23;30;17 - 00;23;50;26
Right. Which delays. Yeah. And, you know, the selfish thing and
I'll say that with love in my heart, the selfish thing is to think
that if it happens to you, you won't feel the same way, right? If
somebody comes in and drops something last minute on you, you know,
it's happened to us before. It was like, why didn't you tell me
earlier?
00;23;51;04 - 00;24;18;23
Or Why didn't you let me know? Or I don't know. I'd have to think
about that. I mean, we're digging deep on this one because some
people probably won't even be able to have our, say, courage or
confidence might be a better word. I don't know. To be able to say
because it's we're all based. Right. You know, David, senior vice
president, you know, chief information security, these titles that
might interfere with my ability where David comes to me, ask me a
question that I don't really have an answer for.
00;24;18;23 - 00;24;36;24
So instead of saying it's a good question, David, I'm going to need
a day to probably go back and try to find some of those answers.
Instead, I'll feel compelled to accommodate the question because of
the pressure I put on myself on who is in front of me. And it's my
own thing. And I'm like, hmm, And now I might be reaching for the
answers, right?
00;24;36;24 - 00;25;00;26
So I think I think these things that we're talking about here is,
you know, we're scraping the surface on scenarios that should
introduce to anybody that's caring to hear it all the opportunities
to where you can simply optimize time and be courteous to others by
asking questions up front but that takes preparation, which you
have to have clarity, which you have to know yourself on.
00;25;01;02 - 00;25;07;06
What will it take for me to have these elements to be optimal,
invaluable in other people's goals?
00;25;07;24 - 00;25;25;17
Absolutely. And Chris, it doesn't matter of what the levels are for
the people, you know, the hierarchy's things like that. You know,
tomorrow, Chris, if you get a you get a message saying, Chris, I
want to have a one on one with you tomorrow for some urgent issues.
How do you feel about that ambiguity? Right. Am I the right person
you know, can I be prepped for this?
00;25;25;17 - 00;25;34;26
Right. You know, and this person would join with me. Who cares,
right? You want to be ready for it. And it's really then you say no
one on one because I want to know what the questions are.
00;25;35;22 - 00;25;52;24
Yeah, it's not fair. And that goes back to the core asking the
right questions. So it's like, okay, great. Got it. Can you give me
the top three things just real quick? I know you have to go
consider it. Right? I'm acknowledging compassion and empathy. I'm
saying, well, the person's probably benefit doubt. Probably too
busy to give me the details.
00;25;52;24 - 00;26;17;28
And in their mind, is just doing me. They think they're doing me a
favor by saying, hey, it's it's important. But now my mind's
especially on Friday, my mind's world wending around the infinite
loop of the abyss of what it could be. And to them, again, it's
it's relative to perception. To them, it's urgent. To me, it's
like, oh, I wish you had told me that in the beginning, because
that simple I could slack or text you or simply respond immediately
because I know the answer.
00;26;18;25 - 00;26;35;00
Correct? Yeah. Or it's a Friday. A Friday afternoon. Chris, an
urgent to talk to you about. And like, I got to wait 8 hours to
find out about this. You know, I was going to take off a weekend,
right? Yeah. And I think that's sometimes when you play it back to
people like, oh, yeah, yeah, that's quite reasonable. I should have
offer that to you.
00;26;35;01 - 00;26;35;09
Right?
00;26;35;21 - 00;27;02;21
It's fair, right? To be fair, you know, and that's, that's being
inclusive, that's being respectful, that's being mindful, it's
being you know, the type of professional that, you know, most
people would love to have. Some people don't recognize that it's a
possibility because not everybody's doing it because well, a bunch
of reasons, but maybe just people aren't aware or they're not
cognizant of how they're they're giving the impression to
others.
00;27;02;21 - 00;27;27;07
Of what they're doing. Maybe maybe nobody slow them down to say,
here's what you said. Here's the one thing that you can improve on.
I've noticed this last week. Right. But if you don't ask that now,
you've put it on somebody else to to, you know, overflow their
tolerance levels, if you will, and then feel compelled to say it
through probably a higher level of emotion versus a baseline of
just simple conversation.
00;27;27;23 - 00;27;50;27
Absolutely. And I think that the thing is, you know, coming back to
the fundamentals here, is is we talked many times of things about,
you know, listening. Sometimes, you know, the best listeners, the
best leaders are the people that ask questions. Right. And it's not
a challenge. Right. It's to understand. And sometimes by asking
questions, people can really feel right that you care, that you're
understanding.
00;27;50;27 - 00;28;12;00
Right. You're you're that you are listening. Right? Because if you
ask questions versus, you know, like, now I'm just talking to you,
you're nodding your head like, are you really listening to me,
Chris? Right. But like but if you start asking me questions like,
oh, you were listening to me, oh, you do care, right? You do
understand. It's amazing how powerful just asking a few questions
can be in communication.
00;28;12;16 - 00;28;45;07
I'm not my head because immediately said something that had me
think of a friend of mine who introduced something that when when
he and I talk, he wasn't asking the right questions right. And he'd
gone through a pretty significant career and being successful at
it. He's humble enough. He probably won't admit that. But when he
when somebody in my mind that I hold in high regard says it not
asking the right questions, I'm like, how do you how did you
achieve everything that you did and not ask the right
questions?
00;28;45;19 - 00;29;08;21
But so I was immediately I was listening and listening to talk a
little bit because I wanted to share that. But you're right. The
you know, the communication, that's another element that you factor
in. And what's your what's your observing that should spark if
you're in the moment, you should spark that should spark you now to
realize something because you're recognizing that it's different
than what you had seen in the last couple of minutes.
00;29;08;21 - 00;29;28;23
And it's initiating another desire to learn. And that's the point.
I think we all get that you ask questions to learn. Some of the
problem is, you know, some of us have some pride and ego or we
don't feel like we can or should from the people that we're around
at the moment. And so we don't. Right. And that's probably your
most vulnerable moment.
00;29;29;12 - 00;29;48;17
Yeah. I'm coming back to the point is, you know, Chris, I think
that you think about times that we're doing a review or
presentation to one of our leaders, executives, others right. And
do you like it the most when they just they nod, they quiet for an
hour and they say, all right, thanks, everybody. See you soon.
Okay.
00;29;48;17 - 00;30;11;02
Do they get it? Do they really like it? You know, feedback versus
throughout the question, you know, throughout the presentation or
review, they're like they're asking some questions, some thoughtful
question, and they understand it. Oh, yeah. They they clearly we're
on the same page. Oh, oh, no. We're we're off track here. We ask
just sometimes just asking a few questions, even if it's that
they're totally aligned, they're totally on the same page.
00;30;11;02 - 00;30;26;16
They're totally going to approve everything. A few questions gives
us that validation, right? And that sometimes is very important to
us as leaders. So thinking about or just anyone, right? Is how are
you coming, you know, communicating back, ask a few questions.
You've conveyed a very clear message back.
00;30;27;09 - 00;30;50;13
Yeah. So let's let's tinker with the. Well, let me go back and I
just did what you just said. I teach back in a conversation. It's a
classroom setting sometimes that where you've seen it, right? Where
the you know, we we show, we tell, we show. And then they
demonstrate understanding something that we're familiar with.
Right. That's sort of times training and all that stuff.
00;30;50;13 - 00;31;13;06
When we go out there in the field and learn something or not,
depending on who you are, but the idea, though, is, you know,
you're acknowledging through, you know, repeating what was just
discussed like. No, it's a good point, David. You know, it's it's
when people don't demonstrate that they've confirmed or, you know,
through some method confirm that they've heard what you just said
before you move on.
00;31;13;06 - 00;31;32;24
I was just did that. And the intent is to be curious about it
enough to where you don't have to think about that. Right. And I
think that comes through putting the reps in and rehearsing on how
to just a good news you heard all the time he's you know the person
she's a great conversationalist. You know, she really listens.
00;31;33;06 - 00;31;57;25
And I really feel like there's substance in the conversations that
we're having because before you move on to a subject, you want to
make sure that it's complete. Right. And that comes through just
the thing that we just talked about. You know, somebody says
something and you respond. It's how you respond that kind of
motivates or incentivizes somebody wanted to continue because if
it's empty and like what you said in your example, you know, they
just said, okay, that's great.
00;31;57;25 - 00;32;17;18
And any other questions, everybody? Yeah, you don't feel heard,
which probably is another episode, you know, how do you feel heard
or how can you you know what? I don't know. Doesn't matter. But
yeah, I think I think it's a it's a point to where, you know,
reciprocating the the you got to close beginning, middle end the
story.
00;32;17;22 - 00;32;25;28
The beginning is what's the question? The middle is the
conversation. And the end is the summary of what we just talked
about in some brief form, depending on the level of
conversation.
00;32;26;26 - 00;32;44;29
Yeah. Spin on. I think that's a great summary, Chris. I think the I
think that, you know, the real question, I think at the end here,
no, pun intended to. Right. Is like how do we get everyone, you
know, to build the habit of asking lots of questions, right. You
know, and I'll say if you're having everybody, you know, pick up
the book, you know, comic habits, right?
00;32;44;29 - 00;32;52;03
An easy and proven way to build good habits and break bad ones. And
if you haven't read the book, Chris, have you read that book
yet?
00;32;52;21 - 00;33;04;05
No, I don't. I I have I have a lot of books. I read some of them,
but rarely do I read all of them all the way through. So but I have
it and I've dabbled yes.
00;33;04;22 - 00;33;13;12
Yeah. So, Chris, we we have to we have to build the habit of you
reading all the book recommendations we make on this this podcast.
Yeah. And that's not a question. It's a statement.
00;33;14;09 - 00;33;51;09
It's a fact. Right. So you're right. Yeah. I mean, it's I think the
funny thing is there if I were to kind of pull that as an analogy
or kind of metaphorically speaking, I'd probably analogy an example
is that's indicative of conversation, right? Where you pick your
spots level of interest and then that probably either excites you
about asking more questions because it's something that you're
connected to and your, your, you know, it's important and so you do
that or if it's not that compelling for you, that probably drives
your interest level too, where you don't answer the question or you
don't read the whole book.
00;33;51;09 - 00;34;14;02
You know, you're looking for something that you want and then you
leave, right? So whether it's conversation or relationship or book
or what have you and maybe that's the things that we can consider
to say it's it's never about you, really. It's always about others.
And so what you're wanting to do is a goal is maybe to carry that
mindset into, say, how can I serve you better?
00;34;15;14 - 00;34;15;29
Well, what?
00;34;17;11 - 00;34;22;24
All right. Good stuff, David. It's always a pleasure. Any closing
comments.
00;34;23;19 - 00;34;43;17
In closing comment is I say to everyone is that starting tomorrow,
start asking yourself questions. I start asking your managers
questions, start asking your peers questions. Right. And you know,
we're looking forward to the next podcast, too. And we're going to
ask everybody at the beginning, you know, what questions have you
asked yourself today before kicking off the episode?
00;34;44;16 - 00;34;49;12
I love it. Yeah. Questions. Ask them how anybody keep moving
forward,