Ask More: The Power of Questions to Open Doors, Uncover Solutions, and Spark Change pdfdrive com

CHAPTER 8
THE SOLVABLE PROBLEM
Mission Questions
H
OW CAN YOU USE
the power of questions to build a team, clarify your mission, and
define your goals? How do you ask people to join you in partnership to make a
difference in the world or in your work? You may be trying to raise money for a
cause or organize a neighborhood activity, looking into a mentoring program at the
office to work with at-risk students, or launching a social media campaign to mobilize
people to combat global warming. Perhaps you need to invigorate your team to
compete with the new business in town that has hired a bunch of young hotshots.
?
Mission questions ask more of everybody. They help you draw people into a
genuine conversation about shared goals and what everyone can bring to the
task. They help you convey your priorities. Mission questions require you to talk
less and listen more.
In this chapter you’ll see how you can connect people to purpose and forge a
common mission. You will learn how to ask questions that can take you from
conversation to collaboration. My friend does it to feed the world. One of the
most iconic brands did it and turned shared values into a recipe for success that
built a legion of loyal employees and customers. A leader in philanthropy draws
from pages of great questions to nurture relationships and raise millions of
dollars.
Get good at these mission questions and you will be able to do more than
build a team. You will inspire it as you help people discover their purpose, find a
role they can play, and collaborate to get things done. In asking people to sign on
and pitch in you’re asking them to:
Identify your mission. Determine interests and see where experiences intersect.
What do you care about? What would you like to change or fix or build?

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Share values. Find out if you’re rowing to the same place. What are your
bedrock principles? Where is your true north? How can we partner?
Play a role. Figure out what each party adds to the equation. What are others
prepared to do about the problem? What’s their expertise, their passion, their
capability?
Aim high. People are excited by big ideas. How bold can we be? How will we
change the world?
Whether you’re raising money for a university or trying to get your kids to