The Wrong Questions

I’ve heard people say that if you aren’t getting the right answers, you must be asking the wrong questions. I’ve found that when I am struggling the most, I can’t seem to find any answers. So, it would make sense then that when I am making progress, I must have the right answers. I spend a lot of time thinking about being productive and what makes some people productive and other people not even really try. Most of the time I find myself in a world where things are nearly perfect. What would my life be like if I had the perfect job, and I was in perfect health? Right now, I am going through one of those times where everything I am reading and listening to all seems to be aligned. I was reading a book called “The Science of Scaling”, by Dr. Benjamin Hardy. It was a good book, and it had me thinking a lot about how I view things. One thing it mentioned that I had heard before but in a slightly different way was this, tens don’t want to work with eights. I had heard that before, but when I heard it, it was more like tens don’t want to work with fives. The point is that great workers don’t want to work with average or below average workers. The way it was said in the book made me think that now great workers don’t even want to work with good workers. When someone says someone is a five, I think they are average. When someone says that someone is an eight, I think that they are at eighty percent, and the ending goal is a hundred percent. I think that it’s a B on a grading scale. So, the book is telling me that “A” players don’t even want to work with “B” players. When I look at my environment, I think that could possibly be true. The other thing that the book had me thinking about was my floor. Everyone loves to talk about everyone’s ceiling. If a person hits their potential, that is their ceiling. If everything in my life was perfect, this is what I could accomplish. That is fun to think about, but this book focuses on a person’s floor. Why, because most people will be closer to their floor daily than at their ceiling. My peak is my ceiling; I shouldn’t have to spend forty hours a week at my peak. If I have to do that, something bigger is wrong. My fear in reading this is that if tens only want to work with tens, I have to either create all tens, or I have to lower my ceiling. If I have to lower my ceiling because I don’t have enough tens to keep them happy, so they leave, what are my other options? That actually sounds like the right question. Having all tens is impossible in most situations. The issue is that when I do have tens, most people decide that with a few tens on my staff, I can carry a few fours and fives. My ceiling is super high, but my floor is super low. I need to find a way to raise the floor in most situations, not raise the ceiling. What would happen if you got rid of the bottom ten percent? If that sounds harsh and something that you are unwilling to do, then you must find a way to raise the production of the bottom ten percent. If your ceiling is an eight, the floor can’t be lower than a six. I said earlier than everything I am reading and listening to is aligning right now. So, I just want to throw in this little bit by Gary Vee that I heard this week. If you are unhappy, you must do the following with the people and content you are consuming:

1.    Audit

2.    Limit

3.    Replace

I want to point out, he said, “if you are unhappy”. I think this is true in our personal life and our work life. If you are unhappy, you need to audit the situation. If I am unhappy with the production I am getting at work, I need to audit the process and see who isn’t performing. If someone isn’t performing, I need to limit the opportunities I am giving them. Finally, If I am unhappy, I need to be willing to replace. Give them chances to improve, if they don’t improve, you must replace.

Focus of the Week

Do an audit of the things not going well for you. If you aren’t coming up with any answers, ask someone to help you find the right questions. After the audit is over, find out what areas you need to show limitations. Maybe this is opportunities for a low performer, or maybe you need to limit your interactions with negative people. If people in your life keep lowering your floor, be willing to replace.