Three Questions Before One Answer. I want you to try something today or this week that sounds simple, but may be harder than you think. The next time someone comes to you with a problem, don't immediately give them the answer. I've been guilty of this myself. Someone starts explaining what is happening and before they're finished, I already have ideas running through my head about what they should do. Experience can do that to us. We want to help. We may have dealt with something similar before. We might even know exactly what we would do. But do we know what they would do? Before offering your solution, ask these three questions: 1. What do you believe is really causing the problem? 2. What have you already tried? 3. If this decision were completely yours, what would you do next? Then listen. Listening is the key here. Don't ask the questions just so you can get to your answer. Really listen to theirs. You may find out something you didn't know. You may help that person see the problem differently just by making them think it through. And you might discover they never needed you to solve the problem in the first place. They needed you to help them trust their ability to solve it. So that's your Leadership Skill for today. Three questions before one answer. Try it with one person today or this week. Then come back and tell me: Did you end up giving the answer you originally had in your head, or did the conversation take you somewhere completely different? I want to hear what happened.

What Do You Do When Your Plan Is No Longer Possible? You've probably heard the words: “Failure is not an option.” They are usually connected to Gene Kranz, one of NASA's flight directors during Apollo 13. Here's something I didn't know for a long time. Gene Kranz never actually said those words during Apollo 13. They were written for the 1995 movie Apollo 13, where Ed Harris played him. The real story gives us plenty to talk about without needing the movie line. Apollo 13 launched on April 11, 1970, with Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert and Fred Haise headed for the Moon. On April 13, an oxygen tank in the spacecraft's service module exploded. Just like that, the mission they had spent years preparing for was gone. They weren't landing on the Moon. Now they had to get home. This is where Gene Kranz and the people in Mission Control interest me. Think about how easy it would have been to stay attached to the original mission. All that preparation. All that money. All those people involved. Years of work. And now you have to accept that the goal everyone worked toward is no longer the goal. I've seen leaders struggle with this. Not with a spacecraft, obviously, but with a plan they have invested too much into to want to let it go. Sometimes we keep pushing because we believe perseverance is what leaders are supposed to do. Sometimes it is, but sometimes leadership is recognizing that the situation has changed and having the courage to change with it. Kranz and the teams at NASA still had incredibly difficult decisions ahead of them. They had to conserve power, solve problems they had never expected to face and work together to bring three astronauts back to Earth. They did. Apollo 13 returned safely on April 17. What stays with me is that they didn't accomplish the mission they originally set out to accomplish. But I don't think anyone would call Apollo 13 a leadership failure. So here's what I'm curious about. How do you know when staying committed to the plan is perseverance, and when it has become stubbornness?