QBQ! The Question Behind the Question: Practicing Personal Accountability at Work and in Life - Hardcover

Miller, John G.

 
9780399152337: QBQ! The Question Behind the Question: Practicing Personal Accountability at Work and in Life
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0399152334 ISBN 13: 9780399152337
Verlag: TarcherPerigee, 2004

Inhaltsangabe

The lack of personal accountability is a problem that has resulted in an epidemic of blame, victim thinking, complaining, and procrastination. No organization—or individual—can successfully compete in the marketplace, achieve goals and objectives, provide outstanding service, engage in exceptional teamwork, or develop people without personal accountability.  

John G. Miller believes that the troubles that plague organizations cannot be solved by pointing fingers and blaming others. Rather, the real solutions are found when each of us recognizes the power of personal accountability. In QBQ! The Question Behind the Question®, Miller explains how negative, ill-focused questions like “Why do we have to go through all this change?” and “Who dropped the ball?” represent a lack of personal accountability. Conversely, when we ask better questions—QBQs—such as “What can I do to contribute?” or “How can I help solve the problem?” our lives and our organizations are transformed.


THE QBQ! PROMISE

This remarkable and timely book provides a practical method for putting personal accountability into daily actions, with astonishing results: problems are solved, internal barriers come down, service improves, teams thrive, and people adapt to change more quickly. QBQ! is an invaluable resource for anyone seeking to learn, grow, and change. Using this tool, each of us can add tremendous worth to our organizations and to our lives by eliminating blame, victim-thinking, and procrastination.

                                                                                                 
QBQ! was written more than a decade ago and has helped countless readers practice personal accountability at work and at home. This version features a new foreword, revisions and new material throughout, and a section of  FAQs that the author has received over the years.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

John G. Miller is the founder of QBQ, Inc., a development company that has worked with hundreds of Fortune 500 and other companies and government and nongovernment organizations internationally. Miller is also the bestselling author of Flipping the Switch: Five Keys to Success at Work and in Life and Outstanding! 47 Ways to Make Your Organization Exceptional. He lives in Denver. Learn more at http://qbq.com.

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A PICTURE OF PERSONAL ACCOUNTABILITY
 
It was a beautiful day when I stopped into a Rock Bottom Restaurant for a quick lunch. The place was jammed. I didn’t have much time, so I was happy to grab the one stool they had available at the bar. A few minutes after I sat down, a young man carrying a tray full of dirty dishes hurried by on his way to the kitchen. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed me, stopped, came back, and said, “Sir, have you been helped?”
 
“No, I haven’t,” I said. “And I’m in a bit of a hurry. But all I really want is a salad and maybe a couple of rolls.”
 
“I can get you that, sir. What would you like to drink?”
 
“I’ll have a Diet Coke, please.”
 
“Oh, I’m sorry, sir, we have Pepsi products. Would that be all right?”
 
“Ah, no thanks,” I said with a smile. “I’ll just have water with lemon, please.”
 
“Great, I’ll be back.” He disappeared.
 
Moments later he returned with the salad, the rolls, and the water. I thanked him, and he was quickly gone again, leaving me to enjoy my meal, a satisfied customer. Suddenly, there was a blur of activity off to my left, the “wind of enthusiasm” blew behind me, and then, over my right shoulder stretched the “long arm of service” delivering a twenty-​ounce bottle, frosty on the outside, cold on the inside, of—you guessed it—Diet Coke!
 
“Wow!” I said. “Thank you!”
 
“You’re welcome,” he said with a smile, and hurried off again.
 
My first thought was Hire this man! Talk about going the extra mile! He was clearly not your average employee. And the more I thought about the outstanding thing he’d just done, the more I wanted to talk to him. So as soon as I could get his attention, I waved him over.
 
“Excuse me, I thought you didn’t sell Coke,” I said.
 
“That’s right, sir, we don’t.”
 
“Well, where did this come from?”
 
“The grocery store around the corner.” I was taken aback.
 
“Who paid for it?” I asked.
 
“I did, sir; just a dollar.”
 
By then I was thinking profound and professional thoughts like Cool! But what I said was, “Come on, you’ve been awfully busy. How did you have time to go get it?” Smiling and seemingly growing taller before my eyes, he said, “I didn’t, sir. I sent my manager!”
 
I couldn’t believe it. Was that an act of empowerment or what? I’ll bet we can all think of times we would love to look at our “boss” and say, “Get me a Diet Coke!” What a great image. But beyond that, his actions paint a marvelous picture of personal accountability and the Question Behind the Question. We’ll go into the specifics of the QBQ in the chapters to come, but for now let’s take a look at my server’s thinking and the choices he made.
 
It was the lunch rush. Carrying a full tray, he was already busy, with plenty to do. But instead of using these facts as reasons—or excuses—to continue on to the kitchen, he noticed a customer who, though not in his section, looked like he needed some attention, so he decided to do what he could to help. I don’t know what was in his mind at that moment, of course, but faced with a similar situation, many people would have asked questions like these:
 
·        “Why do I have to do everything around here?”
 
·        “Who’s supposed to be covering this area, anyway?”
 
·        “When is management going to provide us with more products?”
 
·        “Why are we always so short-staffed?”
 
·        “When are the customers going to learn to read the menu?”
 
It’s understandable that someone would feel and think that way, especially when frustrated, but the truth is that these are lousy questions. They’re negative and they don’t solve any problems. Throughout the rest of the book we’ll refer to questions like these as Incorrect Questions, or IQs, since nothing positive or productive comes from asking them. They’re also the complete opposite of personal accountability, because in each one the implication is that someone or something else is responsible for the problem or situation.
 
Unfortunately, though, they’re often the first thoughts that come to mind. It’s a sad fact that when most of us are faced with a frustration or challenge of some kind, our initial reaction tends to be negative and defensive, and the first questions that occur to us are IQs.
 
The good news is this: That moment of frustration also presents us with a tremendous opportunity to contribute, and the QBQ can help us take advantage of it. The moment the IQs pop into our heads, we have a choice. We can either accept them—Yeah, when are we going to get more help around here?!—or reject them, choosing instead to ask better, more accountable questions such as “What can I do to make a difference?” and “How can I support the team?” The definition of the QBQ:
 
A tool that enables individuals to practice personal accountability by making better choices in the moment.
 
And we accomplish this by asking better questions of ourselves.
 
That’s exactly what my server did. By disciplining his thoughts, he didn’t ask IQs and get caught in the downside of the situation.
 
Instead, whether he used the words or not, his actions clearly indicated accountable thinking such as What can I do to help out? and How can I provide more value? His choices made the difference.
 
As I left that day, I gave him a good tip, as anyone would have, bouncing my quarters across the bar. (Just kidding. It was the excellent tip he had earned.) And when I returned a couple of months later and asked for “my favorite server, Jacob Miller” (I love his last name), the hostess said, “I’m sorry, sir, Jacob is no longer . . .”
 
My thoughts flew fast. NO! You lost my favorite server? You lost a guy who looked at me and asked himself, “What can I do right now to serve my customer?” I just couldn’t believe they had let him get away.
 
But I didn’t say any of that to her. I simply interrupted with, “Don’t tell me you lost him?!” to which she brightly responded, “Oh no, sir, we didn’t lose him, he was promoted to management.”
 
My first thought was Management, what a waste! (Go ahead, smile—even if you’re a manager.)
 
The truth is, I wasn’t at all surprised that Jacob, with the way he thought, would be so quickly on his way up “the ladder of success.” That’s the difference personal accountability can make. Everyone wins: customers, coworkers, the organization—everyone. And for Jacob, beyond the tips and the promotion, I can’t help but think the greatest win of all is the way he must feel about himself at the end of a day of asking better...

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Verlag
TarcherPerigee
Erscheinungsdatum
2004
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0399152334
ISBN 13 
9780399152337
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
160
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Tarcher
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/search/tarcher?page=1&q=TARCHER

Attn: Andrea T Sheridan 1745 BROADWAY
New York
NY
10019
USA
Verantwortliche Person
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