Five great questions

You’re talking to your colleague, Jane. Ask:

1. What has been your biggest success this year, Jane?

2. What’s been your biggest challenge?

3. Reflect on the year, tell me what else stood out for you?

4. What excites you about the coming year? What will you achieve?

5. How can I be useful to you in making progress towards that?

That’s it. Notice it’s about Jane, her success, how she feels about it, and what she’s committed to achieve.

It’s not about you and what you think. You have only a supporting role.

Nor is it about finding fault, or measuring her against external criteria, which anyway are usually abstractions of a theoretical ideal. (“How would you rate yourself as a problem solver?”)

It’s an enabling conversation with a competent, activated human being.

Thing is, though, it should be done at least once a month. Once a year is useless.

The questions were inspired by mentor Penny Pullan’s book, Virtual Leadership. She has this chat weekly with her mentees.