By Peter Jeff
The Leadership Mints Guy

Here’s an idea to increase your creativity and imagination. Reading time: 2:54

Leaders answer questions. Better leaders question answers. And the best leaders I have found question questions. In fact, the best leaders are always striving to raise their YQ –their Yield Questions.

No wonder. Yield questions yield more meaning than mere answers.

Like the farmer who seeks a greater crop yield per acre, so too the leader leverages his or her YQ to yield more meaningful ideas per thought: creative ideas that spark discovery, insightful ideas that spur innovation and productive ideas that spearhead achievement.

Questions probe new paths of self-discovery. When you question yourself, you think. When you question input, you judge. When you question output, you evaluate. When you question systemically and systematically, you improve.

Yield questions enhance leadership. In his book, Leadership Jazz, Max De Pree writes: “The quality of our work as leaders and the quality of our lives depends significantly on the questions we ask and the people about whom we ask the questions.” Warren Bennis, in his book Why Leaders Can’t Lead , writes that truth begins with questions. Continue reading →