20 questions for 2020

Guest Post by Jim Whitt

If you are old enough, you may remember a game called 20 Questions. Here’s how it works. One person plays the role of the answerer who thinks of an object. The other players are the questioners and get to ask 20 questions to guess what that object is. The questioner who guesses what the object is wins. If no one can guess what the object is after 20 questions the answerer wins.

The game has been around since the 19^th century, but I decided to create a variation of it that has a practical application for the 21^st century workplace. We’ll call it 20 Questions for 2020. Here we go:

1. What is your position, and what key accountabilities are you responsible for?
2. What goals have you committed to achieving in this position over the next year?
3. What are the key accountabilities for your direct reports?
4. What goals have your direct reports made for the upcoming year?
5. How are you held accountable?
6. How do you hold your direct reports accountable?
7. What type of retention program do you have in place to retain your direct reports?
8. What type of performance management program do you have in place for your direct reports?
9. What are the top skills needed for the position?
10. Which of your skills would be identified as a detriment?
11. Who truly understands your position?
12. Who should truly understand your position?
13. If you had a clearer understanding of your job, could you be more productive?
14. If your superiors had a clearer understanding of your job, could you be more productive?
15. If your direct reports had a clearer understanding of their positions, would they be more productive?
16. How would clearly defining the position affect your bottom line?
17. How would this understanding affect team synergy?
18. How would this understanding affect morale?
19. How would this understanding impact your hiring process?
20. How would this understanding impact your onboarding process?

The author of these thought-provoking questions is Ann Marie Boslin, a business development consultant with TTI Success Insights, a company we partner with to provide assessment solutions for our clients. The questions are designed to help maximize the return on investment (ROI) for the most important asset in any organization — people!

We (PurposeUnlimited.com)have discovered the one area that can earn the quickest ROI is clearly defining roles.   We’ve developed an “Expectations” worksheet and a process that answers all 20 questions by clarifying existing roles, identifying roles that need to be created and those that need to be eliminated.  The result is dramatically improved Productivity, Synergy and Morale for our clients.

Please email jim@purposeunlimited.com to request your free “Expectations” worksheet.