Warren Shea’s Notes for QBQ! The Question Behind The Question by John G. Miller (Book)
Version: 20240613 | Status: Completed June 2024
QBQ! The Question Behind The Question by John G. Miller
What has happened to Personal Accountability?
QBQ helps practice personal accountability by asking better questions of ourselves.
Chapter 1: A Picture of Presonal Accountability
- Restaurant story w/ Diet Coke
- “Why do I have to do everything around here?” “When is management going to provide us with X?” “Why are we short staffed?”
- These are lousy questions - negative and don’t solve problems. IQ: Incorrect Questions since nothing positive or productive comes from them?
- “What can I do to make a difference?” “How can I support the team?”
- The QBQ is a Tool that enables individuals to practice personal accountability by making better choices in the moment.
- We accomplish this by asking better questions of ourselves.
Chapter 2: Making Better Choices
Chapter 3: The Question Behind the Question
- QBQs are questions we ask ourselves, not others
Guidelines for creating a QBQ
- Begin with “What” or “How”, not “Why” “When” or “Who”
- Contain an “I”, not “We”, “They”, or “You”
- Focus on Action
“What can I do?”
Chapter 4: Don’t ask why
- “Why don’t others work harder?” “Why is this happening to me?” “Why don’t people care as much as I do?”
- Get rid of victim thinking
Chapter 5: The Victim
Chapter 6: Why is this happening to me?
- Stress is a choice because whatever the trigger event, we always choose our own response
- Different people have different reactions to the same situation
- Stress is also the result of our choices
Chapter 7: Why do we have to go through all this change?
- Conditions change and require different strategies
- “How can I adapt to the changing world”
Chapter 8: Why don’t THEY communicate better?
Chapter 9: Don’t ask ‘When’
- Procrastination - putting something off a little later, until it’s become a serious problem
- Procrastination increases stress
Chapter 10: Procrastination: The friend of failure
- Story about breaking glass
- Take care of the little things while they’re still little
- Creativity is thinking outside the box.
- True creativity is succeeding within the box.
Chapter 12: When are we going to hear something new?
- “When are we going to hear something new?” is an IQ
- “How can I apply what I’m hearing, even if I’ve heard it before.” is an QBQ
Chapter 13: Don’t ask ‘Who’?
- Who is looking for scapegoats, someone else to blame
Chapter 14: “A poor sailor blames the wind”?
- Accountable people look for solutions, not scapegoats
- “What could I have done differently?” “How can I learn from this experience?”
Chapter 15: Silos
- We are all on the same team
Chapter 16: Beat the refereee
- Beat the opponent, beat yourself, beat the ref - the circumstance/person beyond your control standing between you and success
- Work on being so good, things will work no matter how many bad calls the ref throws at us
- “How can I let go of what I can’t control” - the ultimate QBQ
Chapter 17: “Who dropped the ball?”
Chapter 18: Ownership
- Onwership is personal accountability in its pureset form
Chapter 19: The Foundation of Teamwork
- A true teammate is someone who can look right through you and still enjoy the view
- How can I appreciate people’s gifts and strengths, just as they are
Chapter 20: Making accountability personal. All QBQs contain an “I” (not ‘they’, ‘we’, or ‘you’)
- The only things are have any control over our own thoughts and actions
Chapter 21: I can only change me
- “I can only change me” but when listening, “who needs the QBQ? ‘they’ do”
- Managers don’t change people - they can coach, console, teach, and guide but no one changes another person
- “What can we do to change things?” no one ever says “me. I would change me [to make our organization run more effectively]
Chapter 22: He didn’t, I did
- How did I work better with a person? I stopped trying to change them.
Chapter 23: When will others walk their talk
- “You are all empowered - but before you do anything before hand, check with me first”
- Walk our own talk first.
Chapter 24: An integrity test
- Does what we say about work match what we say when we’re at work, VS at home?
- Believe or leave
Chapter 25: The power of one
- Personal accountability: the power of one
Chapter 26: A QBQ Twist
- “God, grant me the serenity to accept the people I cannot change
- The courage to change the one I can
- and the wisdom to know it’s me”
Chapter 27: Will the real role models please stand up?
- No matter what our role, someone is watching and emulating our behaviour and we may be influencing them through our choices and actions. Modelling is the most powerful of all teachers.
- “How can I set a better example?”
Chapter 28: Practicing Personal Accountability - all QBQs focus on action
- If we don’t ask what we ‘can do’, ‘or make’, ‘or achieve’, ‘or build’, then we won’t do, or make, or achieve or build
- Only though action is anything accomplished - we discipline our thoughts, we ask better questions, we take action
Chapter 29: The risk of doing nothing
Taking action may seem risky, but doing nothing is a bigger risk
Action, even when it leads to mistakes, brings learning and growth
Inaction bring stagnation and atrophy
Action leads us towards solutions
Inaction does nothing and holds us in the past
Action requires courage
Inaction often indicates fear
Action builds confidence
Inaction builds doubt
“It is better to be one who is told to wait than one who waits to be told”
Chapter 31: Leaders at all levels
- Leadership is about the way we think
- Moment to moment discipline of our thoughts
- Choosing to make a positive contribution no matter what our role or level
- If we think like leaders, we are leaders
Chapter 32: The cornerstone of leadership
- Leaders don’t say “you succeed, and then I’ll serve you” but rather “I will serve you so you can succeed”
- Servant Leaadership is the QBQ way and it requires a humble spirit combined with a servant’s heart
- Humility is the cornerstone of leadership
Chapter 33: Accountability and boundaries
- Accountable people are committed first and foremost to excelling in their own job and performing their own work the best they can
Chapter 34: A great list of lousy questions
Chapter 35: The spirit of the QBQ
The letter of the QBQ would be the guidelines,
All QBQs:
- Begin with “what” or “how” (not “why”, “when”, or “who”).
- Contain an “I”, not “we” or “you”
- Focus on Action
The spirit is Personal Accountability - no more victim thinking, complaining, procrastinatings or blaming. I can only change me. Take action.
Most QBQs happen in our minds. It’s about asking better questions of ourselves
Chapter 36: Wisdom
What we learn after we know it all. Personal accountability is moment to moment discipline of our thoughts, not a destination
Chapter 37: We buy too many books/too many seminars/too many podcasts
Training is all a waste if we’re unclear on what learning really is - Learning is not attending, listening, or reading, nor gaining knowledge.
Learning is about translating knowing what to do into doing what we know - it’s about changing
Learning = Change
If we haven’t changed, we haven’t learned.
Chapter 38: A final picture
My mess, my responsibility
Chapter 39: The motor of learning
- Repetition is the motor of learning
- Listen to it again