Summary Book - Quit Leadership

“QUIET LEADERSHIP”

This book written by David Rock. Improving the performance of employees involves one of the hardest challenges in the known universe: changing the way they think. In constant demand as a coach, speaker, and consultant to companies around the world, David Rock has proven that the secret to leading people (and living and working with them) is found in the space between their ears. "If people are being paid to think," he writes, "isn't it time the business world found out what the thing doing the work, the brain, is all about?" Supported by the latest ground breaking research, Quiet Leadership provides a brain-based approach that will help busy leaders, executives, and managers improve their own and their colleagues' performance. David Rock offers a practical, six-step guide to making permanent workplace performance change by unleashing higher productivity, new levels of morale, and greater job satisfaction.

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The six steps in that book are:

1. Think About Thinking.

2. Listen for Potential

3. Speak With Intent

4. Dance toward Insight

5. Create New Thinking

6. Follow up

SUMMARY

The six steps to transforming performance are a new set of tools for improving people’s thinking and dramatically improving their performance. These six steps are the core of being a quit leader, and define a whole new way of communicating in the workplace.

1. Think About Thinking

The first step is to think about thinking; to let people do all the thinking, keep them focused on solution, stretch their thinking, accentuate the positive, and follow good process. Quit Leader let other people do all the thinking, and then gently keep the conversation focused on solution. They stretch people more than people stretch themselves, while providing extensive positive feedback. And they know that taking time to establish good process in any situation is a key to having the most useful conversations. Having all these idea in mind is the first step to being able to improve people’s thinking without telling them what to do. It’s the first step to transforming performance at work.

2. Listen for Potential

There are two things important in this step. First, listening for potential: This means listening generously with the certainty that the person speaking can and will solve their own dilemmas, because the answers are within them. It means listening for people own insights, energy, possibilities, passion and future. Second, the clarity of distance: leader can be more helpful if they stay out of the details and interact with their people at a high level, looking for pattern and qualities in activities that can’t be seen when we are to close. We get to close when we have to much detail, see things through our own filters, have an agenda, or get engaged by strong emotions.

3. Speak With Intent

The third step is to speak with intent and to be succinct, specific and generous.

Succinct: Quit leaders are succinct when they speak. They are able to communicate their ideas using very few words.

Specific: Quit leaders are specific when they speak. They are able to figure out and communicate the core of the idea they want to transmit.

Generous: Quit leaders are generous when they speak. They speak so that the listener can immediately understand and relate to the concepts they want to communicate.

4. Dance toward Insight

Step four is about the conversation: We dance toward insight by getting permission for harder conversations, placing people so they know where we’re coming from, using thinking questions so that others do the thinking, and then clarifying their response.
The four faces of insight: This describes what goes on when you look at people’s faces, before, while, and after they have an insight. There are specific mental functions occurring in the brain during insights that give off energy, which you can see if you look for them. The four steps are: awareness of a dilemma; reflection; illumination; and motivation.

Awareness of a dilemma: a dilemma is defined as being between two opposing desires and not knowing which way to turn. The leader’s job is to help people creating new ways of reconnecting their thinking through the moment of illumination.

Reflection: This occurs when we ask questions that make people think deeply. People need time to reflect to be able to make new connections. The brain gives off alpha-band waves when we reflect.

Illumination: This is the moment when a new map is created. Gamma-band wave are seen in the brain at this moment.

Motivation: This is the moment immediately following illumination.

The dance of insight: This is the structure of the conversation we follow in order to elicit insight from others. It’s composed of: permission, placement, thinking questions, and clarifying.

5. Create New Thinking

Once we know how to dance this way, in this step five we create new thinking. We get people to become aware of their mental dilemmas and reflect more deeply on them by asking question about their current reality. Once they have had an insight, we explore alternative for how to move their insight into action, than we tap into the energy given off by the new connection being made. This step describes the different phases in a conversation to improve people’s thinking, following the path of least resistance. It stands for Current Reality, Explore Alternative, and Tap Their Energy.

Current Reality: The first element in the create model. Here we focus on identifying the landscape of people thinking, to identify qualities and to help them reflect and bring about illumination.

Explore alternatives: The second element in the create model. This is when we open up lots of possibilities in a conversation, exploring many ways forward.

Tap their energy: The third element in the create model. The energy that is released after having an insight needs to be put into action immediately, so we tap this energy while it’s there, getting people to flesh out their ideas while they are fresh and commit to taking specific actions.

6. Follow up

Finally, we know that following up can make a big difference to the emergence of new wiring, so we focus on the fact and people’s feeling. We encourage, listen for learning, look for implications and then look for the next goal to focus on.
FEELING models: This is a way of following up on action people set for themselves, to bring about the creation of new circuits. It stands for:               -Facts

-Emotions

-Encourage

-Learning

-Implication

-New

-Goal

Using the Six Steps to Give Feedback

Giving Feedback for great performance: Give extensive positive feedback, being every specific about what they did well and what impact this has. This is also an excellent opportunity to use the Six steps to dig down further and identify new habits people are developing, to help them grow and develop further.

Giving feedback for below par performance: Defuse any emotional tension, then use the six steps to help people identify for themselves what they have learned, and what new habits they can creating moving forward.

Giving feedback for poor performance: Emotional tension needs to be carefully defused, then again use the six steps to help people identify their learning, and the new habits they need  moving forward.

There have been two main themes running through the six steps. The first theme is how to have a conversation to resolve any type of dilemma. This covers the majority of interactions leaders have day to day with their people. The second theme is how you might use the various models inside the six steps more widely, for example, permission, placement, and clarifying can very useful tools in many situations.

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I find it a very useful (not just interesting) read that I can use in my work and family life. I will need to assess myself if it helps me. To me the linking of the approach with how the brain works is really useful - and it gives me hope that we CAN introduce and make changes happen by focusing on creating new circuitry in the brains of the people we coach, than trying to remove the existing hard-wired pathways. This book offers valuable insight into "the how do I" develop excellent leadership and coaching skills in the workplace. The examples provided are clear and the insightful. It is a great addition to leadership and coaching resources. Quiet Leadership enables us to empower others to think, and by changing their thinking we can change their behavior. People are no longer trapped by a lack of knowledge, but trapped in their current thinking maps. Use CREATE to set them free. Classic David Rock. Enabling others to think, allowing them to think in their own way leads to better commitment and often the RIGHT solution. This book is great. Combined science with hands-on workshops have proven this be a great read for the new leaders of today. I want a better work place, stop doing the thinking for my subordinate and let them think on their own. This is the statement heard throughout the book with powerful examples and terms to build on for the future. This book helped me learn how to get my subordinate to (willingly) take on more responsibility and do the best job they can.