EntreLeadership - #92: John C. Maxwell—Why Good Leaders Ask Great Questions

Episode Date: March 9, 2015

Internationally recognized leadership expert John C. Maxwell joins the podcast to discuss one of the single most important traits every great leader possesses—curiosity—and how it can help you win. Plus, John shares one of our favorite stories: his friendship with legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden. Love all the advice from John? Then meet him in person at the EntreLeadership Summit. This three-day conference at the Omni La Costa Resort and Spa in San Diego features personal lessons from Dave as well as six of the brightest business minds in America. Limited seating is available. Reserve your space today! http://www.entreleadership.com/podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Charismatic, passionate, as integrity, humble, servant, faithful, inspiring, persevering, positive, flexible, driven. This is who we are that call ourselves leaders. Helping business leaders grow themselves, their team, and their profits. This is the Entree Leadership podcast. Now, here is your host, Ken Coleman. Coming to you from the Music City, this is the podcast of leaders, by leaders, and four leaders so thrilled to have you with us.

It's going to be a great episode. We're going to get to it quickly today. We've got another wonderful tip from Clayt Mask from InfusionSoft that will really help you. And our feature conversation is with a longtime friend, John Maxwell, the guru of leadership gurus. You're really going to enjoy this. So make sure you get out a pen and paper. Lots of notes to take today. We're also going to give away 50 of John's latest.

good leaders ask great questions. This is something very dear to my heart as a question asker, and it's going to be a fun, fun time. I want to tell you this. I thought I'd share a story and give you context on why I enjoyed this interview so much. I had the extreme privilege. My wife and I, Stacey, got to work for John with him. I got to travel with John for several years, and I just want to say this, because I think we put people like John on a pedestal many times, and we wonder, Well, are they really who they say they are? Do they walk the talk? And he does.

He really does. His preparation and personal growth, which we'll talk about a little bit later, is so phenomenal. And I've got to tell you, I got to fly with him many times privately. And I got to tell you, every time he'd be working on a new book. It may be in different stages, early stages, middle stages, late stages, but we'd be on the plane. He'd talk for five or ten minutes. And then inevitably, he'd put his reading glasses on, kick his feet up on the chair, and pull out, you know that old school pen? that is like blue and white.

So the bottom half is that baby blue. The top half is white. And it's got the red cartridge, the green cartridge, the blue cartridge, and the black cartridge. I mean, the pin probably costs a buck 50. And it's like four colors in one. I mean, it is the goofiest pin ever. And this is what the man would use to write his book, to write notes. And he would prepare, prepare, prepare.

He was always reading. He always had different articles, different quotes. He was always filing. I've heard John say this 100 million times. Every day I read, every day I file. And we can take great wisdom from that discipline to do that, to constantly be growing. He is the real deal. You are really going to enjoy it.

But first, we have great value from Clayt Mask and Infusionsoft, one of the most admired entrepreneurial companies that I know. We love them here at Entry leadership. So here's Clayt Mask with another business tip. All right, folks, before we get into our feature, conversation. Let's check in. We've got Clayte Mask on the line with us. Clay's the CEO of Infusion Soft. Clay, how you doing out there? I'm doing great. Great to be with you, Ken. Well, I tell you what, buddy, boy, I love Arizona. So I got to get out there to see you guys at the mother's

show. That'd be great. All right. Well, hey, let's talk about this very important topic. I love this when it came across my desk. Today's question, what's one of those common traps that hold business owners back? You know, one of the things that we see over and over again at our customers, and frankly, something we did as well in the early days in Fusion Sock, we didn't take the time to really get clear on why we exist. We didn't really dig in and say, okay, what's our purpose? Why are we doing this?

And when I see business owners that are going about running a business to make money, that's natural and, you know, obvious that people might think that way, but it actually misses the point. and it causes business owners to not achieve what they want and not be inspired in their own business. So what I try to help business owners understand is get to know why you exist as a business. And that starts with who you are. When you understand yourself very well, you know your values. When you're clear on your core values, you're clear on the mission that you're up to in this life.

You know why you're doing what you're doing. That purpose that gets becomes very clear is so powerful to. propel a business forward. It helps in the good times. It helps in the bad times. And the big trap that I see commonly among entrepreneurs is they're out to make money not to achieve their purpose. I love that. Well, I know this, Clay, InfusionSoft can help people move from the bad times to the good times. How do you do that? Thanks so much. Well, we help small businesses succeed. It's what we do. It's why we exist. That's our big purpose. And we provide sales and marketing software that helps our customers get organized, grow sales and save time so they can have the business and the life they want.

For more information on how to connect with InfusionSoft and take your business to the next level, go to infusionsoft.com slash entree. That's infusionsoft.com slash entree. Clay, always love talking to you. We'll be on the phone soon. Until then, take care of yourself. All right. Thanks, Ken. Well, folks, our feature interview, as I said, is John Maxwell. This is so good. So let's get right to it. And do not forget. We're giving it to a one. 50 of John's book, Good Leaders, Ask Great Questions. Here is John Maxwell. John, I love questions. Curiosity is a hobby of mine. And it's something we're all ingrained with. We come into this world,

hardwired, just asking thousands of questions a day as little ones. And then over time, if we're not intentional about asking questions, life has a way of beating the curiosity out of us. And I want to ask you, how do you keep curiosity a lot? how do we keep that inner child alive in us so that we can continue to learn and grow? Well, I agree with you. I think what I try to do in, I wrote a book, and what I tried to do in the first chapter the book is just establish the value of questions. And in my life, the return on questions has been huge, and that's true for everybody.

And so once I know the value and the high return the questions give me, then it's kind of like, okay, then I need to keep asking him. I think we ask questions naturally as a child, and then through the schooling process, we kind of get that knocked out of us a little bit. And then we just kind of look. But the moment that we understand, almost everything I have, that's wonderful. You know, John, you're a lifelong learner. You extol the value of personal growth and everything you do from writing books to speaking to live events and beyond. And I have discovered this and getting the opportunity to interview some wonderful people who've accomplished much. And I think we forget sometimes that the true greats are still constantly learning.

Talk about some of your observations, you know, from the great coaches, the great leaders that you have spent time with. They are continually learning. How do they do that? Well, they continually make it even better. We love to learn, but they don't want to learn. So you've got to keep them together. You've got to have a desire to learn alone.

You model this so well. I want you to share a story that I've heard you tell many times and those who've come to see you speak have probably heard it before. But you had an opportunity several years ago to get to spend a day with John Wooden, the legendary UCLA basketball coach. And I love that you prepared for many, many hours with a legal pad full of questions. And you showed up with that legal pad and literally just fired him at him. I think it would be a great lesson for those of us who are listening in to get an idea. What are some of the questions that you asked John Wooden, and why? So that was great. And enough to invite me to breakfast and spend the morning with him and first off.

Well, at 2 o'clock in the afternoon, I'm still asking questions. Love that. And I'll never forget when I said, look, I've taken more than time. Here's the value of question. And I was going to have many times. And I'll have a lunch or dinner people. And we'll have a nice conversation. No one asks me a question.

And I just think to myself. That's right. Well, that's the huge takeaway, folks. John said he had the capacity, but he also was intentional. And really, John, in that moment, I mean, it's intimidating when you're around people of great accomplishment, but you have to have the courage to ask, and you did. And most times, when you have the courage to throw something out there, they appreciate the fact that you actually asked a good question and you showed a spirit to learn. That's big when we spend time with mentors as well, correct?

It is. And I can tell you, I learned the lesson the hard way, because when I was in my late 20s, My church in Lancaster, Ohio was growing tremendously. Bracking that top. I had two-cote in Orlando to what they call an idea exchange with about 35 or 40 other pastors and the whole day sat around and asked questions and taught each other. I was so excited with the invitation for that day and a half-case kept saying, leaving that idea, this may not be the best ones. Full disclosure to those listening, I had the privilege to work with John for several years

and travel with him and watch him speak, and those of you who have seen him speak live or on a training video or whatever the medium is, know that he's a master communicator. And, John, I have noticed, as a student of communicators, that the great communicators use a question in a public presentation so well. It engages the audience so much more effectively, in my opinion. A, do you agree with that? And B, how do you use questions personally when you're speaking to audiences? I totally agree with that. Why, I have friends. I let them know how good I hope it stand in ovation. So if I want to have fans, I don't ask questions. I answer questions.

The fans, I just want to tell everybody how good I am. I want to connect with the audience. If what I'm done, I want to have people and friends, then I've got to put myself into a learning. Sit out. Let me tell you how good I am and let me impress you. I say, let's sit down together and let's learn from each other and let's attitude. I determined very early that I wanted to have friends and I wanted to connect. And I would do that. through the people know I didn't have all the answers. I do that by asking somebody else. You know, the greatest compliment, Ken, I can give you,

how do you think about this? There's not a higher compliment. But what I'm really saying is, I value what you say, I value what you know, I value who you are. That's a great compliment. So when it's a communicator, I'm asking questions,

whether it's speaking to 5,000 people or sitting around a table, speaking to 5 people, I'm really saying to these people, I value your opinion, I value your thoughts, I value your experience. talk to me, help me, show me what you know, share with me what you know. How did you know it? How can it help me? That all adds into developing great relationship. Yeah, I want to stay here for a minute and it's related. So let's go from the

scenario of a public speech, which we just talked about, but you kind of gave us a bridge there in that last statement, whether you're in front of 5,000 or sitting in a room of 5 and at the core of leadership, you have to lead people. Hello. And so in meetings, in casting vision, so many leaders do it wrong. and they don't quite do it. Maybe they come in, John, puffed up, ready to go, and proclaim a vision statement. How have you, over the years, learned how to use questions in those fundamental meetings, if you will, with your team, and then in casting vision? Well, ask questions. You find out what the other person, so many times, even as a leader, I'll come in with an idea. I'll be it myself, but you have capacity to help me. So let's all jump in. Let me ask you questions, and you give me your thoughts about you, humility and you are sincere and people know that you really want to hear from them,

their goals, so they're coming to the table and are saying, wow, John values my opinion. Now, one of the favorite questions I ask my staff all the time is, what do you think? The reason I ask that is because what they tell them, he tells me how they think. I learn a lot about a person by asking them questions. And so what I've discovered was, early in my leadership life, I can either be a directive and say, here's where we're going, and have a certain amount of people follow me because I'm clear in my vision,

but have many people who are very smart not follow me because they're not having any ownership or any input. Or I could say, here's what I think we should be doing. Now, let's all make it better. You clarify me. You add value. You make this better than what I gave you. And when you sincerely want to have people add to you

by asking questions, that's what they do. In fact, I always say this. If I go in the room with a good idea and I don't come out of the room with a better, I didn't ask questions. And because I didn't ask questions, I didn't improve my... And with a good idea, and I say, okay, I'm going in here to ask questions of the people in this room to make this good idea of great idea. That's when I get the good input from people, because they can tell.

It's an attitude. They can tell if I really want to hear them or whether I'm just patronizing. John, we have an audience of a whole lot of entrepreneurs and leaders listening in. And if there's anything we all share in common, I know that it is we are wired for progress. And just putting myself on the spot, I think many people will relate to this. One of the temptations that I constantly face, John, is I obsess about the next. I run the risk of missing what I need in the now. And that ultimately puts me at the potential to sacrifice the next.

So the question for you is, what does? questions do we need to be asking in the now so that we don't sacrifice the next? Because I always assume after a conversation and we're all getting ready to, you know, go out and try to execute the game plan. I always assume I'm missing something. I never assume that I got it. I want to know what I'm missing. Here's what I either ask in the room, what am I missing, or I go out and try to execute the game plan and find out what I'm missing. And I just found it's better to have it on the front end and fix it, they have on the back in and try to repair it. And so I have again discovered the greatest way to empower people and give them ownership

is to bring them into that whole opinion, asking questions, letting them give you input. It just changes the, you'll fulfill it more. If you and I are talking and I give you direction and you have to go out and 100% my idea, you've got 30% in it yourself. I'm telling you, Ken, you'll run the ball a lot more and a lot harder. a lot better if you've got a little stake of the ownership, which is what questions do versus just take. And that's, again, another reason of why. You've written so many great books and touched so many lies. Personally, my favorite work

is failing forward. It wasn't just a great book, but what an amazing title that means so very much to so many people. And leaders are always failing because inevitably we're trying to move forward, and that's just part of the process. One of your latest books, sometimes you win, sometimes you learn a turn on a classic phrase of sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. On this question theme that we're talking about, I think it would help our audience to hear from you. What are a few questions that you know from experience that we need to ask when we're in the midst of failure or we're right after that failure and we're trying to figure out, whoa, what's going on? How do I move forward? What are some good questions to ask?

Well, I'm in the midst of a failure experience. The first thing I do is I, I want to bring people around me and ask what I'm making a mistake or learned from that company the other day. And one of the things they embraced is they said, we make new mistakes. And I love that. You know, they make old mistakes. If you make old mistakes, you're not learning. You're not seeing clearly. You're not adjusting.

You're not adjusting. You're not correcting. You're not changing. We're going to make new mistakes. And when we make the new mistake, the value of that is the fact it's going to teach us something, you know. But we could only teach something if we ask questions and say, you know, what am I missing? Tell me exactly what happened. Now, the moment I have somebody help me with that, give me clarity there, then I look at it, I say, okay, how do we move forward here?

Now I'm ready to move forward. Too many people lead today, I'm clear, and find out that if you didn't fix today, you're not going to be able to. So I just like to have kind of an understanding of how I failed and what can I change and all those things help me to grow and improve myself. John, one of my favorite things that you teach almost every time you speak is you'll use some analogy to the, the effect of if I could spend one dinner with you, this is what I would share. And of course, you can take that a million different ways and you do. But I want the young leaders or the inexperienced leaders who are listening into this conversation to hear from you on maybe a few vital questions early on in their journey, whatever that may be. Here are some great questions

that you need to be asking on a regular basis at this season of your life. What would you say those are? When I sit down the person and ask questions, I ask him. I'm not so interested in when I ask him who was talking to a principal of somebody. I want to flip this for a second, John, because I know how much of an influence your father was in your life. What a powerful, positive influence he was, and still is. And I want to ask you, our inner voice sometimes can do some negative things to us. It's very, very powerful inside our heads. Is there a question that pops up in your mind as one that we should say,

when you hear that question, you need to delete and move on. Because I've been with them on a few occasions. But I would say something to them that would be maybe, so I'm not sure I've got to stop saying. And I said, I'm grateful for. All right, final question for you. Before we let you go, we're really excited about you coming to be with us at the Entry Leadership Summit out in San Diego. I'm looking forward to hugging your neck and hanging out with you a bit. But I love to ask folks like you who are constantly helping others grow.

what are you growing on or what are you excited about working on something new that's got the passion burning? I'm writing a book now that I ain't come out of talk and I have come significance in their life. Significance is not a reason. You want it to be intentional in looking for making it happen. And I think intentional living is the, so I've just finished writing a book on intentional live. But I'm very passionate about it because what excites me about this is I think many people think significance is something you achieve when you get old or you have so much money where you meet the right people.

And I don't think that significance has anything to do with you. Your intention, I don't care whether you're 12 or 92. It doesn't matter. You can begin to be a significant person. And I think it's going to be a, I believe this book is. I believe they're going to all of a sudden to say, I can do this. If I go out and play golf, Kenon, and my golf instructor looks at him, he says, you know, that's very discouraged. But if you look at me, he said, you know, John, if I could just change one thing, I could get you to be a single,

excite me so much. I think when people begin to understand that the one thing between them and significant stays in touch. That's what I'm working on. That's what I'm excited about, as you could tell. I've been going way beyond my time. I'm actually about this. That's what I'm trying to write about. Well, I'm sure it will, and I love it.

And, John, I can't close out without telling you again. how much you mean to Stacey and I and the opportunities that you've afforded us both with your generosity and your belief in us as youngsters and it's always fun to spend time with you. I know our audience is equally appreciative of your time and wisdom and again looking forward to being with you in San Diego in a few months. Thank you, Ken.

The reason I do what I do is because of people like you and Stacey who take you all come out now because I promise you we will add value to your life. Absolutely. All right, John. Thanks, man. We appreciate you. Thank you.

Well, I hope you enjoyed that as much as I did, just sitting and talking with the man. Could have gone forever, but Eric, the producer was giving me the, we got to let the man go sign. And, boy, that was really a lot of fun. By the way, I want to mention he is a wonderful follow on Twitter, and his Twitter handle is at John C. Maxwell. At John C. Maxwell, you'll really enjoy what he's got to say to you on Twitter. Now, a couple things. Remember, John is going to be with us at the La Costa Resort in May for the Entree Leadership Summit. You can learn more about this great event.

We've told you a ton about it. Just go to Entreeleadership.com slash summit. Entreeleadership.com slash summit. He'll be joining Dr. Henry Cloud, Rabbi Daniel Lapin, Pat Lincione, Dave Ramsey, and our very own Chris Hogan and Christy Wright. It's going to be a great time. I'd love to see you out there. Also, special bonus from the old Ken Coleman archives here.

This is kind of fun because years ago, Obviously, I get to host a lot of events for John. And just a couple of years ago, I hosted a large national simulcast, and we shot several videos because it was all about how to grow, how to continue personal growth. And so we've got a special treat. And this particular video, which is at the podcast page on Entreeleadership.com, that's very simple, Entreleadership.com slash podcast. Short YouTube video of John and I in a hotel room as he's traveling, and he unveils

his personal growth system that he takes with him everywhere. So many of you men and women travel all the time and it's very hard to get in a routine. This is going to set you free. It's so enjoyable. John unveils his personal growth system that he takes with him everywhere. Check it out at Entreeleadership.com slash podcast. All right, it's time for the book giveaway. You know how we do it. 50 free copies of good leaders ask great questions from John Maxwell and his publisher. We're grateful for that. Here's how you qualify. We just want you to tweet something about the Entree Leadership podcast. At Entree Leadership is the Twitter handle, and here's how you qualify. Some type of statement, and you must put in the hashtag

Conversation That Matters. Hashtag, Conversation That Matters. And Eric, the producer, will be scouring the hundreds and hundreds, by the way, that are taking place every time we give these books away. It's quite exciting. And we will pick 50 winners. Eric will take care of you. He'll contact you, and you will win the book. So there it is. Something about Entree Leadership with the handle at Entree Leadership and the hashtag, conversation that matters. Well, folks, it's always a joy to talk with the men and women who are making this great American economy go. We appreciate you. So as I always say, but I truly mean, on behalf of producer Eric and the entire Entree leadership team, thank you so much for listening. We'll talk to you again very soon.