Redefining Success and Power of Questions: A Deep Dive W/ Dr. Brian Glibkowski

0:00Welcome to the Big Success Podcast. Cutting edge conversations on business and personal success, as well as how to level up. Here's your host, number one business coach in the world, Brad Sugars. Dan, you're going to have fun on this week's episode. Dr. Brian Glibkowski, see I even got his name right, Answer Intelligence. You know, one of the most amazing things is how he breaks down how you do answers and even the prep work to be able to be amazing at it. when you look at how he trained comedians, stand-up comedians, and the whole thing. But if you're in sales, this is massive. If you're in leadership, this is massive.

0:40If you're in coaching, this is massive. So many great takeaways from today's session. Dr. Brian Glidkowski, this is the book, Answer Intelligence Course. He's a PhD professor, all that stuff, authored all of the articles, but he teaches all around the world. business school top 20 top 22 business books all that stuff this is dr brian he's on the podcast with us today helping you with your success so brian i have to ask with all the studies you've done how what is your definition of success like how do you define success thanks brad yeah the the big success podcast so it made my head spin a little bit am i thinking about success in terms of what it should be or how it is, you know, how I live my life.

1:26And I sort of leaned into looking backwards, how I live my life and what success is. So I would define success as making oneself whole. So I think success is a transformation of failure into success. Let me give you a metaphor and then a brief story and then I'll turn it back to you. So, you know, the metaphor is sort like a full circle journey. So each of us in our professions and family life, we have certain things that are essential to us, like leadership or sales or family. In a full circle journey sense, what I'm talking about here is becoming whole, is starting at that beginning point with something really important, and then going around the circle, realizing there's something wrong, and trying to go back to the beginning to understand it for the first time, to serve of a sense of wholeness.

2:13And that's when I'm talking about what success is. And I could provide a brief story if you'd like, or I could turn it back to you now. Oh, give me the story. Here's the story. So my background's in and out of academia. And the first academic conference I went to was at Ohio State. It was a small conference. I was the only PhD student presenting a paper. And it was basically all senior professors. I'm a management professor by training. And all the professors went out to dinner. And we're sitting around a large table. It was like three or four tables combined. There are probably 40 people there.

2:53And the conversation shifted to the research that people do. And long story short, it was sort of consensus around the table that people tend to research things they're bad at. So you have a leading leadership scholar looking at leadership, negotiator looking at negotiations, and they can't negotiate. And I thought to myself right away, wow, there's so many things I don't do well, I'm going to do really great at research. But ultimately, I sort of focused on communication. And that was the thing I wanted to be whole at, I wanted to be a better communicator. And that sort of experience really stuck with me over the years.

3:35So, yeah, I remember as a young man, someone said, yeah, you teach what you most need to learn. It's why people go into psychiatry or psychology. It's like they're the people with the most messed up things. But flip that over then and think back, where in your life did you choose to be successful, like choose to be above average or better than the normal, go for the best Brian possible? Yeah, I think, you know, it dovetails with what I just talked about. But, you know, for each of us, whether it's leadership, or for me, communication, or for someone family, I think we choose success because of our failures, and they're sort of thrust upon us.

4:17So for me in the classroom, when I was teaching, you know, I could see the students weren't engaged, and they didn't quite get the point I wanted to get. So these became nagging questions that stuck with me that I wanted answers to. Why are they not engaged? How could I teach them better? You know, what is it they don't understand? And it was these unanswered questions that I was coming back to again and again. And it was through that process of sort of self-discovery, you know, I became better, you know, so that example is in the classroom. But I found this example elsewhere in my life. Like when I was doing consulting with companies, you know, things weren't going right.

4:54And, you know, I was asking questions of myself. So this is, you know, again, part of my larger, you know, discovery process of becoming whole as a person. So think about it then from this perspective, what is the difference from someone who actually learns from their failures and someone who becomes their failures? How do you see that difference? Yeah, that's a good question. I think this makes me think about how intentional we are, maybe when we're trying to address our challenges, overcome our failures. My research, which we might get to a little bit, is on communication and questions and answers and how we do this effectively.

5:37And what I found is that people that don't communicate effectively are not intentional. They're not aware. And this reminds me of something that Pfeffer and Sutton said, their organizational behavior professors at Stanford. They said, people have 25 years of experience, but really what this is, is one year of experience repeated 25 times. Learning from what they've done wrong. So I think, for me, it was not just having scripts that I was talking about. Like when someone asked me about leadership and I would tell a story or relate to some theory or explain something, but I was really being intentional and self-aware about what I was saying and what was wrong.

6:18And I think that was a lesson I've learned with this communication research and what the best communicators do is they're very intentional, they're very thoughtful, and they're very aware of what they're doing. Yeah. So what then is your formula for success? How does success happen in business, life, communication, all areas? You must have over the years being successful said, oh, that's what makes me successful. Yeah, I think, you know, for me personally, and this is very specific to my, you know, research on communication, is I wanted to understand, you know, this process of communication. And I went on a journey where I started in academia, and I did research and wrote a book, and then went to Mark and we have partners in 17 countries that use our framework called Answer Intelligence.

7:12And as I was reflecting on this process, I think it's something that's generalizable to other things. And it really comes down to three steps for me. You know, the first is self-reflection. So I needed to take a look at myself in the classroom, what was going wrong. And for me, it was putting it into an academic paper, putting into a book, you know, being aware of what the issue was. And so that's self-reflection step one. And step two for me was involving others. So once I sort of had my grounding of what I wanted to do, I started to involve others and with my company that involved, you know, getting partners around the world that had similar interests to me.

7:55And, you know, even this podcast was part of this process, right? Involving others, involving you. And third, to me, is really about transformation. It's about, you know, when you have your compass of where you're going, you involve the right people, and then some magical things happen. And dots get connected in ways you didn't think about, and others are connecting those dots for you. You know, so that's why I think, you know, going back to my definition of success, I said success is a transformation of a failure into a success. And that transformational process sort of takes you from your starting point, but also as you're going through this journey, it's becoming something entirely different.

8:34Originally, I was concerned about teaching in the classroom. I'm not in the classroom anymore. I'm moving on to other things and doing other things, but this transformational process of becoming a better communicator is still there. Do you think that that transformation, that magic that happens when you involve other people. If you didn't have that self-reflective first and that question to answer sort of things, it's amazing. We're here talking about answer intelligence, so we're going to get onto that subject in a minute. But it's really interesting to see that you have to start asking yourself the right questions and then other people the right questions.

9:15How does that fit in for your success formula, that ability to pick the right question? Yeah, I think, you know, I mean, this sort of goes back to research, you know, my training and research. But again, we can generalize this to sales or leadership or company strategy. And I can do that briefly. As a researcher, wow, you know, there's a cornucopia of things you could look at. But you have to focus and say, this is the kind of research I want to do. It's almost like it's your identity, your direction, The same thing is true now for those that are listening that are focusing on sales or leadership or strategy for their company.

9:55It's about setting an internal compass and saying, this is where we're going. And I think it's really clear when people think of strategy, for example, like Michael Porter. He talks about you need to have a strategy. If you don't have a specific strategy, you're sort of stuck in the middle. So I just think it was important for me because this is my journey. I wanted to define what my journey was going to be about, all this communication and these answers and all this stuff. And I think if you don't define that for yourself, you're going to be just sort of at the mercy of the winds. And you have to have that grounding if you want to do something big and important.

10:34When we talk about big success, I think. Yeah. You're on the Big Success Podcast. I'm Brad Sugars. We'll be back. Dr. Brian is going to take us into the answer intelligence, and then we're going to get into scaling up. We'll be back in a second. Join Brad Sugars' landlord event and you will quickly see why real estate investing has long been the backbone of serious long-term wealth for so many. That said, so many try and fail at creating wealth because they simply don't learn how. Visit bradsugars.com and attend this program as a standalone or as part of a Brad Sugars' Entrepreneurial University.

11:06And we're back here on the Big Success Podcast and Dr. Brian. Now, I would say your full name, but it's just Dr. Brian G, because that's so much easier than doing. Way back when, you started the whole answer intelligence stuff by looking at the 6WH or the 5 and the how type thing. How did that become research and teach us what actually came out of that? Yeah, so before I did research on answers, I did research on questions. And sort of extending sort of familiar ground for those that are listening. Going back to grade school, we learn about the six WH questions. Why, what, how, when, where, who.

11:46We learn about open and closed questions. And that was great. But one thing hit me that we do not know as much about answers. Like if I said, how many answer types are there? You have no idea. So I wanted to research answers. I now have an idea because I've read the book. Yeah. Yeah. But those that haven't read the book. And I really wanted to understand communication in a very basic form, questions and answers and how I could navigate those conversations. And then through the research, how others could navigate conversations effectively. Yeah. So what's the big lesson out of that from those questions and answers?

12:26Because then you go into your six answer archetypes. Let's let's focus on that for a little bit. Yeah, maybe to go to the big takeaway, and then I can go into the six answer types. The big takeaway, I think, is looking at the function of questions and answers. The function of questions is curiosity. The function of answers is influence. And this is something I don't think people fully appreciate. Like we're used to sales approaches, you know, ask great questions and but it's really the answers that give influence. You know, for example, in sales, how do you close the deal? You answer the proverbial question that keeps the executive buyer up at night.

13:05It is the answers where the influence rests. And just to connect this to our prior conversation, then I can get into the six answer types. We've been using AQ the whole time here, right? This is a mental communication. And in this in this podcast, you've asked me questions. you know, what is success? And I, you know, define that as a concept of this, this becoming whole. And I gave a metaphor of full circle learning. So you can answer what question with concept and metaphor. Then I explained a little bit about why, you know, being whole is important to me. And I gave you a story. So why questions and answers a story or theory, which is strategy.

13:43And then also you asked me, you know, how do you become successful? And I gave you a three-step procedure, self-reflection, involve others, and transform. And then also actions can answer the how question. So in a basic form, what AQ is, is a formula, mapping questions and answers. But done at the highest level, it's much more than a formula. Yeah. Yeah. So then, all right, so let's break that down then. You've mentioned a few of them, the story, the metaphor, the procedure. So let's break down those six so people can help understand that. Yeah, let's start with what, and I'll give you an example in a different context.

14:22I'm sure many of those listening are leaders in their organizations. And so you think of asking yourself a basic question, what is leadership? So you can answer that as a concept or metaphor. So for example, I could say leadership is inspiring others to achieve goals. Okay, that's a definition. It's a concept. Then I can say as a metaphor, you know, leadership is two ropes. And for those that are just listening, I have my fingers extended. When the ropes are separate, they're strong. When the ropes are braided together, they're stronger. That's how I lead. Each meeting, I'm going to inspire and hold people accountable.

14:55So what I've just demonstrated is answering as a concept and metaphor. Why is that important? I need self-awareness if I'm going to lead others. And second, imagine, you know, Brad, I'll put you in the position of being reporting to me. That would never happen. But, you know, if you're reporting to me and, you know, I'm meeting you for the first time, I may answer twice, give you both of those answers. So you really understand what Brian thinks leadership is. So that's the first question, concept and answers, concepts and metaphors. Let me pause there. I don't know if you want me to go on to the why and how questions.

15:32Yeah, let's dive into those because I think they're all very important. Yeah. So let's stick with leadership. So I'll make these very brief. I could explain why leadership is important. So individuals have different motivations for leadership. Imagine I had an interview and I explained that leadership leads to employee retention, because I know the company has retention issues, right? And also, academic research shows that individuals leave supervisors, not organizations. So, and it's a tight labor market. So I make that clear explicitly. I say, I'm here to be a leader for you because leadership leads to employee retention.

16:14So that's a theory answer, cause and effect, or strategy, you might call it. And then I can give a story answer. And I won't give you a story. We all know what stories are. But now I lean in and I give my best story of how I lead people and how people have stayed with me. They love me. Right. So I'm answering the why question and just extending further. Let's go to the how question. Now it's up to me to explain how I lead. So I would need to explain a procedure, maybe three steps, how I lead a meeting, just like I talked about the three steps of success for me. And then I would talk about key actions that relate to my leadership.

16:50so actions you know behaviors we do and there's two types there's best practices and then there's sort of unique actions and you know i could sort of talk about something that's you know a best practice like i don't know i could say i lead a meeting and i i listen to everyone's opinion first right you know and you know so you get the idea and obviously the quality the quality of your answers matter so the quality of my story matters but also knowing which answers map to which questions is something, you know, paramount and happens before you actually answer. Yeah. So when, when we, okay, so I'll go back into my learning and my understanding of, from the book and from watching you speak for us.

17:35Does it, I mean, it, in the beginning, it took me a lot to sit down and go, okay, this is the map. How do I actually remember this map? When someone comes to me with a how question, I got to answer it this way. And it's like, it took me a while to grasp that. Is that something that eventually comes naturally to us? Yeah, I think, first of all, it is second nature. If you're reflecting, I know in yourself, Brad, you're an expert communicator. You're doing these things naturally. When we studied the top communicators in the world, we're studying things they did, not things we just made up they should do.

18:08And two responses about being natural. um first of all when you use these answers in practice and intentional they become better so for for everyone listening probably everyone has been on interviews an interview season as a junior person and if you reflect back to that experience you do the first interview you tell a story about yourself it doesn't really work the second interview you tell a story a little bit better the third interview you nail it and then for the fourth interview fifth interview you tell the story perfectly and you get the job because all your answers are on point. We've just demonstrated it as AQ.

18:42You've intentionally used stories and repeated them and you got better. Now imagine you do the same thing for metaphors, procedures, and you're aware of what you're doing and combining your answers, you're going to be intentional. And the other thing I'll say is, I sort of liken this to basketball or any sport. Take basketball. You can learn the different shots, You know, a jump shot, a three-pointer, you know, hook shot, all these shots. And I would assert anybody can go on the court and, you know, half an hour time, you'll probably start to make free throws. You know, are you completely proficient?

19:17No. But anybody can learn this. Anybody can do it. It just requires intentional practice. That's it. Yeah. So let's break it down there. Let's focus a little bit on salespeople first and foremost. salespeople learning the formula what's I guess the top two things they will get better at by understanding this yeah I think you know I'll say two things one is it's question recognition which is part of the high IQ practices and even though we think we know a lot about questions we understand the questions by how they map to answers so for example I've done work with sales organizations. And in AQ terms, executive buyers are asking why.

20:00Why should I work with you? Maybe they're being implicit. And what do the inexperienced sellers do? They're answering how questions with features and functions. And they're losing. So first, question recognition. Which question is being asked? They may not use the word why, what, or how, but they're asking the why question. And so then be able to map it to the right answer. So that's step one. And that'll get you far. The second thing I recommend for someone in sales is think of your value proposition as an organization. In a simple exercise, can you communicate that value proposition in terms of six answers?

20:36And it's more challenging than you think. You may have a story, but can you transform that story into a metaphor, into procedures and actions? And just to be explicit, here's an example of a story and metaphor for those that aren't really familiar. We have the story of Romeo and Juliet as a metaphor that star-crossed lovers. They're related, but they're distinct answers. So yeah, the second point is if you can challenge yourself individually as an organization to develop six answers, you're ready with the currency to respond when you're in those conversations. I think one of the big things, and we'll come to this, we'll take a quick break in a second, but I think one of the big things is that I had to sit down and learn is almost to pre-plan, And not role-play.

21:22We did. We role-played a lot of the answers based on actually thinking about this stuff. We'll talk more about that in a moment. We're going to be back after this on the Big Success Podcast. We're going to get more into how you get better answers, better questions. But we're also going to talk about scaling up. Dr. Brian Glipkowski is an author, researcher, and futurist passionate about the role of questions and answers in business and society. To learn more about Dr. Brian Glibkowski, please visit raiseyouraq.com. You're back on the Big Success Podcast. I'm Brad Sugars, Dr. Brian Glibkowski. See, I got it out right there, Brian.

21:59Working with improv comedians and prep work. Tell me more about why prep work or how that works. Yeah, I have the good fortune to work with Second City folks out of Chicago of improv fame, you know, Saturday Night Live, ex-folks in that area. And we're talking about improv and how it relates to answer intelligence. And there's some parallels. So with improv, the way it works is there's preparation. So you do a mountain of preparation, you understand things. And there's principles that set on top of that preparation when you're live in the improv, principles like yes and. You always go forward.

22:36It's like an improv. Oh, we're in a ballroom. You know, the other person doesn't say, no, we're not in a ballroom. We're in a dungeon. that doesn't work. You go with the flow. Now, how that relates to AQ is you can prepare ahead of time, understand questions and answers, understand six answers, say, for value proposition. But then you get into the actual conversation and the lesser of us are going to follow scripts. But what AQ is, is an operating framework. And there's principles of how you navigate conversation. So that's similar to the yes and. And the principles are things like, know the best answer for a given question or answer twice to appeal to the left and right side of the brain, logical and emotional.

23:18So those that are operating at the highest level of AQ are not using scripts. They are using it as an operating framework to navigate conversations and be sort of in the conversation in real time, dynamically adjusting and changing. Yeah. So if you're sitting down with a coach, let's example, because that's us, that's me. How much prep work should a coach put into learning questions and studying the whole what questions lead the right way and what questions get the right answers? Yeah, that's a big question. We have a lot of coaches we work with. The way I'll answer it is the following. I think, first of all, coaches should understand the framework questions and answers.

24:04So if they're asking a client, why do you want to be a leader? they're looking for a story or theory. So you want to map it. You want to know that. Second, I think it's permissible for coaches and a good idea for coaches to provide answers on occasion. And you can do it in non-biasing ways. One of our coaches that I work with told me that his goal of coaching is to accelerate things. So if he can provide an answer to someone to accelerate their process and learning, he'll do it. Because sometimes the coachee doesn't know the answer. So imagine if you provide a metaphor about what strategy is for the coachee and all of a sudden that moves them, accelerates them to a new place.

24:44So what this means is that I think a coach not only has to understand how questions and answers map to each other, but an effective coach has experience in the real world and they have answers they can bring to the table. And that's a value add. And I know, you know, speaking with several action coaches, I know that's what they bring is sort of real world experiences. Yeah. One of the interesting things, and it came up for me, not in the book, but when you were speaking, giving the answer before asking the question sort of thing or leading their answer by giving an answer before the question. Can you teach me a bit more about that?

25:21Yeah. So what this gets at is sort of the subtle art of this. We're so used to questions coming first, then answers, but you can revert that. You can have an answer first in a sense. And for example, let's stick with sales since we talked about this. Imagine you start a sales meeting with a story as the seller. What does that do? It sets the context within which they ask subsequent questions. So you're narrowing the scope, right? And actually, in point of fact, you're asking a question perhaps to an, you're providing an answer to that story to an implicit question or even a latent question, a question they should be asking, but they're not asking.

25:58So in the hands of like a masterful coach or communicator, you can provide an answer first and that's okay. So let's talk about scaling up. And I want to use the question and answer philosophy to talk about scaling up. what is in your experience what's the difference between someone who asks the little question and someone who asks the massive question either of themselves or you know some people ask how do I get dinner tonight and other people ask how do I change the world what's your experience on the difference of the people yeah I think um you know I think it's really a simple formula the the people that are effective here to forward questions and answers sort of knew it intuitively.