The Three Questions to Ask for Breakthrough Performance

The Ordinary Answers

There are three standard responses to the question:

1. The source of poor performance is that we haven’t done enough.

The answer: Do more of what we are currently doing.

Or

2. The source of poor performance is that we’re doing the wrong things.

The answer: Do something different than what we are currently doing.

Or

3. The source of poor performance is that we are not doing what we are doing well.

The answer: Do the same thing better.

Those are the ordinary answers. More, better or different--sound familiar?

Three Breakthrough Questions

All of the three answers above share something in common. They all ignore the context in which the action that produces the results and the performance is occurring.

Context is the unseen but powerful structure of thinking in which the action occurs. It is the frame. The frame determines what is and what is not possible.

If the context for safety in your company is (silently and in the background, but nonetheless real) “accidents are inevitable,” then all the work on safety you do will be consistent with that context. Improving lagging indicators can happen and does happen in this context. But what is not possible is eliminating accidents, no matter what is said or done.

So, breakthrough questions are:

Question 1: “What is the current context for action?”

Question 2:“Am I/we willing to take responsibility for that context?”

Question 3: “What context, if created, would allow for something currently considered impossible to be possible?"

If the context for manned flight is “what allows flight is being lighter than air,” the only things possible are balloons. Inside the context “what allows flight is wing design and velocity,” airplanes emerge.

What’s your context? What’s your breakthrough?