Quiet Leadership: Six Steps to Transforming Performance at Work

by David Rock (2006)

Notes compiled by Marti Benjamin, MBA, Professional Certified Coach

This book is for busy leaders who want to improve their employees' performance, and are ready to try something new. Rock bases his six-step process on recent discoveries about how the brain works, a shift in thinking practice and a new approach to every conversation leaders have with their employees.

While our businesses today are comprised of employees paid to think, we still use processes from the industrial age when employees were hired for physical labor. The processes we use drive the behaviors that produce the results we see; if we are to change the results, we have to explore what is beneath the surface of behavior. To change behaviors and results, the thinking that lies beneath the surface must change.

"Scientists have discovered that our brain is a connection machinefinding associations, connections and links between bits of information." (page 3) We are constantly reading our internal maps or creating new ones to build connections between our thoughts, memories, skills and attributes. The quiet leader is the one who encourages people to think things through for themselves, promoting the creation of new mental maps.

We now have seen that our brain pushes things into long-term memory because it can only hold a few thoughts in working memory at any given time; perhaps as few as seven thoughts can occupy the working memory before something has to move out to make room for new inputs. So, if the brain determines that something is important or sees a repeated pattern, it tries to hard wire it to make room for future use. Once hard wired, our brain returns to that pattern or connection whenever possible because that is the most efficient use of energy. We process new information in light of existing connections and then try to fit the data into our existing framework.

Fighting that existing wiring to create new patterns is difficult and usually fruitless. In fact, it is worse than fruitless; trying to sort through the underlying thinking just serves to deepen the connections and reinforce the hard wiring. "There is another way: We can leave the problem wiring where it is, and focus wholly and completely on the creation of new wiring. This is just what happens in the brain when we are solutions-focused." (page 21)

Our brains are rewiring constantly-second by second, in response to everything going on around us. Creating new hardwiring is a matter of giving our new mental map enough attention for a long enough period to ensure that it becomes embedded. (page 24) The web of links thickens and spreads when we think about an idea, write it down, talk about it and take action on it.

The old wiring shrinks from non-use. "So if you want to change your habits, just give less energy to the habits you don't like...Meanwhile, clearly define the new connections you'd like to foster and get to work at turning these into long-term habits." (page 25)

The best way to enable people to have their own insights is to focus on solutions rather than problems. When new insights emerge, the quiet leader provides encouragement, ongoing support and belief in people, over time, to ensure they develop the new habits that are possible.

Six-Step Process
"The Six Steps describes a new way for leaders to have conversations when they truly want to make a difference in another's performance." (page 31)

Step One: Thinking About Thinking
This is the single most important of the six steps. Let the other person think through their issue rather than telling them what to think or to do. This self-directed approach is the way we learn, think, create, visualize and solve problems. "Any time you feel yourself about to give advice, or about to tell a person what you would do, or wanting to share your experience or opinion" a self-directed approach is indicated.

Change requires stretching beyond the comfort zone. Creating new brain circuits requires energy and focus and use of the conscious mind. Getting there may be through discomfort, uncertainty and even frustration and fear. Balance these uncomfortable feelings with encouragement and enough successes to provide the motivation to continue.

Rock offers four questions that offer acknowledgement and useful feedback to help accentuate the positive: "What did you do well, and what did you discover about yourself as a result? What were the highlights of this project and what did you learn? What went well and would you like to talk about how to do more of this? What did you do well and what impact do you think this had on everyone else?" (page 63) Notice there are no questions in this process about what would you do better next time! That question only reinforces the old connections and the self-criticism going on and does not open thinking to solutions.

Establish clear expectations and plan for success in every conversation you have. Choose your focus by choosing to stay in the mode of vision thinking, planning and the details of doing.

Step Two: Listen for Potential
Unless you consciously choose to listen differently, your natural inclination will be to listen for things that support your existing theories. Listening for potential requires staying above the details, to separate our listening from whatever agenda we might have (e.g., "I need John to produce more sales right now") and to distance our listening from our own emotional hot spots.

Step Three: Speak with Intent
In speaking, be succinct to reduce wasted time and energy in the conversation; use visual language and metaphors to paint the picture you are conveying. Be specific and use words that will have the biggest positive impact on the other person. (page 94) These guidelines apply to electronic communication as well as the spoken word.

Step Four: Dance Toward Insight
This step helps others make new connections, keeping them on track for seeing new possibilities. The process begins with establishing permission for exploring a topic, particularly those that carry an emotional charge for either party. Rock calls the next step, placement: "...defining exactly where you are and what's about to happen next, so that the people are thinking about exactly the same issues from similar perspectives." (page 118)

Ask thinking questions, literally, questions about thinking. For example, "How important is this issue to you, on a scale of one to ten?" and "How committed to resolving this are you?" These questions stay out of details and problem orientation and do not tell people how they should think. Rather, they stimulate thinking about the thinking process itself.

Clarify, voicing the essence of what is being said. Listen for patterns, not details, and identify the learning going on in the speaker.

Step Five: Create New Thinking
Using the acronym CREATE, Rock breaks the steps down: explore the Current Reality (the reality of the thinking itself), Explore Alternatives (seeking the best action for moving from insight to action), Tap their Energy (stimulate motivation). (page 152)

Step Six: Follow Up
The most important reason to follow up is to support the growth of a new way of thinking that leads to greater performance. Check in on the facts and emotions, provide generous encouragement, find out what was learned and the implications of the insight, and identify the next goal.

Throughout this book, David Rock offers exercises for the reader, sample dialogue and thought-provoking questions. He combines recent research about brain function with the concepts of leadership to create deeper understanding of why leaders must work on thinking skills, rather than doing skills. Such a transformation serves both the organization and the individuals within.

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©2008, Marti Benjamin