The following excerpt from the book, Return on Experience, discusses using the ROX model in a leadership role to help others discover how to be their best.

ROX 5: Leadership
Transmitting Wisdom Through Questions

Many leaders, managers, and agents of change say they want to master the ROX model because they “need a powerful tool for improving performance.” Not their performance, mind you-the performance of others. They are less interested in changing themselves than in changing the people around them. As Chuck, a county supervisor, confessed, “I want to get my staff to do what’s expected of them.”

I couldn’t help joking, “Don’t we all?”

It’s human nature to want to be in control-to manage the world in such a way that we achieve our objectives without interference. And yet, as the Intelligent Outcome model has shown, not everything lies within our personal control. Especially other people.

We cannot control the attitudes, actions, or performance of others any more than we can manage the weather. This inconvenient truth often comes as a shock to hard-charging executives who think they’ve got their staffs on a string. What Chuck was about to discover is what all true leaders come to understand: The only person you can control is yourself.

Having now used the first four levels of the ROX model to …

ROX 1: Tap into your own personal power

ROX 2: Translate your power into knowledge

ROX 3: Transfer that knowledge to the current situation

ROX 4: Transform your results through mindful action…

you are in the perfect position to use the ROX model in a leadership role

Truly great leaders inspire greatness not by telling people what to do, but by asking the key coaching questions that you are beginning to ask yourself. The Three Magic Questions that led you from The Intelligent Outcome into ROX 1  (What do you want? What do you need? When have you experienced that?) become a magic leadership wand at ROX 5. This chapter explores how you can use the ROX model, in part or as a whole, to help others discover how to be their best-in work, in life, and in the world.

Your Return on Experience at ROX 5: Leadership.

From Self to Other

Self-awareness is the first step toward positive change.

This often-made point is oft-overlooked by even the most well-intentioned souls. I have met graduates of many respected leadership programs who still think of leading as telling the people “below” them what to do. Granted, there are always situations in which a strong hand and cool head can mean the difference between life and death or profit and loss. And yet a hammer is not a management tool. Leaders who earn the greatest loyalty and respect have learned how to bring out the best in others by virtue of the work they have done on themselves.

Just think of the people who have inspired you the most-a parent, relative, friend, teacher, mentor, supervisor, public figure, or even a fictional character whose positive influence stays with you still. Allow a memory to enter your mind, and remember what that leader said, did, and stood for that deeply inspired you. Now contrast that with the memory of a person whose negative influence thwarted, stunted, or discouraged your growth.

What’s the difference that made the difference in you?

For me, an early negative influence came from Mrs. Dobrinski, a curmudgeonly old art teacher who held evening watercolor classes in a home studio crammed with landscape paintings that all looked alike. After weeks of dipping my brush in doubt, I waited nervously as Mrs. Dobrinski harrumphed her way to the back of the room to inspect my miniature canvas. There, with several devastating strokes, she turned my juvenile rendering of a red barn and blossoming cherry tree into one of her assembly-line prints.

“Now, doesn’t that look better?” she asked rhetorically. I never picked up a paint brush again.

Conversely, I was inspired to make journalism my first career by an equally demanding newspaper editor-turned-high-school-journalism teacher, Mrs. Fluharty (real name), who spilled as much red ink on my work as Mrs. Dobrinski had splayed red paint. What critical difference between these two teachers made the critical difference in me? Mrs. Fluharty honed my editorial skills not by telling me what to do or (worse) by re-doing my story herself, but by asking me the clarifying questions covered in any good newspaper lead: who, what, where, where, why, how? In digging for the answers, I learned to draw out valuable distinctions and truths from my subjects, as well as from myself.

The principle behind ROX 5 captures the essence of leadership: Success inspires success.

At this fifth and final stage of the ROX model, the focus shifts from self to others as you share what you have learned about the power of experience to transform results. Having now completed the self-work exercises from ROX 1 through ROX 4, you understand how to tap, translate, and transfer best practices from various parts of your life to the present situation in order to transform your results. Even if you haven’t yet reached your desired destination, you know you have the power to get there. At ROX 5, you transmit that selfsame power to other people by virtue of the questions you ask.

Notice that I am assuming (not assessing) that you have completed all of the self-work assignments thus far. Should you be one of those intellectually restless readers who likes to read books from back to front, be advised that while starting at ROX 5 won’t spoil the book’s ending, it will defeat the main point. Just ask Chuck, the county supervisor mentioned earlier, what happens when you skip over your own self-work and try to change other people first.

Chuck was one of five county government executives who had joined a 90-minute conference call in which I introduced the ROX model. When I asked for a volunteer to be coached, he was the first to volunteer.

Three times I asked Chuck to state what outcome he wanted from this conversation, and all three times he said that he wanted his employees “to meet expectations.” His expectations. Consider that in Intelligent Outcome^TM terms. Was Chuck using his head in setting that outcome, or preparing to bang it against the wall?

While I could have started anywhere in the model, I began with the Intelligent Outcome’s third criterion [Controllable], asking Chuck: “Can you could control whether or not your employees meet your expectations?”

“Absolutely,” he answered.

“How can you control that?” I asked.

“If they don’t perform, I can fire their behinds.” I couldn’t tell whether he was kidding or not.

“Yes, you certainly can fire them,” I concurred. “Whether they stay or go is within your control. But can you control how well they perform?”

Chuck finally admitted that he couldn’t control that.

“So, Chuck, focusing on what you can control, what outcome do you want from this conversation?”

“I want to acquire another coaching tool to use with my staff.”

Great. That outcome was squarely within Chuck’s control. I continued, “And what is important to you about acquiring another coaching tool?” [Valuable]

“I want to manage my staff in such a way that they do what’s expected of them,” he said. “That’s what the county expects of me.”

Talk about a common Catch-22.

Most bosses are judged on the basis of something they cannot control: their employees’ performance. Perhaps you’re in that untenable position yourself. If so, then how can you use the ROX model in a leadership role to bring out the best in your people?

You and Chuck are about to find out.

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Visit the Return on Experience page on this site for an overview of the ROX model. Read the book’s Table of Contents.  Read the Chapter Summaries.

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Copyright 2009, Carol Goldsmith, The Discovery Coach.