Three Questions That Reveal What Matters Most to Your Team

Here is a thing that happens in almost every leadership conversation I have ever been part of. Someone will say, usually with great confidence, "I know my team. I have worked with these people for years." But when we ask their team three simple questions, everyone in the room is surprised by the answers, including the person who just made that claim.

It turns out that knowing someone and knowing what they value are two very different things.

The short video below walks you through what we call the Three Telltale Questions. We have tested them with everyone from Wall Street hedge fund investors to teams at the United Nations to clients like PayPal and Google. The questions work because they create a conversational shortcut to something that usually takes years to figure out: what actually drives the people around you.

Watch the video…

Ask the questions. Then stop talking.

That second part is harder than it sounds. Most leaders are trained to facilitate, to prompt, to draw out answers. With these questions, your job is just to listen. The themes that emerge in the answers are people's values bubbling to the surface.

The first question (why do you go to work?) sounds almost too simple. But pay attention to what people say. One person says "my family." Another says "because I feel like I'm making a difference." A third says "because this is where my creativity lives." Those answers are a window into the values that shape every decision that person makes, every day.

The second question is a bit more unexpected. Why would you give away half your lottery winnings? Not who would you give it to, but why. This one tends to catch people off guard: the answers reveal values around things like Belonging, Community, and Service to Others. Sometimes you will hear things about Creativity. Sometimes about Loyalty. Listen for the emotional weight behind the reasoning, not just the words.

The third question is my personal favourite. What would you say to your 10-years-ago self? And more importantly, why would you say that? This one will surface the values people have learned the hard way, the ones they hold most fiercely. You will hear things that surprise you about people you thought you knew completely.

What to do with what you learn

Once you start running these questions with your team in one-on-ones, team meetings, or even informal conversations, you will start to see patterns. And those patterns are telling you something important. They are telling you what kind of work energizes people. What kind of recognition actually means something to them. What kind of culture they are hoping to be part of.

Leadership, at its best, is a values alignment challenge. When culture lines up with what matters most to the people inside it, everything gets easier. People work harder, stay longer, collaborate better, and bring more of themselves to the job.

The Three Telltale Questions are a starting point. They will not give you a full picture: that is what a proper Valuegraphics study is for. But they will give you a head start that most leaders never get.

Watch the video, then try the questions. You will be surprised by what you learn about the people you already thought you knew.

Because values are the answer, no matter what the question is.

And when you know what the people around you value, you can engage, motivate, inspire, and influence what they do, and how they do it.