Know What, So What, Now What - Journey for Growth

In 1999, I learned a phrase that has changed the style of the way I write, think, and learn. This is not a new phrase, though it was new to me. In early 2000, I was reading books, articles, and research on leadership when I arrived at a tipping point in my life.

"Know what, so what, now what" is a powerful phrase once is it is embraced. The "know what" is a simple concept.  The way I think of it is, what information is being provided that I need to know? It could be for home life, career life, or another aspect of activities that are important. I focused on leadership and my career. I was on a mission: Find a resource that could provide information on the "know what" for my leadership journey. A person that was very influential in my life recommended John C. Maxwell's book, 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership. I have leveraged this book for the past 15 years. As I grow as a leader and develop skills, I continue to reference the book because as I grow, the book's points of reference change how I interpret it. This book continues to show me new opportunities for leadership growth. When I began my journey, I focused on the Law of Intuition; Leaders Evaluate Everything with a Leadership Bias.

I had the "know what." Next was the "so what." I knew that I wanted to leverage the law of intuition and grow in the area of intuition. As I read the book, there were some very key topics that resonated with me. There were opportunities occurring in my career and developing skills in leadership intuition were mandatory to succeed. My technique to keep book tidbits front of mind was to write the topics on index cards and carry them with me. An impacting insight from the book is that people are intuitive in their area of strength.  I needed to apply this "know what" in my career right away. I was preparing to be a people manager for the first time in my career. Relating to people and gaining understanding of their motivation has always been one of my intuitive strengths but how could I capitalize on it?

To capitalize on the "so what", I went back to the book.  By studying the Maxwell book and the examples provided, the "so what" became more evident.  This law is one of few that are based on facts and intangibles like your gut instinct that is developed over time.  Frequently, leaders will not have all the information needed to make decisions. This is where "so what" happens.  Sometimes leaders have to take some information and combine it with intuition. Colin Powell, retired army general and former secretary of state, practices this law of intuition. In his autobiography, he talks about making decisions during battle when all the information is not available.  It was often necessary to make decisions with 40-60 percent of the information and his experience to make up the difference. This is using the Law of Intuition.

"Know what" is intuition; "so what" is using experience to help make decisions when there is limited information available to make a decision.  "Now what?" Just like Colin Powell discussed, I had to put this technique into practice while leading my teams. Not every decision requires intuition. Being self-aware is important because intuition can be used to check your decision. Maxwell refers to this as leader's bias. When you leverage your intuition in areas of leadership and are better equipped to make quick decisions, there is an increase in leadership credibility. Putting this in action and reviewing decisions during a three month time frame, I was using more of my intuition. In doing so, my leadership skills were growing and I was making a difference in my career and for my employer.

Who you are as a leader dictates what you see through your leadership lens. You will have insights that others will not see. In Maxwell's book, he uses an example that makes this concept clear. In the movie The Great Outdoors. two men are sitting on a porch overlooking a lake and acres of a forest.  The man with the leadership bias towards business development sees a paper mill, condos on the lake and all that goes with a booming business.  The other man responds, "I just see trees." This is the leadership lens bias.

There is additional information in the book that provides even more examples of areas to grow leadership skills. I would encourage you to get a copy of Maxwell's book, 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership and leverage it to grow your leadership skills.

The benefit of using the "know what," "so what," "now what" approach to growing skills is that it can be used in other arenas, like raising two sons. As you know, they do not come with a manual. The more time I took to explain to the boys about rules or situations, the less discussion took place (most of the time). Do not get me wrong, I dealt with all the "Please Mom" and "But Mom" phrases just like any other mom.  However, my oldest son who is 22 and is married has referred to certain lessons he learned because he did listen to me and understood the why he needed to care. Your followers need to get to the "now what" before they'll move with you, and they usually need the "know what" and "so what" to get there.

Please let me know your thoughts regarding this post. Was this valuable?  What, if anything, did it make you question? Do you see ways that it applies to you? I look forward to hearing from you.