Week 17 Day 7: Assignment: Pick Three Questions and Use Them This Week

You do not need to implement all five questions at once. Pick the three that feel most relevant to your team right now and commit to asking them in every one-on-one this week. Write down the answers. At the end of the week, review what surfaced. You will know within one week which questions are giving you the most useful signal.

Here is how to implement this without making it feel like an interrogation. First, pick your three questions. If your team is struggling with priorities, start with 'Do you know what is expected of you?' and 'Do you have what you need?' and 'Is there anything slowing you down?' If your team seems disengaged, start with 'When was the last time you felt recognized?' and 'Is there anything you are afraid to tell me?' and 'Do you know what is expected?' Second, introduce the questions naturally. 'I am trying something new in our one-on-ones. I want to ask you a few specific questions each week so I can be a better manager. These are not evaluations -- they are check-ins. I want honest answers, not polished ones.' Third, record the answers in a simple document -- one section per person, dated entries. After four weeks, you will have enough data to see patterns. Fourth, act on at least one thing you learn each week. The questions only retain their power if the answers produce visible results. If people tell you what they need and nothing changes, the questions become theater. Add a section to your Leadership Operating Manual titled 'Weekly Health Questions' with your chosen three questions, your rationale for selecting them, and a commitment to review and potentially rotate them every quarter. This builds on the Trust Audit baseline from Week 15 and the blind spots catalogue from Week 16.

The 'pick three' approach applies the psychological principle of implementation feasibility (Bandura, 1997) -- people are more likely to adopt new behaviors when the initial commitment is achievable rather than comprehensive. Research by Fogg (2009) on behavior design demonstrates that 'tiny habits' -- small, specific behaviors anchored to existing routines -- have significantly higher adoption rates than large behavioral changes. Anchoring the questions to existing one-on-one meetings leverages what Duhigg (2012) calls 'habit stacking' -- attaching a new behavior to an established routine. The four-week review period aligns with what learning theorists call the 'consolidation phase' (McGaugh, 2000) -- the time required for a new behavior to transition from deliberate practice to automatic execution. The documentation in the Leadership Operating Manual creates what Argyris and Schon (1978) call 'double-loop learning' -- not just changing behavior (single-loop) but changing the underlying framework that guides behavior (double-loop). The quarterly rotation recommendation reflects what Kaplan and Norton (1996) call 'strategic review' -- periodic reassessment of whether the measures being tracked still align with the outcomes being sought. Over time, the questions that produce the most insight will vary as team needs evolve, and the quarterly rotation ensures the diagnostic remains relevant.