Positive Questions

The ability to ask good questions about performance appears to be an important skill for leaders wishing to demonstrate their interest in supporting behavioral safety. We have also seen leaders who ask ineffective questions in their efforts to monitor performance. The difference is that effective questions make employees feel that the leader cares about what is happening while ineffective questions make them feel interrogated or grilled. Positive questions are helpful while ineffective questions make listeners feel defensive. Positive questions are likely to prompt openness and honesty while ineffective questions are likely to prompt listeners to provide excuses, rationalizations, and as little real information as possible. 

In trying to find the difference between these two types of questions, we have noticed fliat managers who ask questions that start with what or how get better responses than managers that ask questions that start with why. We have also found this to pertain in training observers in behavioral safety. While we are always very interested in having observers identify the root causes of at-risk behaviors, asking why nevertheless often puts employees on the defensive. 

In addition, second-person ( you -oriented) questions are more likely to get listeners to talk about their performance. Thus, a monitoring question early in the discussion for someone who is struggling with a safety problem might be something like What have you tried so far  

Listeners also respond positively to questions that seek solutions and focus on the desired outcome or behavior. Such questions are more likely to be perceived as helpful while questions that are focused on the problem are perceived as seeking to find fault or place blame. Positive questions often quickly shift the focus from what has been done in the past to the future, such as current plans or what needs to be done. An effective question in continuing the discussion following the response to the question in the previous paragraph might be What are you planning to do next  

In creating a natural dialogue, the exemplary leader asks questions that fit the situation. Effective questions come naturally in the context of direct observations. 

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No reviewer, however, was uniformly enthusiastic. Some took issue with what they saw as Willstatter s collective condemnation of an entire population. Stadlinger, while extremely positive, questioned Willstatter s generalizations about German and Christian behavior during the Third Reich. He reminded his readers that, notwithstanding Willstatter s harsh treatment as a Jew. ... 

The informal structure serves to improve communication and to develop non-official roles. It has an important part to play in the resolution of conflicts between roles and positions. Questions raised in the formal... 

The informal structure serves to improve communication and to develop non-official roles. It has an important part to play in the resolution of conflicts between roles and positions. Questions raised in the formal organisation often elicit answers that rely on the informal structure. Questions such as whaPs the best way to get this information or who can get this done produce answers that cut right across the formal structure - but get the job done. 

Accordingly, leaders can easily ask effective questions that fit the situation in the context of touring work areas. Positive questions and resulting feedback then flow naturally and build on one another as the conversation progresses. Leaders who use questions effectively also often start by seeking broad general information, then gradually drill down into more specific details. 

A further preliminary statement to this section would be that, somewhat analogously to classical physics or mechanics where positions and momenta (or velocities) are the two conjugate variables that determine the motion, moduli and phases play similar roles. But the analogy is not perfect. Indeed, early on it was questioned, apparently first by Pauli [104], whether a wave function can be constructed from the knowledge of a set of moduli alone. It was then argued by Lamb [105] that from a set of values of wave function moduli and of their rates... 

To return to the simple picture of vertical excitation, the question remains as to how a wavepacket can be simulated using classical trajectories A classical ensemble can be specified by its distribution in phase space, Pd(p,Q), which gives the probability of finding the system of particles with momentum p and position q. In conUast, it is strictly impossible to assign simultaneously a position and momentum to a quantum particle. 

In a mechanistic study, the aim is not to quantitatively reproduce an experiment. As a result it is not necessary to use the methods outlined above. The question here is what drives a reaction in a particular direction, or what would happen if the molecule is driven in different ways. The initial conditions are then at the disposal of the investigator to be chosen in a way to answer the relevant question, using a suitable spread of positions and energies. 

As usual there is the question of the initial conditions. In general, more than one frozen Gaussian function will be required in the initial set. In keeping with the frozen Gaussian approximation, these basis functions can be chosen by selecting the Gaussian momenta and positions from a Wigner, or other appropriate phase space, distribution. The initial expansion coefficients are then defined by the equation... 

When a model is based on a picture of an interconnected network of pores of finite size, the question arises whether it may be assumed that the composition of the gas in the pores can be represented adequately by a smooth function of position in the medium. This is always true in the dusty gas model, where the solid material is regarded as dispersed on a molecular scale in the gas, but Is by no means necessarily so when the pores are pictured more realistically, and may be long compared with gaseous mean free paths. To see this, consider a reactive catalyst pellet with Long non-branching pores. The composition at a point within a given pore is... 

Another question is whether the filled orbitals are of a bonding or antibonding character. This is displayed on a crystal orbital overlap population (COOP) plot as shown in Figure 34.3. Typically, the positive bonding region is plotted to the right of the zero line. 

Aminothiazole in its neutral form seems to be able to react in 3 different positions according to the electrophilic center considered (Scheme 146). The question of C-5 reactivity for this neutral form remains open, however, because the observed product might also be formed from the protonated form of 2-aminothiazoles. A surprising... 

In calculations of pore size from the Type IV isotherm by use of the Kelvin equation, the region of the isotherm involved is the hysteresis loop, since it is here that capillary condensation is occurring. Consequently there are two values of relative pressure for a given uptake, and the question presents itself as to what is the significance of each of the two values of r which would result from insertion of the two different values of relative pressure into Equation (3.20). Any answer to this question calls for a discussion of the origin of hysteresis, and this must be based on actual models of pore shape, since a purely thermodynamic approach cannot account for two positions of apparent equilibrium. 

We assign an index number to each of the polymer molecules and pick up the analysis of the problem after i polymer molecules have already been placed on an otherwise empty lattice. Our first question, then, concerns the number of ways the (i + l)th polymer molecule can be placed in the lattice. The polymer is to be positioned one repeat unit at a time, so it is an easy matter to count the number of available positions for the first segment of the (i + l)th molecule. Since the total lattice consists of N sites and ni of these are already occupied, the first segment of the (i + l)th molecule can be placed on any one of the N - ni remaining sites. 

An alternative chain-terminating decomposition of the tetroxide, known as the Russell mechanism (29), can occur when there is at least one hydrogen atom in an alpha position the products are a ketone, an alcohol and oxygen (eq. 15). This mechanism is troubling on theoretical grounds (1). Questions about its vaUdity remain (30), but it has received some recent support (31). 

The stmcture of the particles inside the nucleus was the next question to be addressed. One step in this direction was the discovery of the neutron in 1932 by Chadwick, and the deterrnination that the nucleus was made up of positively charged protons and uncharged neutrons. The number of protons in the nucleus is known as the atomic number, Z. The number of neutrons is denoted by A/, and the atomic mass is thus A = Z - - N. Another step toward describing the particles inside the nucleus was the introduction of two forces, namely the strong force that holds the protons and neutrons together in spite of the repulsion between the positive charges of the protons, and the weak force that produces the transmutation by P decay. 

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