Power Questions: Build Relationships, Win New Business, and Influence Others

What in your life has given you the greatest fulfillment? Then sit
back. Just listen. You will uncover a treasure chest of conversational
gems.
Suggestions for How to Use This Question
“What in your life has given you the greatest
fulfillment?”
A sense of fulfillment is different from a feeling of accomplishment or happiness.
Fulfillment comes from achieving your hopes and dreams. It reflects a state of
completeness or wholeness. It's when you have a sense of deep satisfaction.
When you ask someone about what fulfills them, it opens the door to exploring
something that is invariably very special to that person. It creates a powerful
connection, like sharing a relaxed meal or spending an intimate evening together.
When to use the question
To build a more personal connection with someone at work or in a professional
setting.
To get to know any of your friends and family better.
Alternative versions of the question
“What in your life gives you your greatest sense of satisfaction?”

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“What is the most fulfilling. . .(relationship, experience, job, etc.) that you've
ever had?”
“What experience affected you the most in your life?”
Follow-up questions:
“Say more about that. What was especially fulfilling about it?”
“Is there anything else that has also been deeply fulfilling for you?”

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11
Is This the Best You Can Do?
It is late 1983. Apple Computer is about to announce the Macintosh. Its
innovative features—a mouse you move with your hand, a graphic user
interface, and more—will shape the world of personal computers for
decades to come.
Let me set the scene.
Steve Jobs loved to introduce his new, innovative products with a roaring
media splash. No one could rival his sense of drama—the roll of drums, the
trumpets signaling a new day.
Now I want you to think back to Super Bowl XVIII, 1984. Very few will
remember who played. Even fewer, the score.
But no one who saw it will forget the Apple commercial. A woman in a
track suit races into an auditorium filled with drone-like people. She hurls a
sledgehammer into a giant movie screen that shows the talking head of an
authoritarian dictator. That commercial is now nearly two decades old. It
won all sorts of awards. The video of it has become a cult thing, still
causing a buzz.
At Apple headquarters, in the months leading up to the launch and the
commercial, the staff is working at a frenzied pace. Sleepless nights.
Lunches at the worktable. Steve Jobs is relentlessly prowling the hallways.
“Make it better. Even better,” Jobs exhorts his product developers.
Jobs always demanded that every Apple product be exceptional. His zeal
to produce “insanely great” products was a powerful, unrelenting force
during his two long stints as Apple chief executive. Extraordinarily, he
revolutionized not one but five industries: desktop computing, music, cell
phones, retailing, and even cartoon animation (through Pixar).
Let me tell you what happened one day. He visited the cubicle of the
Macintosh's chief engineer. “Boot it up,” he tells him. He refers to the

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working model of the soon-to-be revolutionary new desktop computer that
sits on the engineer's desk.
It takes several minutes to start up. That's because it needs to test its
memory, initialize the operating system, and perform other start-up tasks.
“You have to make it boot faster,” Jobs tells him. He walks away.
Weeks later, after working tirelessly to improve the computer's efficiency,
the engineer proudly shows Jobs how they have managed to slightly
decrease the boot time.
“Is that the best you can do?” Jobs asks him. He turns around and
brusquely leaves.
After many sleepless nights, the Macintosh team manages to shave a few
more seconds off. When they meet again with Jobs, he is still not satisfied.
But instead of berating them further, he simply stares at the prototype with a
far-off look in his eyes. He is lost in thought. When the engineer starts to
explain a few ways they might be able to further improve the boot time,
Jobs interrupts.
“I've been thinking about this,” he says, his voice rising with excitement.
“How many people are going to be using the Macintosh? A million? No, in
a few years, I bet 5 million people will be booting up their Macintoshes at
least once a day. Well, let's say you can shave 10 seconds off the boot time.
Multiply that by 5 million users and that's 50 million seconds, every single
day. Over a year, that's dozens of lifetimes. So if you make it boot 10
seconds faster, you've saved at least a dozen lives.”
Jobs concludes by saying, “So it's worth it to cut another 10 seconds!”
They don't think it's possible. But the Macintosh engineers are inspired—
no, driven—by Job's fervent desire to save humanity from billions of
wasted seconds. They recommit themselves to the effort, and within days
they successfully shorten the boot time by another 10 seconds.
Steve Jobs passed away on October 5th, 2011 at the age of 56. Because of
his unparalleled innovation and drive, Apple became the most valuable
technology company in the world. Thanks to Jobs, the question, “Is this the
best we can do?” infuses its corporate culture.
How many of the people around you at work are actually doing their
best?

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Eleven years before the launch of the Macintosh, Secretary of State Henry
Kissinger picks up the phone to call his special assistant, Winston Lord, into
his office.
Lord is a man of considerable intellect. He will go on to become
ambassador to China and also a U.S. congressman. Kissinger has a
straightforward, even routine request: He asks Lord to write a presidential
foreign policy report. Lord knows his boss demands the best from everyone
who works for him, but even he is unprepared for what happens next.
(Perhaps Lord forgot that Kissinger's extraordinary thesis as an
undergraduate at Harvard was entitled “The Meaning of History” and was
no less than 377 pages long!).
Lord himself tells the story:
I developed a good draft of the policy report, and turned it in to
Kissinger. He calls me in the next day and says, “Is this the best you
can do?” I say, “Henry, I thought so, but I'll try again.” So I go back in
a few days with another draft. He calls me in the next day and he says,
“Are you sure this is the best you can do?” I say, “Well, I really
thought so. I'll try one more time.” Anyway, this goes on eight times,
eight drafts; each time he says, “Is this the best you can do?” So I go in
there with a ninth draft, and when he calls me in the next day and asks
me that same question, I really get exasperated and I say, “Henry, I've
beaten my brains out—this is the ninth draft. I know it's the best I can
do: I can't possibly improve one more word.” He then looks at me and
says, “In that case, now I'll read it.”
1
Kissinger was a taskmaster. But there is no question that those who
worked for him produced the best, highest-quality work of their lives. Small
wonder. They were a crack, superb team. But most important was
Kissinger's admonishment—“Is this the best you can do?”
This is an exceptional power question. Use it sparingly and carefully—it
can drive someone nearly mad. But use it. You will help others achieve
things they did not believe possible.
When you want to push someone to exercise their abilities to the
maximum—when you need their best possible work, ask: “Is this the