Rediscovering Bobb Biehl

One of my great regrets is that I have thousands of books packed away in storage an hour north of Toronto. One day when I regain office space, I plan on unpacking those books. When I do, I know I’ll find some Bomb Biehl books: Increasing Your Boardroom Confidence, Masterplanning, Mentoring, and more.

I think of these books occasionally. They came to mind again when a friend of mine mentioned a Bobb Biehl question recently. Questions are one of Biehl’s greatest tools, as evidenced in his booklet Asking Profound Questions. The question:

What 3 things can we do in the next 90 days to make a 50% difference? —Steve Douglass

This question helps you spot the boulders in your life.

Once you get the first 3 done there is always a next 3 for another quick 50%.

You can also change the question by substituting 1 year, 5 years, 10 years, or life for the 90 day time frame to get a longer range picture of your future.

That question got me thinking so much that I ended up buying a new copy of the Asking Profound Questions booklet, and looking at his other books again. The booklet offers 100 questions organized by categories like deciding, focusing, organizing, planning, and solving. The booklet ends with a list of his top 10 all-time favorite questions.

Char and I have been working on developing an entrepreneurial ministry, Gospel for Life, and we’ve recently found ourselves stuck. I was tempted to buy an online course to help us get unstuck, but I was reminded that much of what we need is already covered in his book Masterplanning. I’m also feeling overcommitted. Biehl’s questions help me diagnose what’s going on and to take action to remover the clutter. I don’t need a new program; I need to follow the wisdom that we already have in our possession. The book is sitting in my library (actually, my Logos library) waiting to be implemented.

The older I get, the more I appreciate books that stand the test of time. I don’t think Bobb Biehl is well known by many today, but his tools stand the test of time. If you aren’t familiar with him, check out his books. They’re worth owning and using. His questions booklet (in print or as an ebook) is a good place to start.