I Have Questions
People are always telling me that I ask good questions. It’s quite a compliment, but it’s not something that comes automatically. I’ve gotten good at asking questions because I learned a long time ago that I don’t know very much.
I’m not being falsely humble or facetious. In the scope of all the things there are to know in this world, what I know for sure is so minuscule, so limited.
I have a distinct memory of being about seven years old, taking a bath, and pondering on life’s great big mysteries. My mom came in and I asked her when I would be old enough to know everything.
“It will never happen”, she said. “There’s so much to know that no one will ever know everything.”
How alluring!
If you assume that there’s always more to discover, that there is a lot that you don’t already know - and you become curious about those things - you don’t have much of a choice but to ask questions. And if curiosity is a practice (which, increasingly, I believe it must be), then eventually you get really good at asking questions.
And that’s the practice that brings me here, to a place where I get complimented for my curiosity. I am a facilitator and a coach, which means people hire me because there’s a big question that they’re trying to unravel.
Why do I keep defaulting to old habits? Why is my team so dysfunctional? Why does our work matter?
People hire me because they expect that I have some answers to their questions, and sometimes I do.
Most of the time, though, I have questions too.
How are your old habits serving you? What are the dysfunctional traits of your team, and how are you enabling them? What problem are you trying to solve with the work that you do?
So how do I know what questions to ask?
Well, for one thing, I take a cue from my daughter. She’s six years old now, about the same age I was when I realized there was no limit to what I could learn and explore. She is always listening, observing, and asking questions. As a slightly younger child, most of her questions started with why (Why do I have to go to bed? Why do birds fly? Why can’t I put the play dough in my ears?). It makes sense to me that kids ask a lot of why questions; it’s a big big world, and asking why is their attempt to make sense of the infinite complexity of observations, interactions, and experiences that they are exposed to.
Why is a hell of a question. I was once in a corporate meeting and the corporate people were doing their corporate things with their corporate lingo, and a new team member asked, “Why are we doing it this way"?” and it was so disruptive that the meeting ended early. But it did something else too. It made the group take a good hard look at itself and its meeting practices.
The other place I learned how to ask powerful questions was in my coaching program. There, we were trained to avoid why questions with our coaching clients, and instead use what and how questions. What difference does it make?
Imagine you are struggling in an intimate relationship, and you reach out to a friend for advice. The friend listens to you for a while, then looks at you and asks: “Why are you in this relationship?”
Eeesh, well ummm. That’s a big question, and it sounds a bit judgey, and maybe I don’t really know the answer yet.
Now rewind that scene.
You reach out to a friend for advice. The friend listens to your struggles, then asks: “What does this relationship mean to you? How is it serving or not serving your needs? How do you want to feel in this relationship? What’s one choice you could make to change the situation?”
An altogether different vibe! Now, I’m ready to go deeper.
It’s the difference between going to a pool and being pushed into the deep end, compared to starting in the wading section then dipping your head underwater then swimming, when you’re ready, to the depths. Most people don’t want a push off the high-dive and right into the deep and complex nuances of their challenges. Good questions are like floaties and goggles. They help us see better and feel more confident as we explore that hard stuff.
Functionally, asking what is really useful for exploring the identity, nature, or qualities of something. It can help people describe objects, actions, events, qualities, quantities, or ideas. How is used to explore the manner, method, or condition of something. It can help people look at the way something is done, the state or quality of something, or the extent or degree of something. Stripped down to these basic functions, a practice of curiosity that frames questions in this way opens up a world of possibilities as you begin to apply your practice in multiple areas of your life.
As a parent whose child attends public school and is growing up in tech-centric world, I know for a fact that I can’t control how my daughter receives information, or how she interprets it. I also know that I can’t make her share those things with me or force her to open up about her feelings. What I can do, however, is create safe, curiosity-fueled spaces where we can have meaningful exchanges that give her an opportunity to express and explore what’s most important to her. I’m much more likely to reach her if I get curious about her experiences and what they mean to her. I’m betting on the idea that if this remains my practice, my child and I will always have a relationship that is full of rich possibilities.
As a coach, I model curiosity with my clients because, ultimately, it’s the quality that has the likeliest odds of helping them discover their own solutions. I was recently in a coaching session with someone who leads a team working on racial equity. She was feeling challenged to know how to respond to a “resister” on her team; she was beginning to feel exhausted by the perceived need to constantly prove the merits of the work to this person while also trying to avoid being emotional or disruptive in any way. It seemed to me like a lot of work - no wonder she was tired! I asked her, “How can you release or share the burden with others?” Eventually, she responded with “I suppose I could get curious about where the resistance is coming from.” My curiosity prompted her to realize that she needed to get curious as well, with the added bonus of putting the onus on the resister to take responsibility for their own thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.
As with everything relational, boundaries and consent are super important in this practice. Sometimes, for a myriad of perfectly valid reasons that are none of your business, people aren’t ready to start swimming no matter how many floaties they have. As practitioners of curiosity, our responsibility is to be open and to hold space for what emerges. We wait for others to arrive, and then we invite them. We don’t push or pull, and when they are ready to get out, we bring them a towel. We encourage them to get back in when they are ready. This applies to any person, whether they are a first-grader to a CEO.
Recently, I gave myself a thought experiment. I wanted to see how many questions could emerge from just one powerful starting question. Here’s what I wrote:
“What would give you the greatest chance of happiness today? How will you pursue it? What signals will let you know that you are happy?”
My answers to these questions exist somewhere, and if I really focus I know I can find them. But, as with many things in this world of unknowable truths, it’s not the answers themselves that are so alluring. It’s the journey to find them that ignites me.