CHAPTER 9

Challenge, Question, Be Curious

The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.

—Albert Einstein

Good development practice relies on asking good questions and, more importantly, asking the right questions. The same is true in all aspects of life. Whether it is the CEO asking the right questions of their team to get a picture of what is really going on; managers asking the right questions to get commitment from their team on the tasks that are being completed; employees asking the right questions of their managers to make sure that they understanding what they are really achieving in carrying out a task; or a trainer asking the right questions to understand the nub of the development issue. Questions are important for efficiency and effectiveness. They are powerful tools. Asking the right questions can engage and motivate the person being asked the question into action. Asking the wrong questions can lead to misunderstanding, wrong assumptions, and actions that take you in the wrong direction and asking an unreasonable question leads to answers that are unhelpful or which lack wisdom.

The Right Type of Question

In his book, A More Beautiful Question, Berger (2014) argues that, “one good question . . . can generate whole new fields of inquiry and can prompt changes in entrenched thinking. Answers, on the other hand, often end the process.” The key to asking the right question is to be clear on the reason why you are asking the question in the first place. What is your intention? Knowing why you are asking questions will help you to choose your questions well. For example, when something goes wrong, you could ask:

1. Why does this keep happening?
2. What’s wrong with you?
3. Why did you do that?

As soon as we ask these questions, our brains go to work, serving up automatic answers. The answers are part of our mental models, the way in which we filter information to reinforce our current view of the world. Rather than thinking around the problem, the questions reinforce the assumptions we have already made about why the problem happened. But ask different questions, and we can challenge our perspective. Mezirow (1991) describes perspective transformation as a situation where an individual is freed from their assumptions, which have been developed as a result of their upbringing. Good questions, correctly framed can cause you to become critically aware of how your current thinking is distorted and, as a result, may be impacting negatively on your problem solving and decision-making. As you engage in a process of critical reflection prompted by these questions, they have the ability to transform your frames of reference and develop new perspectives. If you don’t confront your habits of mind and frames of reference through a process of critical reflection, learning cannot be transformative and you remain stuck in familiar patterns of thinking.

Berger (2014) suggests that there are three kinds of questions that are effective:

• Why Questions inspire innovation and give you a new perspective resulting in new solutions being found when you refuse to accept the existing reality.
• What if Questions help to release you from what you think you already know, reveal possibilities, and open the door to the development of fresh approaches.
• How Questions enable you to test ideas to create new ways of doing things beyond what has been done before.

Questions enable us to traverse an increasing complex business environment, which demands new solutions to new problems and requires us to be purposeful in our endeavors. A good question, therefore, is essential if we are to prompt change, challenge the familiar, and create a curiosity for the new.

If You Think You Have All the Answers, You Haven’t Asked All the Questions

Janis (1972) suggested that when a team makes a decision, it is possible that it can be impacted by a phenomenon called groupthink.This is where people engage in a negative cycle of decision-making, which is driven by a failure by the group as whole to test the reality upon which they are basing group decisions. The end result can be catastrophic where teams fail to weigh decisions properly and make false judgments based upon societal norms of moral judgment. Rather than challenging wrong-headed thinking, within a team, which has succumbed to groupthink, you may find yourself bowing to group pressure against your better judgment. In a particular situation or context, this may lead you to begin to rely on others to make important decisions without discussion or question. Teams who succumb to groupthink are prone to downplaying negative feedback, rewarding conformity, and suppressing unpopular ideas or information that contradicts the group’s perceived truth. This links to the current issues with populist fake news stories, whereby individuals get all their information from the same source, and live in social media bubbles. If anyone questions the validity of claims by the group then the combative response from others will pressure an individual to stay on message. In the end, reason loses and challenge becomes dangerous. Our sources of information confirm what we already believe to be true, and when our version of the truth is under threat, we stop asking questions, but this limits our thinking and our ability to experience transformative learning.

As individuals, it is important that we challenge our thinking on a regular basis. Assuming that we know what we already know happens when we fail to ask questions. In order to remain curious, we must continue to ask questions to gain a more holistic understanding of a particular issue. For example, if you are asked “What’s wrong with you?”, there is an assumption by the person asking the question that the problem lies with you. In their mind, they may already have a list of possible answers. Maybe, it’s because:

• You’re too slow/quick to act.
• You’re inexperienced/overqualified.
• You’re too assertive/passive.

But what if, what is wrong is not you, but the behavior or actions taken by another person. Maybe, they are inexperienced and, as a result, you find their decision making flawed, given your own understanding. In a situation where someone is performing poorly, an assumption that you are too passive means that whatever the question that is asked, the answers you give will reinforce the assumptions made and provide an excuse for the person to ask the question to determine that your passivity is the reason why you are not delivering the results you should. But different questions would prompt different responses and bring clarity to the situation. For example, if someone is not performing you could ask:

1. How clear are you about what you were asked to do? Which introduces the possibility that there was miscommunication or a lack of communication in setting the task.
2. What are the two or three attributes that made you the best person to do the task I set? Which opens up the qualities that can enable the individual to successful achieve a task.
3. How can I follow-up in a way that makes it easier for you to ask for help? If the situation has changed, or the framing of the task doesn’t fit the reality of the situation, this question creates a line of communication to reconfigure the task with the reality of the context.
4. How could my apparent liabilities really be an asset in this situation? As explored in Chapter 8, embracing our weaknesses makes us able to play our strengths.

These questions and others are constructive or are focused on appreciative inquiry (AI) empowering used to and new possibilities. They lead to action. And they will produce positive results. The last question is particularly challenging because it asks you to reveal those parts of you that we might be trying to hide. But, they can be an asset, for example, if you don’t have enough experience, you aren’t locked into the same assumptions as more experienced employees. It is easier for you to think outside a box you are not in and approach problems with a fresh perspective. There are four ways you can ask better, more empowering questions:

1. Become conscious of the questions you are asking.
2. Evaluate these questions: Is this a good question? If not, what’s a better one?
3. Choose the better question; be intentional.
4. Consider the answers that are given in response to your questions; act on these insights.

Questions provide the key to unlocking our unlimited potential.

—Anthony Robbins

Manage Your Career Tool #10 – Seeking Success in Your Own System

David Cooperider said that, “we live in the world our questions create” (Adams, 2004). The AI is a method that uses questions to recognize the best of what is in people and is in the world around us. It is a process, which enables the participants to focus on strengths, successes, and our potential through the provision of a positive framework, using carefully crafted questions to help shape our perception. Although an AI process would typically take place over several days and be used in a group situation, appreciative questions are a useful tool for focusing your attention and enabling curiosity to set in motion creative and productive energy. This tool uses several appreciative questions to help you generate solutions and carry forward the best of your past and makes the optimal use of your current resources. There are four tasks for you to complete:

• Best experience
• Values
• Core life-giving factor or values.
• Three wishes

This tool seeks to help you explore you past and present capabilities and focuses attention on your achievements, strengths, opportunities, and unexplored potential to elevate your thoughts and harness your innovative thinking.

Task 1 – Best Experience

Tell a story about the best times that you have had in your career and personal development. Looking at your entire experience, recall a time when you felt most alive, most involved, or most excited about your involvement. What made it an exciting experience? Who was involved? Describe the event in detail. Recall a story about an exceptional empowering experience in your life. What made it remarkable?

Task 2 – Values

What are the things you value deeply–specifically, the things you value about yourself, your family, your work, and your personal development?

Task 3 – Core Life-Giving Factor or Value

What do you think is the core life-giving factor or value of your career or personal development? What is it that, if it did not exist, would make your career or personal development totally different than it currently is?

Task 4 – Three Wishes

If you had three wishes for your career or personal development, what would they be?