The Power of Questions - Bridge Builders or Chasm Creators

How do we design questions to open up discussion?

When I was a child my mother told me bedtime stories. She created them from our day, what we had said and what we had done.

As the youngest of five, I loved stories about my older brothers, their adventures and their questions. My youngest brother asked the deepest and most challenging ones. He was five when he asked “What’s Life for Mummy?” It so unsettled Mary, my mother, that she asked the local vicar how she should respond. Strangely I’ve forgotten what he said.

But the remembering of the question is what matters here. It’s perfection; simple, concise, fearless. The language is simple, the question is concise, just four words. And the content - It’s fearless.

Fearless questions are the ones where you mute your self-criticism - “I should know this”. “Oh, it’s too obvious.” - because somehow you know that Carl Sagan was right. “There is no such thing as a dumb question.”

Fearless questions are the ones where you leave your assumptions at the door. Your curiosity to understand more, your need to connect more fully, your desire to communicate more honestly lets you frame your question without a leading curve or caveat.

Fearless questions are the ones that take time to craft. Simplicity requires you pause. The expectation in the room fizzes. All eyes are on you. You alone can open up the discussion, tune everyone into their best thinking. And you pause. And you wait. And you gather your words with purpose and without rush.

Fearless questions are the ones that can challenge and provoke. They can come from compassion, yet equally the provocative question can be seeded in fear, and nurtured in ignorance.

How do we design our questions to open up discussion, to fuel understanding while acknowledging diverse realities, to grow shared knowledge while appreciating what we still have to learn from one another.

What is the difference between genuine enquiry and prurient curiosity?

One asks because without the asking you are lesser, closed, isolated. Here is the bridge.

The other asks because with the asking you make the other lesser, closed, isolated. Here is the chasm.

What are your questions - bridge builders or chasm creators?

Bridge Builders or Chasm Creators

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