I think it’s fair to say I’m a growth junkie. It’s part addiction, part healthy hobby — always working on increasing my mindfulness and skill around something. Lately, the thing I’m examining is the art of asking good questions.
What sparked this interest in questions, you ask? For me it started at work — I am a “process consultant”, which has the strange distinction of being a form of consulting where you charge people to ask them questions and help them do their own work and find their own answers. Getting clients to see the value of paying you to ask questions and do their own work differently is not always an easy sell! Where the masters trust this approach, I still get insecure about getting paid for something other than begin an expert or a minion. Lately I’ve been noticing how my lack of mastery can trigger professional insecurity, which triggers, in my case, a patterned tendency to cover that up with coming across as knowledgable. In the exact moments when I should be pausing and listening for the question that wants to be asked, I often get nervous and make up an answer. Though this is rewarded and expected in much consulting, it’s actually counter-productive to a lot of the purpose of my work.
Ok. So what’s so great about asking questions? Clearly I’m still working on understanding the answer to this one. So I asked a colleague Beth Kanter for some advice about it. Beth told me about Edgar Shein, someone who’s studied these things for about 50 years. So I asked Amazon about Shein, and promptly immersed myself in his short and sweet little book Humble Inquiry.
What I’m learning from Shein is that asking open-ended questions rooted in genuine curiosity and acknowledgement of ignorance opens worlds of learning, innovation, connection, and trust-filled relationships. Clearly this is not the norm in our culture that rewards doing, telling, and perceived competence. It's rare to take time for relationships and acknowledge what we don’t know, especially in fast-paced work environments. But without humble inquiry, strategy is short-sighted, crucial communications don’t happen, and collaborations fail.
Now that I’ve got my eye on this pattern, I am noticing it showing up outside of work as well, and it ain't pretty. A few days ago, for example, I was at an art show and watched myself nervously “socialize" by telling people my views on some paintings. Thanks to Shein, I was aware of what I was doing, but I couldn’t stop myself! It’s a nervous tick, literally, and especially when I’m not feeling very grounded and centered in myself.
And the irony of course is my social insecurity can come across as intrusive, arrogant, self-absorbed, or intimidating — all totally unhelpful for genuine connection. Part of why this pattern has persisted though is that it has been useful and rewarded in many contexts; the clever chatter can also come across as smart, competent, confident, feisty. But lately I see how it does not serve in the kind of work I am doing as a process consultant, and as a person interested in developing more genuine connections in the workplace and beyond.
Hence, project ask don’t tell (which is somewhat at odds with project blog more often, but alas, life is full of paradox). Changing these sorts of patterns requires not just awareness, but practice, patience, self-compassion, support, humor, and willingness to slow down and get curious about life instead of imposing oneself onto it. Humbling inquiry indeed.
Any questions?!?
What sparked this interest in questions, you ask? For me it started at work — I am a “process consultant”, which has the strange distinction of being a form of consulting where you charge people to ask them questions and help them do their own work and find their own answers. Getting clients to see the value of paying you to ask questions and do their own work differently is not always an easy sell! Where the masters trust this approach, I still get insecure about getting paid for something other than begin an expert or a minion. Lately I’ve been noticing how my lack of mastery can trigger professional insecurity, which triggers, in my case, a patterned tendency to cover that up with coming across as knowledgable. In the exact moments when I should be pausing and listening for the question that wants to be asked, I often get nervous and make up an answer. Though this is rewarded and expected in much consulting, it’s actually counter-productive to a lot of the purpose of my work.
Ok. So what’s so great about asking questions? Clearly I’m still working on understanding the answer to this one. So I asked a colleague Beth Kanter for some advice about it. Beth told me about Edgar Shein, someone who’s studied these things for about 50 years. So I asked Amazon about Shein, and promptly immersed myself in his short and sweet little book Humble Inquiry.
What I’m learning from Shein is that asking open-ended questions rooted in genuine curiosity and acknowledgement of ignorance opens worlds of learning, innovation, connection, and trust-filled relationships. Clearly this is not the norm in our culture that rewards doing, telling, and perceived competence. It's rare to take time for relationships and acknowledge what we don’t know, especially in fast-paced work environments. But without humble inquiry, strategy is short-sighted, crucial communications don’t happen, and collaborations fail.
Now that I’ve got my eye on this pattern, I am noticing it showing up outside of work as well, and it ain't pretty. A few days ago, for example, I was at an art show and watched myself nervously “socialize" by telling people my views on some paintings. Thanks to Shein, I was aware of what I was doing, but I couldn’t stop myself! It’s a nervous tick, literally, and especially when I’m not feeling very grounded and centered in myself.
And the irony of course is my social insecurity can come across as intrusive, arrogant, self-absorbed, or intimidating — all totally unhelpful for genuine connection. Part of why this pattern has persisted though is that it has been useful and rewarded in many contexts; the clever chatter can also come across as smart, competent, confident, feisty. But lately I see how it does not serve in the kind of work I am doing as a process consultant, and as a person interested in developing more genuine connections in the workplace and beyond.
Hence, project ask don’t tell (which is somewhat at odds with project blog more often, but alas, life is full of paradox). Changing these sorts of patterns requires not just awareness, but practice, patience, self-compassion, support, humor, and willingness to slow down and get curious about life instead of imposing oneself onto it. Humbling inquiry indeed.
Any questions?!?
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