Ask questions from a humble heart

Questions are powerful when asked with the right heart.

What about questions is more powerful than answers? Questions lead the person questioned on a journey to find an answer ((Marquardt, pg. 84)). The questioner holds the power to send the person questioned on a fruitful journey, or they may send him on a fruitless journey. The questioner may inject their own pathway into the question itself. If the questioner does so, he limits the person questioned from finding his own way and may result in no new destination at all. This is why it’s imperative that the questioner has the right attitude and motivation. Even equipped with the best open-ended, non-judgmental questions, the conversation will quickly degrade if the questioner’s motivations and attitudes are judgmental because his biases and assumptions will find their way into the questions he asks and responses he gives, both verbal and non-verbal.

A business leader needs to check in with his own heart before he begins to question his employees.

The quarterly report lands on the CEO’s desk and emblazoned on the first page is a statistic-revenue down twenty percent! The questions that rise to that CEO’s heart as he storms from his office in search of a head to sever won’t be the kind, open, exploratory questions that would return true and useful answers, those questions will be angry and accusatory. Before the CEO finds his first victim, he needs to check himself. He must remember that he doesn’t have all the answers and doesn’t know the context behind the drop in revenue. He may be looking for someone to blame, but he needs to recognize his own responsibility for the company’s revenue. Once he’s assessed his own heart and calmed down a bit, even if he’s not an expert questioner, he’ll be much more effective at finding the problem, and the solution, that the company needs.

I love asking questions, but I’ve found myself asking barbed questions when I’m feeling attacked. Though I know how to ask open-ended questions and to focus on discovery rather than right vs. wrong, I find it nigh impossible to keep my questions untainted while my heart’s distressed. It’s important for me to consider important conversations beforehand to identify questions that will honor the one questioned and also get the desired outcome. But it’s also important for me to imagine the response of the other person and to remind myself of the circumstances lest, after beginning with questions, I end with an argument.

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