May I Ask a Question?

Image from pixabay by Dean Moriarty, CC0

My friend Ben Collver recently loaned me a book called A More Beautiful Question, by Warren Berger, that arose from some ideas in Warren’s blog. The book is specifically focused on questions that spark business innovations, and his key questions boil down to “Why, What If, and How Might questions that can’t be answered with facts”.

Earlier this year I wrote a post about questions to ask to really get to know people better. And I’m familiar with the value of Appreciative Inquiry type questions.

So I’ve started thinking whether there is some larger question set and question criteria that might, in a broad range of circumstances:

• Identify the qualities that make for a good question
• Identify the benefits of asking questions (and when asking a question is most effective and interesting)
• Identify the types of questions that can best achieve these benefits

Over the past few weeks I’ve read everything I could get my hands on on this subject, and I think I’ve been able to synthesize the results down into something useful.

Building on and generalizing my earlier post, I think the 6 most important Qualities of a good question are:

They elicit honest, thoughtful answers rather than clever, safe, automatic or socially acceptable ones. They are not so personal, so complicated, or so distressing to think about that they make people hesitant to answer, but they are personal enough, challenging enough, and provocative enough that they elicit sufficient consideration, focus and passion to produce interesting, revelatory and possibly ‘useful’ responses. They don’t (for most people) require an enormous (ie discouraging) amount of time and energy to ponder to come up with a considered response. They encourage follow-up questions and deeper explorations into the answers and reasons for them. The responses to them achieve one or more of the six Benefits listed below. Both the question and the responses help us learn, and provide knowledge, ideas, perspectives, insights, and/or a deeper relationship with someone, that otherwise wouldn’t have been achieved.

And the 6 most important Benefits of asking, thinking about and responding to high-quality questions are that they help us:

Understand why things are the way they are Appreciate what we don’t know, need to know, and/or can’t hope to know Imagine novel alternatives Iteratively move an idea or process forward or deeper Learn important and/or interesting things about ourselves and others Encourage people to articulate and share what they know and care about

Building on Warren’s three types of questions to spark business innovation, I looked through several hundred examples of ‘beautiful’ questions that seemed to have the 6 Qualities, and discovered that they generally had similar syntaxes, depending on the purpose (and hence on the Benefit they potentially delivered). While a few offered more than one of the 6 Benefits, most were clearly designed to offer just one of the 6, so I’m listing them below, sorted by Benefit. Key Question Types:

To understand why things are the way they are Why is it this way? What’s really going on here? Why isn’t it that way? Why has no one (else) done… ? What’s working, and what’s not working, and why? Tell me a story about when things went really well. To appreciate what we don’t know, need to know, and/or can’t hope to know What’s the ‘problem’ we’re trying to solve (and is it real and do we really care about it)? Tell me a story about when things went badly. What do we need to find out? What are the risks of not knowing… ? Who else should we be talking with or involving in this? What are we missing? To imagine novel alternatives and workarounds What if we… ? What if things were different in that… ? Can we imagine a better state and then figure out how to get there? How might we… ? How might we begin to… ? What would be the first step forward? To iteratively move an idea or process forward or deeper What if we… ? Is this really true? Is this really important and useful? Is it actionable? What’s happening here? What are we missing? To learn important and/or interesting things about ourselves and others What would you do if… ?  Imagine that you… ? What if you could… ? What do you wish… ? What do you think/believe… ? To encourage people to articulate and share what they know and care about What do you think about this? How do you feel about this? What are your instincts telling you about this? What are we missing?

We should recognize that we’re not all good at coming up with good questions, and we don’t all have the imaginative and creative skills needed to come up with interesting or breakthrough answers. That means assessing who’s good at asking, and who’s good at answering certain types of questions, and drawing on those strengths — and building our own competencies.

Some of the above questions (eg What if we…?) may require great imagination to move beyond the incremental. And answering some of the other questions (eg How might we…?) may require a rare level of imaginative thinking to answer affirmatively at all. Poor questions and unimaginative or ignorant answers are of no value at all.

So here are a few scenarios where asking (and answering) questions might be of particular value, and some sample questions (of the appropriate Type) that might help. I’ve provided one scenario to address each of the potential Benefits (though obviously in any real situation more than one Benefit might be achieved by asking questions, so questions of many Types might be appropriate).

What’s particularly interesting is that sometimes just asking the (right) question confers some, or even most of, the value.

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Scenario: You, and someone you love and also work with, have recently been at constant loggerheads, disagreeing about what’s true, what’s good and bad, and what to do. You’re constantly triggering each other, resulting in anger, fear, tears and withdrawal.

Some Benefit 1 Question Types: Why has this been happening? What’s behind it? What’s really going on here? Why aren’t things smooth and easy and any upsets effectively and dispassionately resolved? What are we handling well, and why? What are we not handling well, and why? Tell me a story of when we were at our best. [then you’d move on to Benefit 2-3 question Types]

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Scenario: You and your family are entrepreneurs worried about climate change and the state of the economy. You are thinking of moving to a more sustainable place, but there seem practical obstacles to any of the ones you’ve identified, especially with your fledgling business.

Some Benefit 2 Question Types: What’s the real problem we’re trying to solve here? What do we need to find out to make an informed decision? What are the risks of moving, and of staying put, that we might not have contemplated? Who can we talk with to get a better understanding of the situation and options? What are we missing here?

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Scenario: You just learned that a new competitor for your small business is using cheap overseas labour and exploiting poor environmental standards overseas to offer products and services possibly comparable to yours for half the price. You have to innovate or your business may not survive. [In such a scenario, different types of questions might help achieve all six Benefits, but I’ve just listed some Benefit 3 & 4 Question Types.]

Some Benefit 3 & 4 Question Types: What if we did nothing? How might we create products and services that no offshore competitor could match? Is it true that this new company threatens us; is there anything we can really do anyway? What if the new competitor didn’t exist; what would we do differently? What are we missing here?

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Scenario: You and three other people with complementary skills have recently been approached about a potentially exciting new social enterprise opportunity. None of you know each other, and you’ve convened to see whether you think you might get along well together in such an operation, and personally.

Some Benefit 5 Question Types: (this is one of Ben’s brilliant questions, after seeing the work of a portrait photographer who often placed objects of note in her subject’s hands:) If you were getting a portrait taken, and the photographer asked you to hold something in your hand that told viewers something important about you, what would it be? (the famous Peter Thiel question:) What do you believe that no one else does? (and another famous question) What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail? (and from my earlier post:) What do you wish you’d learned earlier in life? Of the people you’ve known in your life but fallen out of touch with, who would you most like to reconnect with, and why? If you had to write 200 words that summarize your worldview or philosophy of life, what would they be?  (and finally, a few adapted from Arthur Aron’s famous 36 questions:) Given the choice of anyone living in the world, who would you want as a dinner guest? What would you like to be renowned for? What are you most grateful for? What would you most like to know about your true self, or about your future? What’s on your bucket list, and what’s holding you back? If you knew you were going to die soon, what would you do with your remaining time?

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Scenario: Your small enterprise is dealing with a new challenge, but at your meeting a small number are dominating the conversation, and others are clearly feeling unwilling or incapable of proffering their thoughts.

Some Benefit 6 Question Types: (for the wallflowers) What are your thoughts and feelings on this (“Let’s go around the circle.”)? What are your instincts telling you? What’s your sense of what’s going on here? Are we missing something?

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There is, unfortunately, no straight-forward checklist of questions, and no easy way to know exactly what to ask. Everything depends on context. And the art of divining and asking the right question, and asking it the right way, can require almost as much imagination as answering the most wicked and challenging question. But perhaps a ‘roadmap’ like the one above might be useful in getting you started and pointed in the right direction. What’s your objective in asking a question in a particular context (ie what Benefits are you striving for)? What Types of questions might achieve that objective and achieve those Benefits? And, once you’ve arrived at what you think are the right questions, before you ask them, ask yourself if they meet the 6 Qualities of a great question.

 

(Thanks to Ben and to Tree Bressen for their contributions to this synthesis.)

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How to stimulate creativity in online teams: A 100% online process to design a blended learning trajectory

Joehoe! I am very proud of the result of three creative online sessions, resulting in a blended design. Sibrenne and I have just completed a design process for a blended trajectory with WWF. The special thing about this project is that the whole design process took place online. The members of our design team live in Namibia, Switzerland, Suriname, Nairobi and the Netherlands. It has produced a design that has been very well received, we have received many compliments about the process. It was for me the first time for me to do kind of creative process completely online - it was a challenge, but I thought it would be possible with clever design and tough facilitation. My own goal with this project was therefore to try and release online creativity. I used the book Creativity in Virtual Teams Key components for Success van Nemiro,  though the book is writing for semi-permanent teams and we were just a temporary team my experiences were quite similar.

What did we do?

The design team knew each other pretty well. We have planned three online sessions, each of two hours. In two hours you can easily dive into a topic. Three hours would be really demanding for concentration and the work schedules. In between there were a number of assignments, eg searching for cases or information. The sessions took place in a period of one month, if we had longer we could have planned more time in between the sessions, but we had a deadline.

Our tools set consisted of Adobe Connect in combination with Google docs and a Facebook Workplace group. The design team was used to Zoom instead of Adobe, but we chose Adobe Connect because of the whiteboard, and the ability to work in groups. Google docs worked well to prepare an assignment or to work on documents together. In addition, we used a Facebook Workplace for communication between the sessions, the choice for Workplace was made because it was already in use within the organization.

In terms of content we have worked with personas, images about the future, formulate learning objectives, inspiring examples of blended trajectories and building blocks. Although the idea was to shape the goals and building blocks together online, this has proven difficult. It needs thinking time. The co-creation process hence consisted of brainstorming together online in the design sessions after which we, as facilitators, worked out the elements for the next session. The result was discussed within the group.  This worked quite well as a process. Although we had a framework for the three sessions, we dealt with it flexibly. We discovered that the design team needed more time to discuss things than we had thought. In the second and third sessions, we therefore made a planning with the least important issue at the end. This gave the flexibility to drop it.

 What worked to stimulate creativity?

 There are a number of things that are crucial in my experience:

• Plan synchronous sessions where you can work together. We chose three work sessions in Adobe Connect as central co-creation places, but you could even 4-6 if you don't have a tight deadline as we had. By spreading the design sessions over time, there is time to work together intensively, but also to reflect in between or divide work. For me the fact that the synchronous sessions are key is very logical but in the book they warn that with email stimulates little creativity. Seems too obvious to me. 
• Make extensive use of "creativity techniques". We did several brainstorms on the whiteboard. This worked well because everyone could share their ideas at the same time. We also provided variety in working methods. Working in subgroups was very well appreciated. This was the modality in which we worked on the personas. One person even asked "can I be with her in a group" showing how enjoyable it can be to work in smaller groups. 
• Invest continuously in teambuilding. It was a bit of a trade off: investing in getting to know each other and a tight schedule. Hence we decided to start introductions in the Workplace group. We also choose not to invest in the team know each other's private lives, but learning to appreciate each other's professional view. For instance by asking for positive online experiences. The personal approach makes it attractive to participate. If you know each other, it is easier to build on each other's ideas. In the book about creativity they call this "creating the right climate". In the evaluation someone formulated it like this: "it was nice to meet each other"
• Online you need to structure and guide more tightly than face-to-face. "I appreciated the guided approach" we got as feedback. A tight role for one, preferably two facilitators is important. I wouldn't have liked to do this alone. This was a group that could easily exchange for an hour about content issues. We made sure that we move on and changed the talking modus. It may seems unfortunate to stop a conversation which is important and interesting, but it does benefit the energy. The chapter "leadership" from the book is dealing with this part.
• Show progress. Each session started with sharing the products from the previous session. This gave the team the positive feeling that the sessions were productive and that together we were in the process of designing of something solid and beautiful. "Keep team members and their efforts visible" is stated in Nemiro's book. In our evaluation participants said: "concrete outputs, great products"

So I'm quite proud with what we achieved in such a short period of time. If I'd had another online design process I would like to have a longer period, with more time in between the sessions. I would also like to try out working with image association, and other creativity techniques from Nemiro. And a very practical tip: make sure you can go offline for a short while after the sessions. Online sessions remain intense and demand a lot of energy. I used to jump on the bike to get a breath of fresh air and exercise.

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A Lesson for the Modern Workplace and School: Connection Before Content

A few years ago I had the privilege of attending a discussion led by Clayton Christensen on the future of education. As you may know, Christensen is a professor at the Harvard Business School who became famous for his work on disruptive innovation. So it was likely that this discussion would leave us feeling uncomfortable.

Christensen did not disappoint. He asked lots of challenging questions about the true value of higher education as currently constructed. What were residential colleges delivering that so exceeded the educational value of a free MOOC that those colleges could justify charging over $60 thousand or even over $70 thousand per year? And what about graduate schools? In this era of back-breaking student debt, what were they offering that the school of hard knocks could not?

I have been thinking a great deal about these questions since I started teaching in the M.S. in Information & Knowledge Strategy (IKNS) program at Columbia University. And those questions became even more pressing when I became Academic Director on July 1. How do we justify the time, effort, and expense required by our program?

It would take me a while to enumerate all the ways in which the IKNS program provides value so let me focus on one thing that became very clear this past weekend: we provide a laboratory in which our students can learn proven concepts and practices that equip them for effective leadership.

On Wednesday, August 22, our new cohort of students arrived at Columbia University’s Morningside campus for four days of Intensive study (the Intensive). Our original impulse was to stuff them as full of learning as was humanly possible in such a short time. As a practical matter, this would have required lectures from 9:00am – 6:00pm daily. We could do that. But was it the right approach?

Early in our planning, we realized that we needed to rethink our approach. Given that our program is demanding and very hard to complete without collaboration, the key was to spend the Intensive building the capacity of the cohort to collaborate. So we rethought everything. Rather than making them sit through hours and hours of lectures, we first had them develop their own self-awareness and then their knowledge of their teammates. Through a series of carefully designed individual and group exercises, they built an extraordinary level of trust and empathy. Then we could focus on learning collaboratively.

Our bet paid off. Within hours, these new students moved from being strangers to being friends. And, in that capacity, were more than willing to share their own knowledge and experience to help a classmate integrate new concepts and practices. In the process, they all learned an astonishing amount remarkably quickly. Arguably, more than they could have learned sitting passively through a series of well-intended lectures.

Don’t get me wrong. We had formal teaching sessions. But only after they were ready to learn together.

This experience is a timely reminder of an insight Nancy Dixon has shared with several prior IKNS cohorts: “Connection before Content.” Building on the work of Peter Block, Dixon observed that in the workplace, we all work better when we know each other and trust each other. But that knowledge and trust should not be left to happenstance. A thoughtful manager can help speed the development of professional relationship and trust through some intentional practices such as ensuring that team members connect (and later reconnect) with each other before diving into the agenda. This creates a foundation of goodwill and understanding that can act as a shock absorber for the necessary creative friction of teamwork.

If “Connection before Content” is true in the physical workplace, it is doubly true in the virtual workplace and in a virtual learning environment such as ours. The capacity to connect enables the capacity to collaborate and the capacity to share knowledge.

Thankfully, our newest cohort demonstrated this past weekend that they are well on their way to developing their capacity to collaborate with their classmates. NOW they are ready to learn in our program and share that learning with their colleagues at work.

All of us will be the better for it.

 

The post A Lesson for the Modern Workplace and School: Connection Before Content appeared first on Above and Beyond KM.

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