"What Changes Things - Questions or Answers?"
What question, that if you asked yourself now, would change your life? It is a little tricky to think of a question that changes things as we are more adept at answers, solutions and fixes that bring about change. That is the natural order of things, isn’t it… !!!
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The answers, rather than questions, that may change your life might be a little easier to bring to mind - being wealthy, justice, increased fitness, losing weight, a loving relationship, more time, less emails, just being happy – it’s answers that change things – surely !
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You have had many of those answers for sometime and still look to change – they didn’t come about or deliver what you wanted.
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You have had many of those answers for sometime and you did nothing – answers might not lead to action.
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You have had many of those answers for sometime, done stuff and still things stayed the same - acting on answers might not lead to change.
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Things have an annoying habit of just staying the same (even if they look like they have changed)
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Questions?– watch the interviewer who asks the question we all know can’t be answered – “minister, can you guarantee that such things will never happen again” or “it is a simple yes or no”. Answers?– watch the politicians and observe how they give the answers to the questions they wish they had been asked ?– “we are working relentlessly to implement better things” or “our position remains the same on this issue”. Questions and Answers – both take an ability and skill to make them impactful, both can become a meaningless game. It’s not a great question if its purpose is to be a trap and it’s not a great answer if it avoids increasing understanding of the issue. When questions and answers become opposites then competition and conflict emerge.
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The debate about which is better – questions or answers – is covered in many books, articles and debates. Neither is going away, both have value… so what about shifting this and looking to improve the quality of both. It might be ‘better’?questions AND 'better'?answers that make the change. It might be the space in-between… such as…
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I have had the answers to what would make a change to my life for such a long time, why have I done nothing with them ?
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Why do I need to change my life? Is it actually others who want a different version of me ? Am I secretly content with who I am ?
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Better questions might deliver an opportunity to explore better answers.
Better questions might fail to generate an answer but increase understanding.
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The potential difficulty with looking for the answer to the question 'what will change your life?' is that it assumes that you are exploring new territory. It is the first time you have asked the question, the answer will be new and that this new moment of insight will generate change. You may have been asking the question for a long time and answers have already emerged, answers that did not generate change, answers that left the question unanswered !. Does repeatedly asking questions provide an opportunity to repeatedly ignore the answers?
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Why do I keep asking myself the same question?
Why don’t I value the answers that emerge?
Is where I find myself an accident or a choice?
Do I have options to change my current circumstance?
Why don’t I change my life but instead keep saying my life needs to change?
Am I here as a result of my past plans and schemes?
Is where I am serving myself, is where I am serving others?
Do I feel guilty about doing things for me?
Do I feel resentful about doing things for others?
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The question to consider might simply be ‘what is driving you to want to change?’?or ‘what is stopping you from wanting the life you have?’ - is it a sense of frustration, unhappiness, boredom, futility? Is it a sense of expectation – we must always be improving, getting better, changing… what if the thing that would truly change your life is when you stopped wanting to change your life !! Accepting and becoming – I am content with who I am in this moment. Of course this leads to the question ‘why do I feel guilty about being content, why must I constantly declaring my desire to grow?’
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There are other questions that may fall into a similar pattern.
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What would change my life?
What would develop my leadership?
What would improve healthcare?
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Questions carry so much nuance to them. Your emotional intelligence comes to the fore when you ask or answer a question in which the words within the question don’t mean what the dictionary indicates they should. Have you ever said yes to an offer of a drink when you might not have wanted a drink but you understand there is another purpose here. ‘Do you want a cup of tea?’ may not be the offer of a hot drink but rather a reaching out, a connection, the creation of space, an opportunity, a welcome to the stranger, a pause. Saying ‘yes’ and then ‘thank you’ may not be gratitude for a thirst relived but kind words exchanged that might be the start of building something.
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There is so much to explore in the relationship between questions and answers. How often do we ask a question we believe we already have the answer to? Are we regularly frustrated with a question because we believe the answer is clear and obvious? Do we answer questions with what we truly think or with what we believe the questioner wants to hear? Questions and answers don’t exist in rational vacuums that have shared and agreed rules. Rather they are embedded in culture, context, relationships, fear, delivery and moments. With that in mind can we accept the premise that the same question can never be asked twice even if the words within the question are the same.
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That’s a huge dose of philosophy so let’s see if we can consider some questions and answers that may influence our own leadership. The ‘Pick of the Week’?(see below) contains 7 questions that claim could change your life. I nearly skipped this article as I realised how disappointed I often am with such claims. This one came form a source that had provided good ideas in the past – I took a chance, I trusted the source (just as an aside – what sources of information do you trust?). The 7 questions prompted some thinking and ideas. It was also useful to adapt the questions into a leadership, team and organisational context.
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The first was “If I repeated this day for 100 days, would my life be better or worse?”?Imagine that question as your end of the day reflection. In terms of your organisation you could reframe it as ‘if the organisation repeated this day for 100 days would it be in a better or worse position?’?Then consider your own performance ‘if you repeated your leadership approach today for 100 days would the team be better or worse?’?Definitions need to be clarified of course but the question offers a consideration of your approach and the confidence you have that, on balance, things are as you wish them to be and heading the right way.
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Good exists because of bad, worse is tethered to better and we only experience one because we have an awareness of the other. Better questions emerge – do I think that my leadership, good or bad, actually makes a difference to the team? Is it possible that good teams emerge because of poor leadership - almost as an act of defiance? Are my thoughts on the potency of the individual leader almost arrogant when leadership is, in reality, a complex collective experience? Take the question, reframe for your own context, perhaps add it to the list of opening questions or as an ‘icebreaker’ at meetings – ‘if we continue to meet as we are doing how confident are we that the service will be in a better position?’
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It didn’t take long of course before I looped around and thought – what a ridiculous question - it is impossible to repeat any day let alone 100. These moments are embedded in culture, context, relationships, fear, delivery and moments. Once I was able to grip that moment and accept that what the question and the author was trying to provoke was an understanding of patterns - are we aware of the patterns we are in? are they serving us well? what pattern is the organisation in? what is required in order to break patterns? What is required in order to accept patterns? – better questions emerged…
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Next up was “If someone observed my actions for a week, what would they say my priorities are?”.?I accept that the observer (whoever they are) will be preloaded with bias and observes my behaviour through their experience, understanding and our past relationship. “We don’t see things as they are we see them as we are”?(Covey). This particular experiment offers several learning opportunities – that may generate better questions…
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OBSERVER LEARNING = what is it about me that interprets the behaviours of others the way I do?
LEARNING BY THE OBSERVED = what am I doing that creates a mismatch between my intent and my impact?
SHARED LEARNNG = what do we need to talk about to help us both understand ourselves and each other?
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A further consideration to this observation experiment might be pretence - how often are we pretending at work and in life – the silence in the meeting when we are internally screaming our unhappiness, the ‘thumbs up’?emoji we offer in the ‘chat’?comments to the senior leader when we really want to add a sad face or just an LOL. Is it pretence or careful self-management?. The observation may have profound purpose even with bias (everything has bias) as it offers insight, understanding and choice - accept or reject what emerges. The questions for the team could be reframed in several ways….?
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If someone observed my actions for a week, what would they say my leadership approach is?
If someone observed my actions for a week, how would they describe my relationship with others?
If someone observed my communication for a week, how consistent would I appear?
If someone observed my behaviours for a week, when would they say I was at my best?
If someone observed the team for a week, what would they say our priorities are?
If someone observed the team for a week, what would they say our values are?
If someone observed me for a week would I want to hear their feedback?
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What I noticed and became curious about was the word 'if'?– ‘if someone observed’ - there was no suggestion that this experiment actual takes place. The insight from this process is more about our self awareness - as individuals, as teams, as organisations. But what an experiment…. when ‘if someone observed’ becomes ‘get someone to observe’ or even “when I was observed this is what emerged from the feedback!”
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The next question was the one that created fun and smiles in my mind “If I were the main character in a movie of my life, what would the audience be screaming at me to do right now?”. As we go through our days I find there is no shortage of screaming from numerous sources. Our colleagues know what we should do next, the news, social media, guru’s – the world is already screaming. I took the movie idea and made organisational life the movie and so what might we be shouting at colleagues - ‘don’t go down that basement alone!!!’, ‘behind you!!!’, ‘we’re going to need a bigger boat!!!’, ‘I’ve got a bad feeling about this!!!’. Perhaps reframe the question “If you were the main character in a movie of your organisation, what would the audience be screaming at you to do right now?”.
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The ”what lie have I repeated to myself so many times that it feels like the truth?”?question may be one of the toughest to explore. Even when we start to suspect we are fibbing to ourselves we cling onto the selective nature of our engagement with the world. Confirmation bias allows the repeating of the lie and even the escalation of the lie as we accumulate supporting elements. Now shift it to your leadership, your team or the organisation - “what lie have you repeated to yourself so many times that it justifies the decisions you make in this team?”
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What lie have I repeated about my leadership so many times it feels like the truth?
What lie have I repeated about the team so many times it feels like the truth?
What lie have I repeated about the organisation so many times it feels like the truth?
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Opportunity exists in questions and where they take you can be exciting, frightening or surprisingly stagnating. Having the right approach to questions within your leadership requires a maturity to let go of things, not always to be right, to be able to learn from whatever sources offer you wisdom and to constantly refresh leadership rather than see an end or fixed state.
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A great team question that will generate mess and maybe it is in the confusion that we understand why things are the way things are.
“who is responsible to whom and for what?”
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What changes things? – questions or answers….. working relentlessly to make both elements better might be the activity that actually changes things. It might also be the understanding that emerges when you are comfortable in the messy space between questions and answers that has most value.
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If you have made it this far through this exploration of questions and answers I leave you with a final thought. Questions can exist without answers. Yes a question with an answer is the common and almost expected relationship but what if a question does not always lead to an answer but rather to an explanation, an understanding, a curiosity satisfied, an interest deepened, a renewed excitement for the unknown and a maturity in your leadership as you become aware that working in a space without answers might actually be the clearest distinction between leadership and management we can produce.
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What question is currently being asked of your leadership?
What question are you currently asking of your role?
What answer are you pretending not to hear?
What answer did you keep to yourself and why?
Notice and be Curious
Pick of the Week - Questions to change your life
7 questions that could change your life - read through and perhaps consider what questions could change your life
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