Wise Leadership, Visionary Business - An Ivy SeaZine article
GOOD QUESTIONS, BAD ASSUMPTIONS

Asking good questions is an art-form, and one that requires skillful observation, listening, mindfulness, and courage.

A colleague recently shared a story about an executive in a large organization whose modus operandi was to continue asking the same question until he found someone who would give him the answer he wanted. As it turned out -- in case that M.O. wasn't a clue -- he was setting himself up for a hard fall. Had he asked better questions, of those who would give him honest answers, and listened and received the responses, his fate in the organization may have been different.

In many groups, large and small, it's a rarity to find real, dynamic dialogue that features the presence, creativity and courage of the people participating. To ask hard questions requires courage because a good question can unveil what has been hidden, overlooked, suppressed, protected. This is exactly why good questions are an essential element of creativity, problem-solving, and innovation.

But sometimes even those asking some good and fearless questions find themselves locked into a 'pigeon hole' because the questions rest on a faulty assumption. This is pretty much similar to the fellow who asked a question until he got the answer he wanted -- the answer that supported and confirmed his 'safe' assumption. The assumption itself needed to be deconstructed so the dialogue could move beyond it into truly creative, fertile territory.

Most of us hold plenty of assumptions, some known and explored, and others hidden, protected, and thus unexplored. The latter -- unexplored or protected assumptions -- are what limit us, lock us into repeated mistakes and stale patterns, and prevent us as individuals and groups from seeing and expressing our highest potential and most joyful creativity.

This is what Albert Einstein perhaps had in mind when he said that we can't solve problems with the same mindset that helped to create the problems in the first place. New thinking, new questions, and courageously deconstructed assumptions are required for new ideas, new thinking, new behavior, new ways of working, new ways of seeing and perceiving, and so on.

It takes a truly fearless leader to put the assumptions on the table for exploration and deconstruction, so that a whole new level of possibility can emerge through dynamic, creative dialogue. A new-era leader rolls up her sleeves, puts the assumptions on the table, and says, "Take it apart," and then prepares to live (and lead) into the new, sometimes challenging questions.

This article appeared in the May 2006 edition of the Ivy SeaZine, our almost-monthly email newsletter. Subscribe to receive the complementary SeaZine in your emailbox.

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