The Power of Questions for Personal Growth – Part I

In this next mini-series on coaching I’ m going to take about questions and how they can be used to achieve personal growth that in turn will lead to you the achievement of your personal goals and personal success.

“If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on the solution, I would spend the first 55 minutes determining the proper question to ask, for once I know the proper question; I could solve the problem in less than five minutes.” —Albert Einstein

Have you ever been in a meeting and known that you need to come up with something great to give towards the outcome? This kind of pressure can work for some people but for most it can make a person freeze on the spot and start to focus intensely on a great question to ask to move the conversation in the direction towards that magical moment that is needed. The pressure of coming up with the ability to shift a conversation in this direction literally takes a person‘s thinking away from the conversation and away from what is needed in that moment.

If you think back to a time when you did have the magical question, it is more likely than not that you were totally present in the moment, focused on what was being said and suddenly a magical question came to you. At that moment you ask the question and suddenly you can feel everything shifting before you, the energy, the focus, the possibilities. You reflect later on this magical moment and have no idea how the question came to you, but you know it was perfect and stopped the conversation from going around in a circle, not moving anywhere.

The power of ‘that magical question’ is enormous. One of the reasons why questioning is so ‘shifting’ is because a great question has the capacity to stop the receiver of the question in their tracks, and to get them to start to think in a different way. It can open up an awareness that they hadn‘t realized. As humans we develop a particular way of thinking. This thinking becomes a little inner machine, our internal conversation going on in our mind. It travels around in the same way, thinking in the same way. Powerful, magical questions can stop the inner conversation from thinking in its usual way and suddenly you are thinking ‘outside’ the realm that you are used to. It is in the new realm that great ideas and thoughts come to you and you can experience a sense of personal growth.

When a trail leads to an answer, we can uncover more truths by searching each answer to see if it presents a new set of questions. Eventually, there will come an answer which does not appear to present a new question, or which seems to answer all the previous questions. This becomes the basis of discovering the truth about an issue, ourselves and the world around us.

The Socratic Method

This question-and-answer methodology for discerning truth is nothing new. It is commonly called the “Socratic method” and derives its name from the ancient Greek philosopher, Socrates. He would continuously pose questions to his listeners to trigger thinking. Questioning continued until the listeners provided the most logical answer to a particular problem and discovery followed.

The Socratic Method of questioning led to people finding their underlying beliefs. One of the ways Socrates did this was to answer a question by turning the question into a statement and adding another question.

An example of this is if someone asked the question, “Why is the world round?” The Socratic Method would be to answer this question with a statement and then a question. “So you think the world is round. Why do you think this?” This questioning technique would unlock underlying beliefs as in this case where the person believes the world to be round. It is important to recognize that looking at the beliefs held in a question can be just as important as answering the question. We tend to however answer the question – referring to our own beliefs instead.

Probing questions ask us to extend our knowledge beyond factual recall, to apply what is known to what is unknown; and to elaborate on what is known. By “peeling away the layers of the onion” and getting to the heart of a matter, we are more likely to find our own “truths”, to develop personal goals that align with these truths and to act on these goals to reach our personal success.

Questions challenge a different part of our brain bringing about a different emotional response. Questions support us in seeing another perspective, in raising our awareness that another perspective exists and is possible thus creating an advancement in our personal growth.

Open and Closed Ended Questions

A closed ended question is one where there are a limited number of acceptable answers, usually, “yes” or “no.” Examples of closed-ended questions are:

• Did you have a good week?
• Did you complete your fieldwork?
• Do you feel good about yourself?

An open-ended question is one in which there are many acceptable answers thus providing an opportunity to elaborate. Examples of open-ended questions are:

• Tell me about your week?
• What was your experience with the fieldwork?
• Tell me, how do you feel about yourself

Open ended questions are encouraged in fields as diverse as sales, education and medical practice because they elicit the maximum possible information from the respondent. They literally open up the possibilities for answers to give the client the maximum space in which to respond.

Think Time

Unless we leave sufficient wait time after a person ceases speaking, then we are not listening effectively. Similarly, if we do not allow enough time between asking a question and expecting an answer, then we are not effectively questioning, and the quality of the information we get back will reflect that.

In 1972, an educational researcher, Mary Budd Rowe, conducted research in high schools on the amount of wait time that teachers typically allowed after asking a question of their students. She found that most teachers average wait time was less than 1.5 seconds.

What she also found was that when these periods of silence lasted at least 3 seconds, many positive things happened for the students. The number of “I don‘t knows” and no answer responses decreased, the length and correctness of responses increased and most dramatically of all, the scores of students in academic achievement tests increased. (Rowe 1972) Although Rowe‘s research focused on teachers and students, the application of the concept of “think time: is clear: if we want a thoughtful response, we must provide enough time to think!

Unfortunately the teachers in Rowe‘s study are not alone in not providing people with sufficient time to respond to questions. As a result, many of us are conditioned into giving a quick rather than a thoughtful response to questions or risk not being listened to at all! Questioning is really an extension of listening. Questioning only occurs in response to what someone is saying.

As the questioner, it will take mental strength to “wait for it…wait for it” and this waiting will be your practice on your personal growth journey. When a question is asked of you take a few seconds and sense the “real” answer.   You do know the difference between a reaction and a response…don’t you?  About 10 seconds

OK…that’s it for now…I’ll pick this topic up next week.  Until then….if you’d like to experience personal growth through questioning, go ahead and ask for an Introductory Consultation today.

Oh yea…the e-book “Develop the Mental Strength of a Warrior” (also available in a Kindle version) has numerous questions for you that will help uncover limiting  beliefs so that you can resolve them and reach your personal goals and achieve your personal success.

I’d like to thank ICA again for their support and inspiration for this topic.

What do you think?  Please let me know in the comments below.