“I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing and that is that I know nothing” – Socrates.
When my 18 year old and 20 yer old were kids they didn’t stop asking questions. Question after question after question!
How do planes stay in the sky?
Where is the Island of Sodor that Thomas the Tank Engine lives on?
Why do we have to go to school AGAIN?
Who made me?
Why? Why were our kids asking so many questions?
I asked my mother: “What was I like when I was their age?”
”You did not stop asking questions” she replied.
What was going on here? Did I have some rare questioning gene that I had passed on to my kids? Was this hereditary?
Their friends would come over for a play date and…..ask me questions! My mother also said that in my teenage years I had an answer for everything. Had this reputation for knowing everything spread around the Kingdom? Was I some sort of walking search engine? My mother rolling her eyes as she said “you had an answer for everything” quickly closed down that line of enquiry!
The reality was we were not the only new parents out there with kids who just didn’t stop asking questions.
Kids are wired to ask questions. Why? Kids are curious, they want to learn and the quickest way for them to learn is by asking questions. Asking questions also invites interaction and attention which kids want. They have no fear or insecurity in asking questions. Their concept of self-awareness is there, but not shackled. They don’t worry about being judged or laughed at with their questions. To them, there is no such thing as a stupid question.
Then they move on to senior school and you notice the questions become less frequent and as they grow older, non-existent. Why? As they get older they start to develop their self-awareness and their thinking changes. That self-preservation mode kicks in. Status is now more important. They don’t want to ask questions for fear of looking stupid, being made fun of. They don’t want to raise their hand in school and ask a question that all their peers know the answer to, or they think their peers know the answer to. The embarrassment, the humiliation! They still have the questions but not the courage to ask them, so they don’t!
The majority of us carry this fear and insecurity on. How many times have you been at work, desperate to ask a question but holding back because you think you should already know the answer? If you ask the question what will your colleagues think? How will this impact your status?
The work place needs to encourage questions in a safe place, free from judgement or assumption and that all starts with culture. Do we have a culture where people can ask questions? Where people can have a voice without fear and insecurity?
Wouldn’t we all like to be kids again? With no fear of asking questions?
Questions are powerful. Questions can have more of an impact than answers. Questions open debate, create connections, repair relationships. Questions invite listening and thinking in to the world. Being asked a question can highlight to us how little we actually know and seek to educate ourselves. Questions allow us to make new discoveries about the world and ourselves. We would never have landed on the moon if somebody hadn’t asked the question: Can we go there? We need questions to evolve.
I think back to some of the questions my kids asked me. I did not have all the answers. I found myself saying “I should know that” and then proceeded to find an answer. Questions have the ability to educate us.
Questions have the power to change the way we think. Questions have the power to change lives.
I recently heard the story of a man who says an 11 word question saved his life. This man weighed in at 180 kilos. His A1C level (blood sugar level) was at 12%. A normal blood sugar level is around 5-6%. Above 10% puts you at high risk of kidney failure, stroke, nerve damage, blindness and heart attack. This man was dying of obesity and diabetes. He had been like this for some time but nothing anybody said to him even touched the sides to his way of thinking. All the warnings and advice he was given just went in one ear and straight out the other. He kept on eating and drinking anything and everything that was put in front of him. But one day he had an appointment with his doctor. His doctor asked him a question that would save his life. One year later, after a long and hard struggle he weighed in at 90 kilos with his A1C level down at 6%.
And the question his Doctor had asked him?
“What do you think your mother will wear at your funeral?”
?
"Coaching is unlocking peoples potential to maximise their own performance. It is helping them to learn rather than teaching them." - Sir John Whitmore
What question do you need to be asked?
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