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Reconciling Differences: Three Types of Questions for Helping People Do Amazing Things Together, with Angie McArthur, CEO, Professional Thinking Partners and Co-author, Reconcilable Differences
Shadow Questions
Another fascinating part about inquiry styles and understanding where you naturally come from in another person is the type of questions that you ask. Shadow questions are when any one of these perspectives–analytic, procedural, relational, or innovative–when we’re under time restraints, we’re under budget constraints, or maybe we’re just not showing up as our best selves at work, we often use language or ways in which these questions aren’t necessarily presented in an ideal way.
So someone who has a lot of procedural need, that’s where their learning and understanding comes from, may seem very budget-constrained. They may seem very rigid about time. That would be the shadow side of procedural inquiry. The shadow side of analytic inquiry would be someone who seems very skeptical. They’re asking a lot of questions that break every problem down into these tiny little bits, and I may see them as being over-analytical, or very, again, rigid. We have all these terms we use to describe the negative side of each of these. The shadow side of relational inquiry would be when someone is overly concerned about other people: “What about her? What about him? What about them?” It can almost seem that they’re too paranoid about others think, and they’ve lost sense of self. Each of those domains has a shadow side, and when we recognize them we can actually use them to have awareness, and say, “Oh, there it is again. There’s that shadow side creeping up.” And we can turn it into a positive attribute instead.
For instance, with me, I have a lot of innovative learning. I love to come to any challenge with new ideas. Often that can come across as pie-in-the-sky or too unrealistic. If I do it too aggressively it can seem like I’m out of touch with reality–that’s how others might perceive it. So I have to be self-aware of that, especially if I’m under stress, so I can moderate it back. We’re all, I think, in this time, required to lead from a place of self-awareness and awareness of other. It’s really, really important, and it allows us to really create these connections with people that we otherwise may not achieve, because we’re willing to say, “I need to learn as well as I’m engaging with you in this situation. I need to learn more about myself, and I’m always interested to learn more about you.” What helps me when I’m working with people is I just kind of think of that as an unpolished diamond. A diamond in the rough is actually not that exquisite a stone, it doesn’t look like much. But when taken care of and given the right attention, and polished and cut in the right way, you can see this glorious light and then the value increases. So I think it’s each of our responsibilities, especially as leaders in organizations, to notice the shadow sides of each of these domains. We can help, then, to create a bridge and help that person actually shine.
Open Questions
One of the most powerful tools that we discuss in the book is open questions. Open questions are those questions that you cannot possibly know the answer to. What this does is allow us to be authentic. Many of us are trained in asking leading questions, meaning: “Don’t you think that…?”, or, “If you had the choice, wouldn’t you…?” Those are leading you, or prompting you, into a specific answer, and people feel that right away. They feel done to in a way.
An open question is the opposite. It’s a question that, again, I couldn’t possibly know the answer to. So it would be like: “What was the most important holiday you remember growing up, and why was that?” It’s that genuine curiosity in which you’re asking another person a question that they feel received, and they feel like there’s something there that you’re really questing. It’s interesting, the root of the word “question” is “quest”. I’m questing to learn more about you as a person. We can’t fake that, nor should we. This is so often forgotten, especially with those are close to us–family members. We forget this very innate ability we all have to be genuinely very curious about one another. It’s like the first time you fell in love or the first time you met someone who you were really interested in for the first time. You’re so curious about them and asking them open questions: “Why did you take that job? I’m so curious to learn that.” It’s that type of questioning. Those are open questions.
Bridging Questions
Naturally we ask bonding questions, meaning: “What’s your favorite sports team?”, or, “Who’s the fashion designer that you really like?”, or, “Where do you like to go on vacation?” These are questions where we’re looking for connection with someone because we’re looking for similarity. We’re looking for some experience, something that can bond us. What we’re not skilled or taught is the other side of that. Maybe you’re as different as two people can possibly be, but you still need to find connection. Bridging questions are those questions that allow us connect with another person despite differences. They’re questions like: “What’s really important you about this”, or, “I’m really curious to learn your perspective.” They’re questions that create a bridge between you and I.
In Hawaiian there’s a great phrase called “shaka”. They don’t say hello, they do shaka. And my coworker lives in Hawaii so we do this a lot. We often say that shaka is, here’s you, here’s me, and here’s what bridges us between. I think ultimately that’s all the skill we need for each of us in relational intelligence, is what is that bridge that we need between you and I to achieve connection, so we can actually do wonderful, great, amazing things together.