Questions, Questions, Questions

What type of questions do you characteristically ask in the various areas of your life - high or low quality questions? High quality questions facilitate good relationships, consistent results, self-awareness, self-confidence, skill-building and forward momentum. Low quality questions tend to keep you stuck in a past focused cycle of self- and other-blame. Which reality would you prefer to set in motion?

Low quality questions usually begin with the word why. Why questions lead directly to the past as a means to uncover and analyze critical information. Why questions and the answers they provide merely generate the illusion of understanding. In reality, why is an unanswerable question. Research consistently confirms that our recall of past events is imperfect, resulting from a subjective perspective dependent on age, cognitive development, mood, point of view, perceptual filters and capacity to focus. Even if it was possible to elicit an objective response, it would be based on historical, rather than current data.  

High quality questions begin with the words “what, how and what if.” They are designed to facilitate creative future oriented thinking and problem solved that moves you toward a desired outcome. High quality questions include: What do you want? How do you want to structure that? What first step will you take? If anything was possible, what would you create? What if we took a particular path or made a particular commitment, what would the likely outcome be? High quality questions lead directly to high level goals, strategies, structures and results. They take your skills and mindsets to an innovative place that creates the space for next level outcomes. High quality questions don’t ignore past data; they serve to briefly visit the past as a means to empower the future.

According to Albert Einstein, “No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.”  High quality questions organically lead you to an expanded level of consciousness and effectiveness. What type of questions will you decide to ask – high or low quality ones? The choice is yours.

Janet