Change Your Questions

A while ago a friend of mine persuaded me to get a copy of the book Change Your Questions, Change Your Life, written by Marilee Adams, PhD.

I bought it, read it and learned a lot from it.

It’s all about asking the rights questions. This seems very straightforward, but at the same time it’s very powerful.

The opening question is ‘How can you get the best answers without asking the best questions first?’.

Question Thinking

It’s based on Question Thinking, which is a system of tools for transforming thinking, action, and results through skillful question asking — questions we ask ourselves as well as those we ask others.

The basic premise is:

We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.

Because questions drive results, we should start asking questions like:

• What can I do to get people engaged?
• What can I do to get people working collaboratively?
• What do others need from me?
• What do they have to contribute that I haven’t been noticing?

When asking questions, we have a choice. This choice begins with observing our own thinking, and our own mindsets.

The author made a visual representation of this choice via the Choice Map. You can download your free copy here.

You have to paths you can follow. The first path is the ‘Judger path’ which will lead you into the ‘Judger pit’. The second path is the ‘Learner path’ which will bring you to the learner peak.

To fully understand the Choice Map, we should understand the Judger and Learner mindset.

A Judger Mindset

A Judger mindset is driven by Judger Questions:

• What’s wrong with me?
• What’s wrong with them?
• Whose fault is it?
• How can I prove I’m right?
• Why is he / she so clueless and frustrating?
• Haven’t we been there, done that?
• Why bother?

As a result of Judger Questions, you end up in a mood of pessimism, negativity and stress.

Your mindset is judgmental, reactive, critical and inflexible.

Your relating to others becomes ‘win-lose’ / ‘defensive or aggressive’.

A Learner Mindset

A Learner mindset is driven by Learner Questions:

• What do I want? What are my goals?
• What works? What can I learn?
• What are the facts? What am I assuming?
• What are my best choices?
• What can I learn? What’s useful?
• What is he / she thinking, feeling and wanting?
• What action steps make the best sense?
• What’s possible?

As a result of Learner Questions you experience a mood of optimism, hope and possibilities.

Your mindset is thoughtful, appreciative, curious, creative and flexible.

Your relating to others becomes ‘win-win’ / ‘constructive & collaborative’.

Switching lanes via Switching Questions

When you find yourself on the Judger path, you should switch lanes.

To do this, you first of all need to discover that you are in a Judger mindset.

Use the ABCD process for this purpose. In the Curiosity step you should ask yourself learner questions.

What’s my decision? What do I choose?

We are all recovering Judgers.

So accept Judger, practice Learner.

If you find yourself on the Learner path, please do continue.

If you are on the Judger path, use the ABCD process to switch lanes via switching questions.

You want to know more? Visit the author’s website or buy the book.

Adams, M. (2015). Change Your Questions, Change Your Life. Oakland, CA: Berrett-Koehler.