The most powerful question of all
Questions are powerful. Good questions connect and transform. We use questions to gather information, guide conversations, open another’s mind, even open our own mind.
Questions make statements and reveal assumptions. “Were you present when you were sworn in?” is a statement.
They say there are not stupid questions, but I disagree. “Were you gone until you returned?” seems like a stupid question.
Five Great Questions
Sitting on my book shelf is Drucker’s book, “The Five Most Important Questions you will ever ask about your Organization.” His questions are:
#1. What is our mission?
#2. Who is our customer?
#3. What do our customers value?
#4. What are our results?
#5. What is our plan?
I began asking these questions of myself and the organization I lead about two years ago. Sadly, it took me 30 years to get smart enough to know I didn’t know the answers to Drucker’s questions.
One Powerful Question
Leadership Freak is about being concise and to the point. With that in mind, I began asking myself, “If I could ask one question, what would it be?”
I think the most powerful question of all is,
“What’s important to you?”
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Three reasons, “Why?” isn’t the most powerful question of all.
#1. On its own, it’s a little harsh.
#2. “Why?” requires a good statement from the speaker.
#3. “Why?” isn’t an opener.
On the other hand, “What’s important to you?” stands on its own.
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In your opinion, what is the most powerful question of all? Why?
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Great question 🙂
A variation on your own powerful question is, “What do you care about most?”
The other powerful one I like is “How do you want to be and be seen?”
Cinnie,
Thanks for the variation. I like it! It’s smoother and gentler. Regarding your second question, it hurts my head. 🙂
Cheers,
Dan
Hi Dan,
You are so right. Questions help me get to deeper levels of self; come up with topics to write about; seek new areas of interest, invent solutions. Find new directions. I love questions.
As you point out, the way we ask is also important. “How come?” often works better than “Why?” for some reason (softer and less confrontational). I also enjoy questions that change the game in a conversation or coaching session. E.g., “How old are you when you think that thought?” or “What concerns you the most about your potential success in this?” or “How would you describe your role in this conflict?”
There are some additional questions I like asking of my organization:
How do we nurture a culture of ownership and engagement—even passion— within this company?
How (process) will we improve/evolve our direction to enhance relevance/value to our customers?
What will we do with our success?
Then at the project level:
Who will take ownership of the current direction/project/mission? (You’re probably not surprised at how vague this knowing is for many on many a project—until the question is asked out loud).
How do we know we’ve won?
How do we know we’re done?
How will we know when to improve or revise our direction?
Always a pleasure, Dan. 🙂
Mark,
What a rockin’ comment!
I was doing great until you got to “How would you describe your role in this conflict?” That one slowed me down a bit. I do notice that your question isn’t, “What is your role in this conflict?”
After you knocked me down, you picked up steam again by ending with a flurry of great questions.
Love the “won” and “done” rhyme.
Thanks for adding value!
Cheers,
Dan
Hi Dan,
Thank you for your response.
I use the conflict question with folks I’ve coached a while and who are now accustomed to the power of self-accountability without the sticky, useless, punishing attitude of blame. They are used to the empowering feeling of seeing their role in a conflict, and then asking, “Where do I want to go from here?” among other follow-up questions.
The question is also delivered after some exploration of the challenge or conflict, and helps focus the empowered client on where they can make a difference—the pressure points.
The question is also effective for internal conflicts. I’ve asked myself the question.
Used tactfully, with care and earnestness, the question can pull wonderful, illuminating, answers.
An archetypal answer from self or client might look something like this: “Selfishly, I am afraid of losing this person, so I am being controlling where I normally am not. It’s time to surrender that fear, and appreciate what is…” This feared loss could be an employee, or a friend, or anything meaningful.
It’s a tricky thing. Not everyone is ready for the discomfort and subsequent freedom and empowerment of certain levels of accountability. I not only respect that, I believe it is harmful to try to quantum leap to that point without important interim steps.
Thanks again for your response, Dan!
Hi Dan,
This is timely and will be very useful as I continue to learn more about our new clients. Your question is especially useful: “What’s important to you?” So much information and insight can be discovered by asking this question.
I appreciate you!
Jen
Jen,
Always great seeing you. Congratulations on your new clients! Looks like you’ll have a turkey on the table come November.
Cheers,
Dan
Hi Dan, always probing and searching, that is “what” I love about LF. I agree with your question “what is important to you or paraphrasing what is meaningful to you” as being arguably one of the most important to ask. It seems to me exploring answers to this query is the cornerstone of developing strategic consensus among team members, families, groups of friends and just about any cohort. As we analyze any interrogatory in a group discussion direction can expose itself if we understand what is important to the majority present. I believe as has been mentioned in this blog before knowing the “why” something matters gives me clarity in my response. Following up the question you pose with the why it matters invariably leads to most people needing to really become introspective and come to grips with whether or not the “what is important to you” is real, authentic, personal and necessary. I have been often asked in many different scenarios what is important to me and not infrequently find myself mired in a quandary searching for the why so the what can make sense to me. I think it is often easier for us to come up with what is important to us only to discover that the response satisfies our near term needs but not the sustainable and enduring beliefs that help us migrate through life. There are a lot more “what’s” I deal with every day depending on the circumstances and not surprisingly only a handful of “why’s” which frequently repeat themselves . Why do you ask the question ” what is important to you?” 🙂 Al
Hi AL,
Hope you don’t mind me jumping in to express my appreciation of how you expanded on the “What’s important to me?” question. 🙂
Kind regards,
Mark
Thank you Mark for your kind words. LF is my favorite and daily blog visit. The diversity expressed here is very extensive and profound. I have yet to read a comment from a post where there is not an obvious learning moment for me. I also appreciate your frequent contributions and look forward to reading your take on issues. Have a great day. Regards, Al
Hi Al,
Always a pleasure when you drop in…
Great paraphrase. “What is meaningful to you?” is powerful and as you indicate challenging.
You are so right, answers to “what is meaningful/important?” don’t come easy. Sometimes the first response isn’t the best response.
You really pushed it today!
BTW, I’m working on LF values because you “encouraged” me.
Dang, I’m having too much fun.
Best to you,
Dan
Dr. Al Diaz is a featured contributor on Leadership Freak. I’m thankful he regularly, generously shares his perspective and insights. Read his interesting bio at: http://leadershipfreak.wordpress.com/al-diaz. –I might get a picture of him soon 😉
Dan – I’ll try to keep this brief in keeping with your goal of being concise.
If there are two key groups in any organization: the people we make promises to (our customers and investors) and the people who keep the promises (our employees and strategic partners) then perhaps a variation on your one question would be: “What’s important to US?”
Thanks for starting another great discussion,
Joan
Hi Joan,
Love the variation. It has the feel of brining people together.
Have a great day Joan and thanks for stopping in.
Cheers,
Dan
PS… Long comments are great. Brevity is one component of the Leadership Freak brand. I’ll keep my post to 300 words or less but you can leave LONG comments. :->
My favorite question is “what’s the goal?” It’s easy to get bogged down in the day to day grind of doing things and lose sight of what we are ultimately trying to achieve. Often when we look closely, we find that many of the things we spend time and energy on are not getting us to where we want to be.
Katy,
Great seeing you again!
It seems like, “What’s the goal has the ability to lift us out of small, meaningless, or insignificant activities.
Success to you,
Dan
Dan – I love powerful questions! As a coach, I believe people generally know their answers – they just need to change perspective to find them.
One of my favorite Qs is something like “At the end of this (project, career, etc), how will others describe what you did to succeed?” or similar words.
Change perspective to open insights.
In your opinion, what is the most powerful question of all? Why?
A great question, and I promise not to ask about my 11 year old’s homework issues today! You know, business (my business anyway) often requires us to sit through mind-numbing meetings that frequently wander away from the designated topic and fail to achieve their objectives. When we were working on implementing a new system with an incoming Third Party Administration vendor, we had meeting after meeting to design and give feedback on “use cases,” which were to be the guiding documents used by the TPA to design the system. I often felt that my presence in these meetings was going to have a minutely negligible effect on our core mission: providing health insurance to uninsured children.
From a personal standpoint, I have been so fundamentally impacted by my sister in law’s death in her sleep at age 30 (17 years ago) — it was so sudden and unexpected that there was zero opportunity for anyone to say goodbye or resolve old issues.
The business and personal examples are meant to point up this question, which could be refined depending on environment: Since I have chosen to engage in this conversation [meeting, activity, relationship] at this moment, is it something that will make a positive difference in the long run?
I know that technical stuff takes a long time and a lot of detail, and ultimately DOES help people. I know that people who have unpleasant jobs (think bill collectors) don’t walk around (probably) in a state of euphoria. But the question still applies — is what I am doing/saying something that, if it were the very last thing I ever did — something that will ultimately build up instead of break down?
Hi, Paula. Thanks so much for your post. I think your question is one that has great significance in every area of life. It also serves as a great guidepost when faced with conflicting responsibilities.
Thanks, Deidre!
So many of us are fixated in the future. The question I find that provokes people to think is, “If you could redesign your current environment to be whatever you would want it to be, what would that environment look like TODAY?”
There are three qualifiers. The redesigned environment:
** Must be technologically feasible – it must not rely on technology that does not exist.
** Must be operationally viable – capable of surviving if the new environment came into existence.
** Must be capable of being improved continuously from within and without.
Try it, you will find many have no idea how they would answer the question and those that do answer typically do in the future tense. This is where the systems thinking methodology called Interactive Planning begins.
I really like that. Trying it now, myself…
Jim I appreciate how you broke down the analysis into the three mentioned components all vital and interdependent. Nice road map to guide us. Thanks for sharing, Al
Great post Dan. I agree that what is important to you is the greatest question. That question established priorities, values and decisions. Our schedule, calendar and checkbook answers that question for us.
Tom,
Thanks for the good word and helping us see some of the implications.
Best,
DAn
Someone recently asked me, “So, what’s the #1 thing you’ve learned about (your new role)?” Stopped me dead in my tracks. I had to really, really reflect.
I’d submit that to you, Dan and fellow commenters … any question re: “What did you learn?” is powerful. Or perhaps, “What WILL we learn?”
Steve,
I’ve asked that same question. I think it helps people stop sleep walking.
Frequently we know more than we realize we know and we’ve learned more than we realize. Taking a moment to reflect builds confidence and provides a platform for sharing what we are learning.
I’ll add my preference for “what are you learning?” vs. “what have you learned?” simply to limit the finality of the latter.
Best to you,
Dan
I like to ask “What will be your legacy?” When I ask myself that question, it makes me think more about the future and it helps bring into focus what really matters to me.
Martha
You go Martha! Thanks for bringing legacy into this!
That reflection keeps us honest on several levels. Whether it is internal, external or both, that measure aligns paths. It seems that it is part of most peoples’ core to help, to serve and also to be remembered in some way.
Martha,
Thats a question with punch or kick. It’s a gut wrencher that needs askin…
Best to you,
Dan
Dan, why are you hating on ‘why’….why? (kidding)
Have to disagree with you, why has a place and can be an opener…to gain new perspectives on a past issue.
It can be a retrospective or reactive tool to look at an event that did not go well or, much more rarely done, but equally as valid, looking at an event that did go well.
At some point in the ‘whys’ (or is it ‘wise’) process, you can shift the focus to learn, to move ahead, be proactive by not repeating the negative event sequence and to put in place elements that nurture/endorse more positive events.
Why did this occur? Asking this repeatedly, without blame (very important) gets down to the nitty gritty, core processes (often systemic) that failed (if focusing on a negative event). It must be asked repeatedly to drill down or lean into the issue. It is not easy and often not comfortable, but there are such nuggets of wisdom to be mined if you do! And if done in a team format, sidecar benefit is increased team cohesion…and sense of accomplishment.
Most important question…
In looking at the past, did I grow? As with Steve’s, ‘did I/we learn?
Future focus…what will a good outcome look like if we do this? With the follow up of, ‘what will a great outcome look like if we do this? And maybe using Cooper’s perspective, what would an exceptional outcome look like?
Forgot to give attribution on the repeatedly asking ‘why’. Sakichi Toyoda formulated it with the Toyota Production System. It also is called the 5 whys. Although five is an artificial number, it can be 6, 7, 8 or more.
Hi Dan:
Thought provoking post to be sure…However my belief is that the most powerful question of all is the one that works within the context of the situation at hand. The question must be appropriate to the person(s) being addressed, the timing must be spot-on, but most importantly it must unlock the door to reveal the needed input/feedback/information.
Relying on any single question to serve as the omnibus catch-all question is dangerous. I’m not sure what the most powerful question in the world is, but I know that the most powerful question of the moment changes frequently…
I love the way you stimulate thought and dialog Dan…keep up the great work.
Dear Dan,
I agree that “what is important for you” is a great question. It is very simple to ask but perhaps difficult to respond.
The answer opens ones perspective, philosophy and understanding towards life, people and value. The answer also reveals person’s personality. Rest others like where, how, when and who are secondary questions. They focus more on means and resources to achieve what. What is more important than others but sometimes means are even more important because they show your intention, perseverance and ethics to achieve that goal.
I absolutely agree that questions opens doors of various opportunities. At the same time, they also broaden horizon, opens multiple solutions and compels one to think about pros and cons.
However, to answer “What” one needs to have good exposure, experience and education in life. The focus will be clearer if the person has seen odds circumstances in life. Person with a lot of affluences, support and without failure may not truly answer the question. What is important in life? So, without proper background, it might be difficult to answer correctly or even to understand what is important in life.
Dear Dan,
Thank you for this subject that makes me think. I can not choose the most powerful question of all, because we must make distinction in different situation, when one question may be powerful than other.
Some good questions (talking between colleagues or friends), in my opinion are :
-How do you feel today?
-What are your passions?
-What would you like to change if you could do that?
-What makes you happy?
Other questions for potential clients or customers may be:
-What do you find useful in our store, or what would you like to see?
-What would you like to improve at our products, or our people which deliver services?
PS I apologize yo you an to all readers for mistakes in my English writing, I am learning to improve it. Thank you for understanding.
All the best,
It is in the perfection of the question that drives us to the answers we seek.
Philosophically my most important question, because all other life questions find themselves rooted there, is “At the end of my Life and Purpose here, what memories will I have?” I might add, “What will their value be?”
I also find that I evaluate many situations and plans in part by asking, “How will ____ experience and respond to ____?” This could be, “How will my customer’s experience and respond to this design?” Or, “How will my volunteers experience and respond to this plan of action?” Or, “How will parents experience and respond to this fundraiser for the science department?” It could even be something as mundane as “How will our organization’s clients experience and respond to this new shipping proposal?” And vice versa, “How will I/my business/organization experience and respond to this choice?”
This segue’s back to the notion of memories as well. People may not remember what you do, but they do remember how you made them feel. And ultimately, that’s what people truly remember – feelings. When they buy a product, they remember how the experience felt and how it felt to use that product. Whether summed up as awful or great, we’re still talking about feelings.
Other important questions include, “What are my/our choices or possibilities?” and “What (if any) are the unintended consequences?”
And I really should add a few others that really need attention when hard decisions need to be made.
“What are our legitimate problems?”
“What are my fears/concerns?”
“What’s holding me/us back?”
And maybe even an evaluative “How am I/are we doing?”
Dan,
A wise man once told me something, “make decisions so that you have more opportunities.” A necessary consequence of this is; if we make decisions that give us more opportunities, we are really making decisions that allow us to make more decisions. Similarly, questioning or the Socratic method, functions with the same dynamics. We can ask questions that lead to more questions or we can asked questions that close off after they are answered. The most enlightening question, if answered with complete honesty, is; “how do I know what I think I know” or “why do I believe what I believe.” This question can go on ad infinitum or to whatever depth a person may choose to question . It is the questions that truly wakes a person from their slumber. It reveals our own ignorance to ourselves. It is a question that has the potential to reveal the origins of feelings, thoughts, and values. It can cause us to quit our jobs and move to the country to eat home grown tomatoes.
Without these questions answered well, any further inquisition into any area may have the wrong foundations and the answers we give to the what, how, and who questions may be fundamentally flawed from the get go. Without answering this question we have at best a shaky foundation to any questions we try to answer.
Most people, I believe, don’t like to ask this question, for we can easily end up in the mire, writhing in uncertainty, wondering if we will ever escape to the certainty that we once had. But once the question of” what is certainty” and “how do I know that I know what certainty is” is asked, certainty becomes nothing more than an intuition of solidarity, correctness, or more easily put a feeling of knowing the truth.
Many business’s fail at coming to the right solutions, because their assumed certainty was nothing more than a foundationally flawed intuition of correctness. The world is so complex, that without seemingly mundane information our answers are often not looking at the real issues of ignorance. They misinterpret the issues, the causes of the issues, and often respond after there failure, ” If I only had realized that X played role in this scenario.”
Dan,
Thanks for the exciting post, I would add three important questions to me at the moment to this lively thread,
First and second “Are we moving forward? and on the right road? “, I know it is obvious but this question gave me some relief in stressful time so I can concentrate on current work, it helps to keep an eye on a progressive future while understanding obstacles of today and keep checking the validity of today’s efforts that will lead to the tomorrow’s vision.
Third ” What is in it for me?” in order to accomplish anything significant, we need to work as teams, and everyone’s needs and wants should be acknowledged and fulfilled in varying degrees and ways, to keep the whole working effectively.
Best to you,
Huda
I need only say that I think you have nailed this one Dan. “What’s important to you …” is very powerful.
If your team member is blocked and resistant to change, the most powerful question after yours is “What if …”.
Here’s my short post on that dimension:
—
http://katenasser.com/two-magical-words-for-best-21st-century-people-skills/
Thanks for your Powerful Question.
Kate
PS Verizon DSL was down in my town yesterday so I am just catching up!
Dan – GREAT post – and lots of great comments too! I added my thoughts (and one more word) in my response post this morning. http://blog.kevineikenberry.com/communication/the-most-valuable-question/
Thanks for all the great work you do!
Kevin 🙂
Kevin, the addition of that word does a great job of laser-focusing the question. I can see people using Dan’s question to start sifting through priorities and yours to hone in on the most critical. Interesting thoughts!
Another great post! I like: What does that (would that) look like? It forces us to be specific so we know when we get there!
Hi Dan,
Back in March you wrote a post that listed 10 great questions and this one stuck with me:
“How can I help?”
And I thought this one was so insightful: While talking with a passionate person – “Why do you feel so strongly?”
Thanks!
Dear all,
My list of questions:
– what is your vision?
– what is your mission?
– what is your goal?
– what do you want?
– what is your plan?
– what is your role?
– what time do you have? what ressources do you have?
– what are your strenghts? How are you using it?
– what are your weekness? how are you overcoming it?
Why? because they are actions oriented. In case of clarification need or disagreement will ask “why?” or “why not?”
Hi Lenna,
Thanks so much for adding your questions to the list.
All the best,
Dan
I love this post. And I agree with your conclusion. However my personal favorite wording for the question is: “What’s important here?” That adds the implicit notion of grounding them in present time and space. It also allows either a personal answer or a big picture answer.
If I find myself confused by what the person wants of me, I might ask, “How can I support you?” It seems to generate more specifics than asking how I can help.
Steve,
Thanks for your comment and your suggested rewording. The way you word it is less confrontational and as you say gives the speaker a couple options. Nicely done.
I’m thankful you dropped in and took the time to share your insights,
Dan