What’s on My Paper

Imagine I told you, “I have a drawing that uses simple shapes on my paper. Your job is to use open-ended questions to gain clarity about what the image on the paper looks like.” What questions would you ask? Take a few moments, perhaps even write out what you come up with. 

I myself was led through this exercise a few weeks ago by the Human Formation Coalition during a coaching training program. I am grateful to my employer, Sól Recruiting, for sending me. 

A few lessons emerged as we tried to understand what our instructor had on her paper. The first was that open-ended questions produced much more information than closed questions. Even though we were instructed to ask open-ended questions, many of us still asked things like, “Is there a triangle?” It was interesting to see how much more we learned when we asked questions like, “What shapes are there on the page?” or “How are the shapes related to one another?” The second lesson was that it was much easier to be genuinely curious if we didn’t assume we knew what was on the page. If we believed that the drawing was a snowman or a house, our minds narrowed. Focusing on trying to figure it out or win the game was not a helpful way of being for discovery. 

This exercise illustrates that in the coaching space, we serve our clients better by using open-ended questions that are asked with curiosity. I think this applies to most ordinary conversations as well. 

This week, I invite you to examine: 

What are the usual questions I ask during conversations? (Write out a few.) Which ones are open-ended, allowing for expansive answers that draw out information? Which ones are closed, leading to yes-or-no or one-word answers that don’t invite elaboration? 

Challenge: Practice using more open-ended questions and see how your conversations change. 

God bless,
Dan