Questions: A Basis for Dialogue... Why?

Take a guess: how many questions have you asked in your lifetime?  Do you think you have asked more questions when you were younger or in more recent years?  Interesting?  Don't you think?!

How many questions do you ask each day?  (Pickles, Brian Crane, March 15, 2016)

When I reflected on my life, especially in light of the past few weeks, I have noticed that many of my Adult Questions have been framed as What - that is, asking about facts.  I wondered... at what time in my life did I lose the magic and wisdom of Why?

When my nieces and nephews were growing up, I remember they were always asking Why?  Why?  Why?  And, eventually, the adult response became "Because I said so!"  I wonder... is it at this stage in our young lives that we learned to shift from Why to What?

While in college, Brad - a church minister working with our college student group, asked us, "What color is God?"  I think most people responded with similar answers.  Being a quiet, introverted person, I sat back and pondered his question.  Brad, noticing that I hadn't answered, asked me what I was thinking.  I answered, "God is Blue!"  Some people chuckled, but Brad cocked his head and asked me "Why?"  I explained that the skies, being blue on a good day, represented the expansiveness of the heavens.  It is as if we are surrounded by blue: God envelops us and is always present!

Each question invites us to move deeper

Brad could have stopped with his first question, What.  But it was his second question, Why, that opened the door to what I was thinking.  That is,

• What - may answer the facts of the question; whereas,
• Why - allows us to explore the thoughts or feelings behind the answer. 

I would suggest that in dialogue we are invited to explore both the facts and the thoughts and feelings behind the details.  Chris Argyris' Ladder of Inference comes to mind:  the Ladder stands on the foundational facts of a situation (e.g., what happened?) and it  explores why a person may be "up the Ladder" (e.g., socially constructed realities, assumptions, meanings, conclusions).

Concepts to explore:

• An issue or problem arises when we think our opinions (the rungs of the Ladder) are actually the  facts (the foundation).  Centuries ago, Marcus Aurelius suggested that Opinions and perceptions are not the same as facts or the truth.
• Asking Why we hold a particular opinion may open a window that allows us to probe or see how thoughts, feelings, opinions and perceptions are different than the facts.
• Dialogue is a relational activity.  It invites us into exploration: why does another person think and feel differently than I do?

Questions allows us to peek and grow

Therefore, the depth of each one of us may not be in the facts of our lives but in the essence of how we have come to think, understand, and act upon our experiences.  It is this emergence of who we are and the dreams of who we are striving to become that is shared through the Whats and Whys of Curious Inquiry.

Choosing to move forward... together!

And finally, Marion Milner suggests:  "The growth of understanding follows an ascending spiral rather than a straight line."  Our challenge weeks after the Election, is to take that next step, the invitation to travel together... searching for questions and answers.... asking our Whats and Whys... and listening.

Our questions may not take us in a straight line or the road we expected to travel, but maybe... by asking more questions of each other, we will unburden ourselves of unnecessary accusations and misconceptions.

May this week allow time for continued reflection and dialogue as we try to move toward deeper truth!

Larry Gardepie
Dialogue San Diego Consulting