The art of powerful calling and guiding questions
For initiating any form of collaboration (incl. meetings, events, dialogues, trainings) a powerful calling & guiding question is essential for laying a healthy foundation for fruitful collaboration and meaningful outcomes.
“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”
- Rainer Maria Rilke
Rilke points at the fact that anything we are seeking to do, realize and contribute to in fact is a journey. A journey that allows us to more fully embody - not only to think - the possible answers.
Powerful calling/guiding questions support to focus attention, intention, and energy. They sketch the “territory” that you want to explore and dedicate this collaboration to. They function as a invitation to others to join.
While answers, statements and opinions tend to bring us to closure and indicate having reached a certain place or position, questions open up the space to exploration and a sense of starting a journey. This is an important inner attitude when initiating something new to approach it as something being in the process of becoming.
Equally important for any form of meaningful collaboration or dialogue and especially for projects working towards societal transformation and systemic change, is that we create an open invitation to others to journey along. This based on the knowing that none of us alone can find the “right” answers and create the solutions in isolation. It’s the willingness to go with others (with diverse perspectives, skills and competences) on an exploration. It’s the commitment to wholeheartedly find our ways into the appropriate answers - together.
A high-quality calling/guiding question question focuses on what is meaningful for the context, the collaborators, the diverse stakeholders and participants. It triggers our curiosity and invites us to explore beyond what we already have though or “know to be true”.
By inviting people into a conversation or collaboration that matters, a calling/guiding question creates a common ground. The question somehow expresses the deeper purpose why we would even come together. This doesn’t mean we all need to agree on all fronts, but we ensure looking into the same direction moving forward.
The calling/guiding question is the shared red thread, the rope you are all connected to along the journey. It helps in moments of confusions or unclarity to have a sense of orientation.
A good calling/guiding question continues to surface good ideas and possibilities.
Some guidelines for crafting good questions:
A well-crafted question attracts energy and focuses attention on what matters.
A well-crafted question is reasonable in terms of size, reach and time. It’s a balance between short-term and long-term. Ensure it’s not too simple yet also not to fare out so that we may lose the connection to its relevance. For a long-term project you can work with iterations of the guiding question relevant to the phase you are in, while having an overarching long-term guiding question.
A well-crafted question invites inquiry and curiosity. It does not need to promote action or problem solving immediately.
A well-crafted question is open-ended to avoid a simple yes/no answer that would indicate already the solution. Questions starting with “How…” have often proven to work well.
A well-crafted question is formulated, designed and checked with the key people who will be involved. These can be f.e. team members or important key stakeholders. Ensure that the question holds your shared attention, intention and energy.
A well-crafted question is free of possible (subtle) assumptions that may actually already be an opinion. Create awareness with the key people what assumption you may hold, or maybe even hidden judgements. The more conscious we are and adapt the question accordingly the more we can ensure a generative process. It’s not because we formulate something as a question that we have let go of our thoughts what is right or wrong. Use the process of formulating the question as a mirror to reflect on your possible blind spots and hidden assumptions.
Time & tools
‘‘If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on it, I would use the first 55 minutes to formulate the right question because as soon as I have identified the right question I can solve the problem in less than five minutes.’’
- Albert Einstein
Depending on the complexity of the context and the diversity of people involved, it may take several iterations to come to THE question. Give it the time it needs. Don’t rush at this point.
The more aligned you are on the calling & guiding question with the key stakeholders the more efficient you will be on the long term.
Its supportive to share it also with others outside of the closer circle. Be open to receive feedback and see how the question resonates with them.
You are not only formulating a question; you are setting the foundation and initiate the process.
It’s one of your first important threshold moments.
Personal experience
The process of crafting a powerful AND meaningful calling/guiding question is for me a creative and art-filled act with others.
In several collaborations I was able to be part of, this moment felt special and crucial.
It often felt like looking into a mirror.
What do I/ we really call forth here?
What am I/we able to let go off?
Am I/are we ready to surrender to what wants to emerge without my mind pretending knowing already the answers?
In a specific collaboration it also allowed me to realize that we are actually not holding the same questions and intentions. This led to a smooth closing of the collaboration at an early stage. Some would call that a failure yet for me it felt a success knowing we can separately serve better the larger cause then trying to make it possible between us.
I also experienced that the moments I really dared to stay in the question, sitting with it, getting to know it, building a deeper relationship with it, dropping the need for solutions and answers; the next elegant step showed itself again and again, and suddenly without me even realizing, the generative answers that I would not have been able to conceive off manifested themselves in front of my surprised eyes.
Sources and further reading
Literature:
Shaping powerful question by Kathy Jourdain on the Art of Hosting website
The Art of powerful questions by Eric E. Vogt, Juanita Brown and David Isaacs
Video and foto:
Photo by Dawid Zawiła on Unsplash
Luea Ritter is part of the design and hosting team for collaboratio helvetica’s Catalyst Lab. This learning and design process has been created to support individuals and their teams with the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Switzerland. Luea is also part of the Practitioner Circle and supports different long-term mandates. Luea thrives within complexity, and through a diverse medley of fields she has developed a high sensitivity for context-based social dynamics. She weaves societal and systemic change practices, trauma and healing work, leadership, collaboration and earth-based wisdom traditions to cultivate capacities in individuals and collectives. Besides her work for collaboratio helvetica she works internationally across sectors to guide multi-stakeholder design and transition processes that embrace the challenge and potential of our times and support social innovation. She co-founded Collective Transitions, an action-research organization dedicated to making the implicit valued, and building shared capacities for transformational shifts.