How to Practically Create a Culture of Questioning? |A Reflection on A More Beautiful Question by Warren Berger—Part 3
How has questioning has changed the world?
Western civilization is built on the ideas put forth by the Greek philosophers (Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle) and Christianity. And both Jesus and the Greek philosophers are expert question-askers! If you want to impact your world, you need to develop the art of questioning. Are you convinced yet of the importance of questioning? If not, I’ve expanded on these ideas in my posts How Can a Question Be So Powerful? and How Can I Ask and Impactful Question? Additionally, it will also make you a more interesting guest and dinner parties. 😉
But you might be thinking, how do I do it? What are some practical steps I can take to incorporate questioning techniques into my classroom, workplace, or personal life? If you are the kind of person who wants some practical advice, this is the post for you!
A More Beautiful Question by Warren Berger
A More Beautiful Question: The Power of Inquiry to Spark Breakthrough Ideas by Warren Berger is a great book and is a must read for anyone who wants to make an impact in their life. I suggest you pick up a copy and read it for yourself or have your local book club read it and discuss it.
Note: I’m reviewing Berger’s 2014 version of A Beautiful Question: The Power of Inquiry to Spark Breakthrough Ideas. He recently published a 10th Anniversary edition that includes new chapters on how questioning can help make you a better leader… a clearer thinker… and a more effective communicator. Fresh stories about the power of questioning to inspire breakthroughs — in your work and your life which can be found on Amazon.
My Approach
This is not just a review of Warren Berger’s book, but a series of reflections inspired by the book. I will connect what I learned from his book to things that I already know or are thinking about.
Why is it important to create a culture of questioning?
Before you begin, evaluate yourself. Are you sure you really want a questioning culture in your workplace, classroom, or family? You may think you do, but deep down you may not want the repercussions that come with it. Questioning involves change and disruption; it also encourages a more egalitarian power structure. Are you really willing to risk the status quo?
However, if you are willing to lean in and face your fears, creating a questioning culture could be the positive change that your workplace, school, or family needs. It’s exciting and productive! Questioning helps you succeed and overcome obstacles. As people feel like their ideas are valued, the people in your sphere will become more engaged and tend to have a more positive outlook and buy-in.
How do you create a culture of questioning?
Start with Leadership
It starts at the top! If you decide to embrace creating a questioning culture, leadership must start the momentum and be an example. Leaders or teachers must be the chief question askers. Don’t be afraid to ask provocative and disruptive questions. Remember questioning shouldn’t just come from the leaders, so be willing to answer tough questions your students or employees ask you. Be careful not to demand answers but draw out your employees’ or students’ thinking by using Socratic style questioning. Make sure to project a clear and distinctive point of view that others can follow. It’s also vital for a leader to know when to stop questioning and take action.
Create Norms
How do we transform a workplace into a learn-place? Be explicit about norms and model questioning behavior. Explain the importance of questioning and then as a group create norms to promote a questioning culture. Then post the norms publicly during times of discussion and collaboration.
Here are some ideas to incorporate in your norms.
- Follow-up exploratory questions with practical ones.
- Keep questioning.
- Keep it positive. Questions that have a positive tone tend to yield better results than those with a negative tone.
- Use language that is open-and inclusive. Defer judgement initially; don’t allow others to answer too quickly or counter questions using a devil’s advocate style.
- Encourage observing and listening. The “Noticing and Wondering Routine” can be helpful to implement. (Check out my posts about the Noticing and Wondering Routine Part 1 and Part 2.)
- Reflect on the language that you use. For example, using “How might we?” instead of “How can we?” or “How should we?” defers judgement which opens up more possibilities.
Keep Asking and Revising
You need to push beyond the number of questions that you think is needed. Many groups stop at 25 questions, but better questions come at 50 and 75. Make sure you give the group time for revision. After discussion converge around the best questions; focus on three to explore. Remember don’t define success as an answer but look for new direction and momentum.
Set-up Systems and Incentives
Setting up systems and incentives to promote questioning is vital. A suggestion box isn’t enough. Is there room in the budget (and time in the calendar) for people to explore unanswered questions or do promising experiments? Are there rewards (intrinsic or extrinsic) for questioning? Does an employee or student gets punished either directly or indirectly for asking a question? Analyze the system and structures and norms that you have in place. Another idea is to try creating a mission question instead of mission statement. This allows you to focus on the journey instead of the results.
Continually Questioning
Answers in the real-world might be right for the current time, but not in the future as the world is ever changing and expanding. In life we need to ask our question and questions but be open to continually revise it or change it as needed. Sometimes we find information that stops one question, but opens up a door to a whole bunch of new questions.
How do we inadvertently discourage inquiry?
The author states that most companies and schools have unspoken cultures that discourage inquiry.
Time
Questioning takes time. From my experience in the classroom there is pressure to “cover” all the content before testing. This leads to pressure to cut corners to save time, and unfortunately higher-level, open-ended discussions that provoke thoughts or can create tangents get the cut. At a corporate level there if often pressure on short-term results which tends to drive questioning out of the equation. Is it worth it to sacrifice the time? You need to be the judge, but questioning can create more engagement and require deeper critical-thinking skills. This leads to longer to a greater understanding and longer retention rates.
Status Quo
Questioning disrupts the status quo. Questioning can cause the authority figure to cede power. After leaving the role of classroom teacher, I went to work at textbook company. Corporate world was a culture shock to me and people communicated differently. As a teacher your primary purpose is to help kids. You are expected to sacrificially give all you have and look for creative solutions because you have so few resources. Communication at a school is also very democratic. For example, during a staff meeting the new teachers are equal to the veteran teachers and everyone has the ability to speak up and be listened to; and most teachers are extremely opinionated. 🤣 As an educator my raises are not dependent on how I do in comparison to another teacher; my raises (if I get any at all) are based on years of experience. However, in corporate America (even in a company that produces instructional materials for students), the most important thing isn’t helping the students. Although, they hope their material does. The most important thing is to make money and do it in an extremely efficient matter because if you don’t, the company doesn’t make as much money and lay-offs happen. The atmosphere in corporate America is much more competitive because there is only so much money in the pot for raises, and if a colleague shines than that’s money they get and you don’t. So voices are shut down and ideas silenced because it’s less about the kids and more about self-protection.
What are some methods I can use to incorporate inquiry into a classroom or workplace?
Brainstorming or Question-Storming
Dan Rothstein, who was one of the people who established the nonprofit The Right Question Institute, states that questioning unlocks the mind. Oftentimes there is much too social pressure in brainstorming.
He challenges people to brainstorm using only questions. Questions not only open-up thinking, but they focus it and direct it. Creativity requires solitude, but if flourishes when diverse ideas are exchanged. In the workplace or learnplace, there needs to be a balance between collaboration and creativity. Make sure you give time for both. It may be helpful to give people time to question-storm independently before doing it in a group. Or start with group question-storming and then move to independent question-storming.
Problem Finding
Problem Finding is when questioners go out and search for a “why?” they can work on and answer. Min Basadur of Basadur Applied Innovation says that problem finding is one of the most important things to do for an established company. However, I think it would be a great strategy to develop deeper understanding for a variety of content areas—especially a math class. Give students a math, science, or social studies scenario, and have students figure out a problem they can work on.
Vuja De
Vujà dé is the opposite of Déjà vu. It’s when you look at something familiar and pretend that you’ve never seen it before. It’s similar to the Noticing and Wondering Routine. (Check out my posts about the Noticing and Wondering Routine Part 1 and Part 2.) What do you notice? What do you wonder? Vujà dé allows for switching the negatives and positives of an idea or object or reversing causes and effects or switching how and what we rank as important or not. This can allow us to see inconsistencies in our logic, practice, or come up with new problem-solving techniques.
Practice, Practice, Practice!
There is a difference between being willing to question and to question well and effectively. The latter takes practice. This is what we as educators and leaders need to do: Practice questioning!
When writing up your lesson plan or planning a meeting come up with questions that further learning. Write them down and imbed them in your lesson plan or meeting agenda. As teachers, you can write up classwork/partner work that consists only of questions (think The Socratic Method).
Reflect on your questions. Will the question you ask yield the level of rigor or creativity that you desire? Or can you refine your question? Remember, you don’t have to chase down or answer every question within the classroom or workplace. After generating many questions focus on a few—maybe 2 or 3.
A Practical Example for a K-12 Teacher
A teacher or group of teachers can create a focus question on a topic that is aligned to the curriculum. For example if students are exploring volume, the question could be “How useful is a water tower?”
Then students could produce more questions around the topic either independently or within a group. The next stage is to refine their questions. They can reword the questions and experiment with opening and closing them. Once the class created a nice assortment of questions, you can prioritize them as a class. If you as a teacher want to explore volume, makes sure the class chooses at least one of the questions that have to do with volume. Then the teacher(s) and the students together decide on the next steps. The last step is for the students to reflect on what they’ve learned.
Statistics, Math Modeling, and the Scientific Method
Learning how to ask a question is essential for Statistics and Math Modeling. Formulating a question is the first step of the GAISE Framework (Guidelines for Assessment and Instruction in Statistics Education). In Statistics a question must have variability. There are different types of questions in statistics: those used to frame an investigation, collect data, and guide analysis and interpretation. Questioning is also vital in Mathematical Modeling. The GAIMME Framework (Guidelines for Assessment and Instruction in Mathematical Modeling Education) states that identifying and specifying the problem that needs to be solved in the form of a question is the first step. There is overlap between the problem solving processes in statistics, math modeling, and the scientific method. Again, the first step in the scientific method is to ask a question.
Conclusion
Start small. Start big. Start now. Create impact and increase engagement by integrating questioning into your workplace, personal life, or classroom. Be interesting. Be a disruptor and agent of change for the good of the world.
I’m not finished with this topic yet! I have two more post coming. The next post will explore how Jesus uses questioning. Then I will finish by posting about some of the big life questions.
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Share any strategies that you have for incorporating questioning into the classroom.
