Re: Sack-cloth and Gold LO2416

mdarling@warren.med.harvard.edu
Tue, 15 Aug 95 14:06:47 EST

Replying to LO2401 --

Deanna Berg suggests that perhaps the "quest" behind questions is to find
more questions.

I love a good question and have found that some of my best client work has
been to help a client inject a few good questions into an on-going process
at a critical, but unrecognized, decision point. The very act of asking a
good question at the right moment can kick a system out of an ineffective
dynamic.

I think it's important, however, to remember that the process of asking a
question is, ultimately, intended to find an answer, from which, perhaps,
another (and maybe even better) question will emerge. In my work, I've
found two ways in which groups err -- in posing lots of really good
questions and never quite finding the time or the way to answer any of
them, or in having an answer before the question is even fully expressed.
Either one can leave some members of the team feeling frustrated.

Some questions are big enough that we need to swim around in them for
awhile before we try to bring them to closure. But I believe that there is
a natural rhythm to a quest -- the expansiveness of divergent thinking
paired with the rigor of convergent thinking. I try to model that rhythm
in my work in organizational learning.

--
Marilyn Darling
Signet Consulting Group
mdarling@warren.med.harvard.edu