CHICAGO–Every credit union leader knows that if they want to prosper in today’s markets both individuals and organizations must adapt. And a big part of that comes down to the ability ask good questions, including those that are “unprofessional” and especially those that are “depth-check” questions, according to one person.
Writing on Inc.com, Larry Robertson, an innovation adviser, said the ability to ask good questions also raises other questions, such as the types of questions that yield the greatest return.
“While the specific questions any of us apply must fit the person and circumstances, there are in fact patterns of certain types of questions that the most creatively successful people on the planet consistently ask, regardless of their sector or situations,” wrote Roberston. “One example is what I call ‘unprofessional questions’.”
The term, he said, stems from a conversation he had with philosopher, author, and MacArthur “Genius Award” winner Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, who described to him how her greatest breakthroughs resulted from being willing to ask unprofessional questions, the kind that her original professional field of philosophy said shouldn’t be asked.”
“It wasn’t brash rebellion. It was simply that when the answers offered by her field simply didn’t fit real life, Rebecca got unprofessional, at least in her willingness to explore other ideas,: shared Robertson.
A Shared Habit
Robertson said he has interviewed hundreds of the world’s most creative thinkers, entrepreneurs, and progressive leaders, including 65 other MacArthurs such as Goldstein, and that he can report asking unprofessional questions is a habit they share.
“So too is asking ‘questions of fit’ (named for that willingness to consciously pursue that Spidey sense feeling we all get but most of us ignore); ‘portraiture questions’ (those questions that pull us back to see the immediate in the larger context we can so easily forget), and ‘change-the-W questions’ (when we substitute the obvious who, what, when, where, or why in a question with one of its siblings, in order to get an unexpected and unencumbered view of the playing field),” wrote Robertson. “But there’s one type of question that plays a vital role in wrangling all the other types into relevance and more importantly, results. They’re called ‘depth check’ questions.
Both Ends of the Pool
Reflecting a comment many of her peers echoed, MacArthur Fellow and legendary choreographer Liz Lerman has said that when she’s working through a problem, creating, or even just exploring, she likes to “think at both ends of the spectrum,” in other words at both the deep and the shallow ends of thinking, shared Robertson.
“Depth check questions help you gauge where you are and why you’re seeing what you see. They also signal when you may need to change depths to get the larger frame back in focus,” he wrote. “And they remind us that the greatest potential for breakthrough thinking and more, for impact, lies in being willing to move in and out of both ends, and to occupy the sometimes messy mix in the middle most of the time. In other words, you have to be willing to swim around, and be open to questions as you do.”