Insights from Collaborative Board
…There’s a bit of deconstruction , untraining that happen when these questions are asked. Because we are formulaic. We are taught to give formulaic responses. It’s great to see somebody untrain themselves really quickly and adjust to the new direct, more candid communication that’s going to happen here.
The quality of listening improved the second time around.. more seamless.
I needed to take a step back, to have great questions reflected back at me. Keyed off more of what they were saying because you got to know them a bit.
You ask good questions, it’s an efficient way to live. You can entertain yourself by asking questions that are interesting about them.
What I like about the metaphors… they keep us on task.. to what is going on in our head, and in our heart.. They allow us to get our metaphors out there. and take them home with us.
It makes it easier to express the problem by giving it an archetype, a mold that it can fit into.
Taking Flight.. I love that metaphor.. As soon as I start asking those questions, I get pumped.
- Who would you love to meet?
- What would you love to do? Who have you told? What do you need?
- What’s your next step?
They help you get to the feeling place of finding the answers.
What stood out for me tonight…what resonated how easy and effective is using the shortest of the questions. What do you need? Who do you need to meet?.. You enter into the practice to get to that simple place..
The takeaway.. I spend the whole month thinking about what issues to bring. One of the things that helped us tonight: The issues tonight were interestingly very intimate, very personal but public at the same time and there was some commonality in them at the same time. and that made for a very empathetic conversation such that knowing that about each other, we could then take on a bigger issue, a more distant issue because we know each other a bit better.
There is a sense of community …really being there for the other person, listening to them
This is uncommon conversation.. but also pattern breaking. Being popped by someone who I don’t really know , with a question that is seemingly unrelated, causes me to reframe everything, constantly changing ground. It makes everything shimmer. There’s a sense of acceleration, so you have to reintegrate really fast, and that’s an important skill.
Outcome: being more courageous about who I talk to. I’ve been in the formative stages and to date have only been talking to people I know.
It’s really intimidating to start with a fresh look at a new metaphor, to be open to not only asking the questions, but answering the question .. and to stay disciplined in not embarking on advice or adjacent thoughts but to stay the course with the next question and the next series. It does in fact prove to be very probing. You can also relax and not worry about finding a conversation.. but help the person with explaining their issue.
I first didn’t understand your emphasis on brevity, but 90 minutes later I see the magic, power and potential of brevity. My own questions seem so complex to me, but the questions I was asked were so simple. There’s something comforting in that for me.
Surprised how effective and powerful this was, this interaction we were having with everyone… As we focused on one person it felt like there was an energy around the circle and everyone was actively coming together to help this person. There was a result for their problems , and from the outside we could see inside the box. We could ask these questions almost in parallel to keep pushing the same issue.
Valuable because I had the experience of genuine conversation. We don’t necessarily take the time in our busy day-to-day life for ourselves or to ask others genuine questions.