Excuse Me, I’m Having a Eureka Moment

Years ago a colleague asked me to define what a successful consultant, coach, or mentor does to help their client. “Hmmm”, I thought about the question, “we work in a process of managing epiphanies! We help others discover what is, perhaps has always been, but not necessarily in focus”.  It certainly was not original thought, but I believe that it is nonetheless true, and we owe much of that to Socrates. Socrates, a Greek philosopher, mentor of Plato, helped others to find truth, or fallacy in thought by asking great questions. Great answers pick the destination and great questions lead to discovery.

For many, asking great questions is a learned habit, one that may require overcoming other really strong habits. One of the strongest habits to break is our desire to have good answers. If we have great answers, then better. If you’re successful and you’ve grown in responsibilities over time, having great answers has been important. Having great answers is a way to demonstrate capability, competence, smarts, knowledge, foresight, preparation, diligence, initiative… lots and lots of favorable traits. In fact, people who work for you know that they can always count on you to have a great answer. Is that good? Does that increase or decrease the options, degrees of freedom, genius contribution, ownership, and fulfillment? How about the overall quality of answers? How do we know?

“We are usually convinced more easily by reasons we have found ourselves than by those which have occurred to others.” Blaise Pascal

Is it possible that the more others count on our answers, the less likely they will come up with good ones themselves. Is that a good thing? Let’s start with some data gathering (on ourselves, our leaders, and our team members.)

• What are our answers given versus questions asked ratios?
• Are we sounding boards or decision buttons?
•  Do we welcome better answers or do we see them as competition?
• How often do folks wait on our answer before executing?
• How well prepared are our folks for great questions?
• How often do we hear “I understand or I got it” versus “Eureka”?

What is critical thinking? How do people gain critical thinking capability? How is that different than always knowing the answer? Which is inductive thinking and which is deductive thinking? If you could only pick one, which would you choose to have in changing times?

“Wisdom begins in wonder.” Socrates