While on a family vacation in Santa Fe, New Mexico, a father and his three‐year‐old daughter were out for a stroll. While stopping to admire a particularly beautiful landscape, the father took a picture of his little girl against this lovely backdrop. This was long before the days of the smartphone camera. The girl had been told by her father many times that film had to be taken to a special store to be developed and that it would be several days before they could see their photographs. Although she knew this information, she asked the question anyway, as three‐year‐olds are so prone to do, “Why can't we see the picture right now?” Her father patiently offered the explanation yet again, but this time her question settled into his mind in a way it hadn't before… Why can't we see the picture right now?
Later, Edwin Land, founder of Polaroid, would recall that day in 1943 and he would add that “within an hour, the camera, the film, and the physical chemistry became clear.” As an armchair physicist, he worked out in his head a new kind of photography system that would include all of the components of a conventional darkroom in a single handheld device – even before they returned from their walk. He called his patent attorney that same day. There was a certain power in the way in which his daughter asked her question. It caused Land to ask the question of himself, a question he had never really considered before. Questions can be powerful.
Every conversation begins with each person having an invisible frame around what they will discuss, a frame that sets the (usually subconscious) boundaries for them in the conversation. We need to bring these frames to the surface. Using the right question to do so can both open up new opportunities and keep the conversation focused in a productive direction.
David Cooperrider, professor of organizational behavior at Case Western Reserve University, says that “we live in the world our questions create.” We spend time developing framing questions to assure we are all in the same world, as it were – looking as closely as we can at the same conversation. The second skill of agile leadership to design a conversation around an appreciative framing question, a question with many answers that will move the conversation in a positive direction. A good framing question is complex enough that it will require the deeper thinking and engagement of each person in the conversation. That statement has many parts, so let's break it down into the elements of a good question, so that you will be able to ask the right questions in your conversations.
The work of Ronald Heifetz at Harvard University helps us think about the questions we might ask in a given situation. Heifetz labels questions as either technical or adaptive. When the problem definition, solution, and implementation is clear, Heifetz calls this a technical question. Confronted with a technical question, leaders can deploy expert knowledge and known thinking to lead them to the solution. Typically, there is one solution to a technical question. Answering a technical question often leads to an incremental improvement in current practices. Examples can include a city collecting all the trash each day on schedule, a company solving a quality problem to get the production line running again, or a government agency determining how to shorten waiting times at a public agency. Solutions to technical questions are not necessarily easy – all of these examples are ones that would require people (or a team) with considerable experience. But, with technical problems, leaders will engage a skilled person or team to find a solution using their technical skills.
Adaptive questions are different. They point us to challenges for which there are no clear answers. Adaptive questions can trigger many answers that might all lead to acceptable solutions. These types of questions have no known procedures or outcomes; they require a deeper questioning of fundamental assumptions and values. Solving adaptive questions requires us to exert significantly more effort, have a tolerance for uncertainty, and include the presence of divergent voices. Adaptive questions are also best addressed with the group that will be implementing the proposed solutions. We will need to engage others, and through their collective intelligence and strategic intuition. Learn our way toward possible solutions together. Here are some examples of adaptive questions: Is it possible for all students in the third grade to read at the third‐grade level? How could we become the healthiest county in the state? Can we create a robust digital technology cluster? How do we become the employer of choice in our industry? What is the best way to respond to a new technology that can erode our market position quickly? Each of these examples have many possible answers and each solution could contribute to that answer.
The adaptive leader develops the skill of asking clear, adaptive questions. These questions point a team, organization or community in a new direction. Being an adaptive leader requires you to be open to experimentation and innovation in order to generate answers to your adaptive questions. You will find that your experiments – your efforts to answer your adaptive question – are iterative. They cannot be fully planned before you begin. You will also find that as you let go of the urge to control, new solutions will appear. Exploring these potential solutions allows you to build new levels of trust and collaboration among the people who are part of the journey to discover new answers to adaptive questions.
We briefly discussed wicked problems in the first chapter. These are almost always adaptive challenges. You can think of wicked problems as those that you encounter that seem difficult or impossible – the characteristics of the problem keep you guessing as they change, and your knowledge may seem incomplete. They are not necessarily “evil” problems, but a wicked problem may seem to resist being solved, due to the many interconnections you find as you work to solve it. From their work in architecture and urban planning, the idea's originators (Rittel and Webber) wrote of wicked problems in public planning: public safety, education, transportation, affordable housing, health crises, conservation, and other social challenges. In recent years, the discussion has expanded as corporations facing globalization have realized they have their own wicked problems. To address these problems, they increasingly need to incorporate the diverse viewpoints of international customers and employees. We have found that the most productive way to address wicked problems begins by attracting diverse voices with a powerful framing question. These questions engage us. They set us off on a journey to find new opportunities to address these challenges.
If you're reading this book, you're probably faced with adaptive challenges. Your framing question, then, will need to acknowledge that reality. Good framing questions are adaptive questions. By their nature they seem big, bold, and inspiring. They grab the listener who wants to know more about how it will be accomplished and how they can be part of the solution. A good framing question is an invitation to deeper conversation that will lead to more questions, experimentation, and, ultimately, innovation.
What does such a question look like? Tina Seelig, of Stanford University‘s Department of Management Science and Engineering, and a faculty director of the Stanford Technology Ventures Program, demonstrates the power of reframing a question with a simple example. She starts with this question: What does 5 plus 5 equal? The answer, of course, is 10. We have an easy question with one answer. But what if we alter our question in this way: What two numbers equal 10? With this second question, we have an infinite number of possible answers. Seelig's point is a profound one: how we ask questions opens us to new possibilities. Our two questions differ only in the way they are framed.
In our organizations and communities, we are facing a growing number of adaptive challenges. As you confront these challenges you will want to ask a question that opens the door to infinite answers and new opportunities. You will also want to pose a framing question that connects to the unique combination of the people assembled to help you. Sound difficult? It takes practice. Adaptive leaders get really good at formulating compelling questions about a future we can't quite see yet.
As we noted with the first skill, the core of Strategic Doing involves managing conversations. Why is that so? If we start with the idea that complex challenges require us to collaborate, then it is very difficult to see how we collaborate without having conversation. We need to be intentional in how we design and guide these conversations, because our actions will follow them. In other words, as Cooperrider also tells us, people move in the direction of their conversations – both for good and for ill. You can probably recognize this phenomenon from your own experience: you start out with an adaptive challenge – a wicked problem, perhaps – and you immediately begin diving into analyzing the cause of the problem. It can be a never‐ending task, because, by definition, there is no single cause of a wicked problem. There is no single answer to an adaptive challenge. Take the example of climate change. Here's how a problem‐centered conversation about climate change might evolve:
Q. Why is climate change occurring?
A. Because people and companies pollute.
Q. Why do people and companies pollute?
A. Because they don't understand the consequences.
Q. Why don't they understand the consequences?
A. Because our schools don't teach them otherwise.
Q. Why don't the schools teach them otherwise?
A. Because they're too busy teaching basic reading and math.
Q. Why are they too busy teaching reading and math?
A. Because parents aren't doing their job.
And so on – you get the idea. There is always a deeper level to the “because,” as well as the opportunity to argue about whether the because is accurate or justified. Here's the important point: when we face an adaptive challenge – or a wicked problem – we should not engage in a problem‐centric conversation. If we do, we are heading into an endless loop where nothing happens.
Cognitive psychology supports this idea that our conversations shape our actions. An individual's emotions and behavior follow the pattern of thought – the mental models – that we carry around in our heads. If our mental model interprets every situation as a problem to be solved, our conversation and behavior will be problem‐focused. We will enter the endless loop of looking for problems to fix our complex adaptive challenges. However, cognitive psychology also tells us that we can shift these mental models. Our deeper conversations help us make these changes. If we focus on opportunities, we make sure that we do not fall into the ever‐deepening chasm of problem analysis. We have the opportunity to think instead about possible alternatives.
Please don't misunderstand us – we are not discounting the value of exploring problems. It is important that we investigate the threat of climate change, or new disruptions to an existing business model, or why young people are leaving a region. However, we need to realize at the outset that we will never completely understand the causes of these kinds of wicked problems. We need to know enough – enough to engage in the conversation, and trust that we will learn more as we work together.1 In meeting adaptive challenges, we learn by doing. So, we need conversations that lead us to action, to experimentation, so we can generate new insights into these complex situations.
Every conversation is in response to some question – whether that question is explicitly asked or not – and so choosing the right question makes an enormous difference. Problem‐centered questions tend to bog groups down in analysis. We become paralyzed by the mistaken belief that there is one problem to solve. While a group might be able to sustain a litany of gripes for one meeting, no one wants to participate for long.
At the same time, we have a positive and equally important reason to ask opportunity‐centered questions instead: they emotionally engage people. Truly complex problems will require that people are committed for the long haul. We need their engagement and insights. If we focus too much on an endless search for the “right” problem to solve, we exhaust people. We will end up pushing away the creative brainpower we need to address our adaptive challenges.
When we choose to seek out what is already good and right about an individual, team, or organization, then we have chosen an approach called Appreciative Inquiry, which was developed by Cooperrider. This approach is asset‐based – positively focused – rather than deficit‐focused – emphasizing problems. By developing framing questions that are appreciative, we set ourselves on the right path to find new opportunities and address our complex adaptive challenges.
Taking these concepts together – adaptive leadership and Appreciative Inquiry – you can use a question to frame a conversation so that the people you assemble are working together in new ways. A good framing question invites new levels of collaboration that lead to new solutions. It invites a new way of seeing and engaging others. Through a deeper conversation, you can move toward practical ways to address wicked problems. Think of it visually as building a picture frame within which you will create a new scene that no one person could create on their own. Appreciative framing questions open the door to new solutions to adaptive challenges. Steve Jobs was a master at asking powerful appreciative questions. He didn't ask, “How do we compete with IBM?” He asked, “What if computers were small and personal?” That powerful six‐word question attracted the right team to build the computer that would make Apple a leader in innovation and design.
Developing a powerful framing question is not easy. For many of us, this change in thinking requires practice. Much of our schooling and experience trains us to look for problems, gaps, deficits, and deficiencies. We don't spend much time exploring what could be. We have difficulty imagining people mobilized to advance toward opportunities rather than spinning our wheels in problems. Even though your group or team may have been assembled because of a problem, practice approaching the conversation from a different perspective. Start from the position that everyone wants to build a more prosperous company, organization, or future. Invite them to start the journey to a new better solution.
You may find in your journey that people start by asking, “How can we do this?” or “How should we do that?” These questions may sound like they are opportunity‐focused. Don't be deceived – as soon as you start using words like can and should, you're implying judgment and shutting off possibilities: Can we really do it? And should we? You can avoid this trap by substituting the word might: “How might we…” In this way, you're able to defer judgment, help people to create options more freely, and open more possibilities.
Let's look at two questions that illustrate what this skill looks like in practice. A company might be asked to consider this question: What can we to do minimize customer anger and complaints? This is an example of a nonappreciative question. It highlights what is clearly an issue for the organization asking it, but the group will work together more productively by considering a different question: When have customers been most pleased with our service and what might we learn and apply from those moments of success? The overall focus of the inquiry is on what the organization wants more of, not less.
A compelling framing question can inspire the group to an action that no one could see before the question was raised. An adaptive leader inspires new work by asking new questions. Questions that simply justify your current actions rarely lead to much improvement – especially when your current actions are not creating the results you want. The right framing question is enough to completely transform a conversation and to reboot a group that has gotten stuck. It leads us away from nonproductive mental models and sets the stage for transformation.
Use framing questions as an invitation to a conversation and a foundation for a productive collaboration. When you frame the right question, you can lead others (and yourself) to discover how shared value can be created together. By asking the right question – an appreciative one that allows for many perspectives on an adaptive challenge – agile leaders draw people into a deeper, more‐focused conversation that can lead to many new opportunities. With the right framing question, participants will be eager to contribute their expertise and share other resources as they respond.
One exercise to begin learning to ask good questions is to practice “How might” questions. Think of a question that describes a situation you want changed and ask yourself, “How might I improve this situation?” Begin your answers with “I could” or “What if I could do…” or “Imagine if…” If you try this approach in a group setting, you will be surprised how many answers can be generated in just a few minutes.
You can also practice your skills at asking better questions by selecting a topic and writing down as many questions as you can in a few minutes. Then look at your list. Sort them by technical versus adaptive questions. Now write a second list of questions. See if you have improved the questions with each round that you do.
A third exercise involves asking yourself – regularly – if your questions inspire others to contribute their time, ideas and energy. Chances are that if your questions are appreciative and focused on potential opportunities, you will engage people more easily than if you are continuously pointing out deficits.
If you are working with a group, the challenge of coming up with a good framing question is trickier. Getting to the framing question that a group wants to use is often an iterative process. Most of us are fully engaged in our daily work. Lifting our thinking to an adaptive question takes time. Don't be discouraged if the first question you come up with doesn't resonate. Ask a few colleagues to help, trying different perspectives and approaches until you find the right one. You might also use this checklist from Gervase R. Bushe of Simon Fraser University:
You'll know when you have the right question – if questions invite people to conversation, the right question makes people say, “Yes! I'd love to be part of that conversation.” Push through until you find the words that will bring people into the discussion with enthusiasm and purpose.