Asking the RIGHT QUESTIONS

Asking properly framed questions is truly the key skill which leads to effortless high performance—and ultimately nearly every other desired outcome on the list as well.

I often introduce Clear Purpose Management as an intuition-based system of management. My emphasis here is on both the words “system” and “intuition-based.” I do not find it useful to think of someone as being either analytical or intuitive. That misses the point entirely. Effortless high performance is not a matter of being one or the other. It is a matter of learning to use both the analytical and intuitive aspects of ourselves correctly in relation to each other. To be even more specific, we must learn to use our intellects—our conscious, rational minds—to frame questions so they cannot be processed rationally.

When we do this correctly, the processing of our questions is shifted by default to our intuitive minds.

Our analytical minds are known to use a deductive reasoning process that depletes our energy, while our intuitive minds use an inductive reasoning process that generates fresh, new supplies of creative energy. (i.e., our earlier reference to the three-year-old child.) It is also known that all questions are framed by our conscious, rational minds. Here is where I offer an important new insight:

Whenever we ask any kind of a WHAT’S WRONG question, it is both framed and processed in our rational mind.

In other words, the way the question is framed allows our rational mind to use its deductive, dismantling way of processing to break down the whole into pieces. And, while there is certainly a time and place for it, deductive reasoning always depletes our stores of creative energy and leaves us tired.

Rational thought, however, has a far more significant limitation than depleting our energy.

When completely disconnected from our intuitive minds, our rational minds have been proven totally incapable of distinguishing truth from fiction.

This startling discovery comes from the clinical medical research which earned Dr. Roger Sperry the 1981 Nobel Prize for Medicine.

When we ask any kind of a WHAT’S RIGHT question, on the other hand, our rational mind hasn’t a clue about how to process the question on its own. As a result, our WHAT’S RIGHT questions are deferred to our less assertive but far more powerful intuition—where they are processed in a manner that generates energy.

By “more powerful,” I mean that our intuition processes somewhere between 1,000 and 10,000 times as fast as our rational mind. In addition, we know it synthesizes parts into a unified whole, generates creative energy in the process and also cannot be deceived.

This means we can tell where our questions are being processed by monitoring our energy levels. This area of inquiry will obviously require lots more attention as we move along in our discussion.

Here is where I’m glad we’re together on the patio. It allows me to immediately demonstrate the WHAT’S RIGHT form of questions. Of the brief information I’ve just offered about learning to ask properly framed questions, what do you find most intriguing? After listening carefully to your response, and perhaps answering a question or two, I inquire further, “Can you be even more specific about what intrigues you about the piece you’ve mentioned?”

My intent in asking you such questions is to provide a direct experience of responding to questions which are difficult to process logically, and therefore have a good chance of being processed intuitively.

Kurt Wright, author of Breaking the Rules says: There's an old saying that we teach what we need to learn. My career has been one of teaching people how to bring out the best in themselves and others. This focus of attention grew out of a decision made in 1970 to spend the rest of my life seeking to understand what each of us is like at our very best. I observed that there were far too many studies of what is wrong with people and too few about what is right with people. Breaking the Rules thus summarizes the findings from this 33-year study of what each of us is like when we are at our very best, and how to be that way more often.

During the study it became clear that people who operate at their best most of the time didn't learn to do so by looking outside themselves for answers. For this reason, I resisted the idea of writing a book about my findings. It seemed to me that it would be too easy for a book to reward readers for looking to me for answers. I was unwilling to do that.

Eventually I found a way to write so there is not a sentence of advice in the entire 320 pages of Breaking the Rules. In lieu of advice, I have attempted to capture and model throughout the book a unique mentor- coaching process that shows up in the background of every visionary leader I have studied.

I hope you enjoy the book and benefit richly from reading it.