Today I had the pleasure of working with a healthcare organization and leading a session on leadership.  I walked away reflecting, in a very single-minded fasion, on the nature of questioning and how we can help our colleagues and clients learn.  Tonight I am thinking one thing–ask a motherhood question and learners will respond with motherhood statements.  If we are coaching or facilitating, we must learn the art of questioning so that we can invite deeper learning.

So what question(s) did I ask that evoked mother statements as a response?  I asked a question that I bet we have all asked at one time or another–what lessons can you take away from today and apply when you get back to the office?  Though well intentioned, I am tonight thinking this is a pretty poor question.  From extremely bright people, this questions evoked responses like “Leaders must walk the talk,” “Leaders must communicate effectively,” and “Leaders must think about the people they are leading.” All true, but extremely general and not at all personalized.  I was not hearing what lessons from today were important to each person and her/his specific job.  Generic statements only.

The problem, I think, lies in the question.  A motherhood question invites people to respond with motherhood statements.  Afterwards, the HR colleague in the room suggested that maybe people could identify lessons by asking them, “after today, what about leadership would you like to: do more of, do less of, not change, and change substantially?“  Not a bad suggestion.  Certainly this question could be modified many ways.

Another idea I had was to ask participants to identify a lesson from today that is personally important to them.  Then, follow up by asking them to relate this to a specific past experience (when they could have applied this knowledge), a present challenge they are currently facing, or a future challenge they are certain is headed their way.  They would need to recount the story, briefly, and connect the lesson explicitly. 

I am also playing with the idea that whatever I ask, perhaps I should give them a printed form for capturing lessons and distribute this form at the start of the session.  This would potentially frame the day and indicate from the outset that they must find something meaningful and make connections before the day’s end.

The one thing I am certain of is that I will not begin the debrief at a small group level.  I want people to reflect and write individually.  Perhaps then they can discuss as a small group after writing individually, but the personal lessons I believe must come first.

I will be giving this much more thought.  But, one thing is certain–I won’t be inviting anymore motherhood statements at the end of my sessions.