Powerful questions mha2017

Powerful Questions
Mile High Agile 2017
(Elevating the Agile Organization)
22 May 2017
1 © 2017 Lennie Noiles

@lnoiles

Powerful Questions
3
What are Powerful questions?
© 2017 Lennie Noiles

My 3 Question Tool
What do you see?
What could you do?
What will you do?
http://www.lennienoiles.com/new-blog/2017/5/1/three-simple-questions

Powerful Questions

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Effective Communications
Who are you
Why Are you here

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Sender

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Sender

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Sender

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Sender Receiver

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Powerful Questions
DirectCommunication
ActiveListening
International Coach Federation
https://www.coachfederation.org/credential/landing.cfm?ItemNumber=2206&navItemNumber=576

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14
Who are you?
Why Are you here?

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15

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Appreciative Inquiry
“Human systems grow toward what
they persistently ask questions about”
- David Cooperrider

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X © 2017 Lennie Noiles
Thinking:
the process of using one's mind
to consider something.

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Why do we ask questions?

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Knowledge
18

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19

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20
Are we asking the right questions?

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Are we asking the big questions?

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What are Powerful Questions?

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24
Facilitation CoachingTraining

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25
MoreLess

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Ha RiShu

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Guiding PartneringTelling

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What are Powerful Questions?

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Clear
Simple
Penetrating

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Clear
Simple
PenetratingTranscend Boundaries
Stimulate Creativity

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Clear
Simple
Stimulate Creativitymotivate fresh thinking
surface assumptions
focus attention

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Clear
Simple
Stimulate Creativitymotivate fresh thinking
surface assumptions
focus attention
Open the door to new possibilities Lead us into the future

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Oriented toward possibility

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“There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in”
- Leonard Cohen (Anthem)

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X
PRAIRIE
- David Clutterbuck

Powerful Questions
Personal
Resonant
Acute
Incisive
Reverberating
Innocent
Explicit
X
PRAIRIE
- David Clutterbuck

Powerful Questions

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Who
What Where
When
Why
Which & How

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Why not Why?

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40
What about How?

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42
Suspend Time

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43
Encourage additional questions
&
Inspire meaningful conversation

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45
What if…?
&
How might we…?

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46
Generate
Curiosity

Powerful Questions
What if…?
How might we…?
47
Generate
Curiosity

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What if…?
How might we…?
48
Generate
Curiosity

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What if…?
How might we…?
I wonder why…?
What do you see?
What do you think?
What would that be like?
49
Generate
Curiosity

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50
Generate
Curiosity

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51
Generate
Curiosity
But DON’T Drive your Agenda

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52
“The most common source of mistakes in
management decisions
is the emphasis on ﬁnding the right answer
rather than the right question”
- Peter Drucker

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53
The need to have the answer is a limiting belief

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54
Everyone is right
(even if just a little)
&
Everyone is entitled to be wrong

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55
Self Check
DON’T Drive your Agenda

Powerful Questions
Agenda Driven Questions
Leading Questions
Rhetorical Questions
Closed Ended Questions
Stacking Questions
Look how Smart I am Questions
56
Self Check

Powerful Questions
Does this story empower you or
disempower you?
Have you validated that assumption?
If you changed your belief about this,
what would be possible?
Is it a story or a truth?
Have you checked to be sure?
57
Self Check

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58
Self Check

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60
To question the beliefs of others requires
a deep level of trust

Powerful Questions
What are you/we pretending not to know?
What if the opposite were true?
What questions are we not asking?
What rules do we have that are getting in
the way?
What stories are we telling ourselves
(what are the facts)?
What’s stopping you?
61
Challenging Assumptions
& Limiting Beliefs

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62
Challenging Assumptions
& Limiting Beliefs

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64
Listen Deeply

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let the question do the work

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Foster Discovery
&
Create the Future

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A powerful question
creates knowledge that
previously did not exist

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Powerful Questions
How do you suppose it will work out?
How will you change the world?
What are the chances for success?
What does the future hold?
What does your intuition tell you?
Where will this lead?
69
Predicting the Future

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Where else can we look to
to impact the future?
?

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71
Where else can we look to
to impact the future?
(this is a leading question)

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72
Leverage the past

Powerful Questions
What is in the rearview mirror?
Who’s shoulders are we standing on?
Who did you have to become to
achieve it?
Where in the past have you ___?
What has been done that we can
leverage?
73
Leverage the past

Powerful Questions
X © 2017 Lennie Noiles

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X
What deep learning about yourself do you want to acknowledge?

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X
What are you most grateful for in your life?

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Where do they come from?

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The List

1. What are the possibilities?
2. What are you committing to do by when?
3. What are you grateful for?
4. What are you hearing underneath the
opinions being expressed?
5. What are you known for?
6. What are you learning?
7. What are you pretending not to know?
8. What are you putting up with that goes
against your values?
9. What are you ready to pay for?
10. What are you responsible for here?
11. What are you willing to commit to here?
12. What are you willing to do differently?
13. What are you willing to do to improve this
situation?
14. What are you willing to stop doing to
improve this situation?
15. What are your challenges?
16. What are your criteria for making this
decision and Why?
17. What are your goals in this situation?
18. What are your next steps?
19. What are your objectives and goals? Why are
they important to you?
20. What are your other options?
21. What assumptions do we need to test or
challenge here in thinking about this?
22. What assumptions have we made that we
need to test?
23. What can you commit to do?
24. What can you delegate to others?
25. What caused it?
26. What challenged you?
27. What challenges might come our way and
how might we meet them?
28. What concerns you the most about ___?
29. What conversation would create new
possibilities for the future?
30. What could be possible if we were able to
remove these constraints?
situation?
decision and Why?
need to test?
25. What caused it?
situation?
decision and Why?
need to test?
25. What caused it?
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1. Are there ways in which feeling grateful
has inspired you? What are they?
2. Are we repeating history?
3. Are you acting on faith or fear?
4. Are you angry or are you hurt?
5. Are you approaching this from your head
or from your heart?
6. Are you focused on What is wrong or
What is right?
7. Are you procrastinating or is there a
reason to delay?
8. Are you standing in your power or
pleasing someone else?
9. Are you using this to grow or are you
beating yourself up?
10. Are your personal standards high enough
to reach your goals?
11. By what date or time will you complete
these steps?
12. Can you describe that?
13. Can you elaborate?
14. Can you say more?
15. Can you tell me more?
16. Do you have a detailed strategy to get
there?
17. Do you have a gut feeling about this?
18. Do you mind if I ask a very personal
question?
19. Do you mind if I offer an observation?
20. Do you need to work harder or delegate
this?
21. Do you want this for its own sake or are
you trying to avoid something else?
22. Does this story empower you or
disempower you?
23. Does your current habitat fully support
who you’re becoming?
24. For instance?
25. Given the constraints, how can we
exercise our creativity?
situation?
decision and Why?
need to test?
25. What caused it?
1. What is shifting in your thinking?
2. What is stopping you from taking action?
3. What is stopping you from taking action?
4. What is stopping you?
5. What is taking shape?
6. What is the action plan?
7. What is the beneRit of this problem?
8. What is the challenge?
9. What is the deeper purpose (the big
“why”) that is really worthy of our best
effort?
10. What is the downside of your dream?
11. What is the dream?
12. What is the elevator pitch?
13. What is the emotional cost vs. the
Rinancial cost?
14. What is the Rirst change you would start
to make?
15. What is the Rirst step you need to take to
reach your goal?
16. What is the Rirst step, then the next step?
17. What is the focus in your business this
year?
18. What is the gift here?
19. What is the greater good here?
20. What is the long-term impact of inaction?
21. What is the most resourceful choice here?
22. What is the next level of thinking we need
to do?
23. What is the opportunity here?
24. What is the part that is not yet clear?
25. What is the urge?
26. What is the worst that can happen, and
can you handle that?
1. Where are you right now?
2. Where can good spirited competition be
encouraged?
3. Where do you feel you are wasting
energy?
4. Where do you go from here? When will
you do that?
5. Where else are you ___?
6. Where else could you look?
7. Where in the past have you ___?
8. Where will this lead?
9. Where will you go from here?
10. Which of your core values does this goal
express?
11. Which of your strengths will be critical to
leverage?
12. Which path will you choose?
13. Which step could you take right now that
would make the biggest difference?
14. Who can help you with this?
15. Who could you share that with?
16. Who did you have to become to achieve
it?
17. Who did you serve?
18. Who do you need to become in order to
succeed here?
19. Who else is this hurting?
20. Who else might want it?
21. Who else will beneRit?
22. Who is grateful for you?
23. Who is impacted?
24. Who is your audience?
25. Who might join you as you move
forward?
26. Who would support you?

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A method

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Deep Listening

Powerful Questions
1. make a contextual assessment of the
situation. be genuine & relevant
2. create expectation: what do you
want the question to do?
3. discover the “big question”
4. be aware of assumptions
5. create possibilities (“what if” stories)
80
Deep Listening

Powerful Questions
6. listen for intuition
7. ask from authentic curiosity
8. leave room for new questions
81
Deep Listening

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Practice
Practice
Practice

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84
Practice will help you move from a
Problem Solving (ﬁx-it) model
to a disciplined Inquiry model

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85
How will you practice?

Powerful Questions
Yesterday?
Today?
In your way?
86
Daily Scrum
3 questions

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88
Decision Making

Powerful Questions
What are the consequences of avoiding
this problem?
What assumptions have we made that we
need to test?
What would you be happy about if you
chose to be?
What is at risk?
Will this choice move you forward or keep
you stuck?
89
Decision Making

Powerful Questions

Powerful Questions
How can we support each other in taking
the next step?
What challenges might come our way, and
What conversation would create new
What could you pour yourself into?
What unique contribution can we each
make?
91
Create Forward
Movement

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92
Create Forward
Movement

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Powerful Questions
X
Is there business value?

Powerful Questions
X
increases innovation and
improves problem solving

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X
helps leaders connect people and
ideas

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X
Create a Culture
of Possibilities

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94
“There is no great genius without
a tincture of madness”
- Seneca

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95
sometimes the best questions
are the absurd questions

Powerful Questions
How could we make it worse?
If you had a magic wand, what would
you do?
If you knew the answer, what would
it be?
What is the gift here?
What question should I ask you?
96
Out-of-the-Box

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101
Are we asking the really big question?

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102
What do you want?

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103
What do you really, really, want?

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104

Powerful Questions

Powerful Questions
1. create a climate of discovery
2. suspend judgement
3. recognize assumptions & beliefs
4. look for connections between ideas
5. encourage diversity
X
10 tips
to Succeed

Powerful Questions
6. promote inclusiveness
7. reward shared discoveries
8. leverage new shared understandings
9. be relentlessly curious
10. Practice, Practice, Practice
X
10 tips
to Succeed

My 3 Question Tool
What do you see?
What could you do?
What will you do?

Powerful Questions

Powerful Questions
108
In what way do you want to show up more fully alive as a coach?

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109
What are you willing to do toward that end?

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111
What was meaningful ?

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113
Thank you

@lnoiles

PRAIRIE
Personal
Resonant
Acute
Incisive
Reverberating
Innocent
Explicit
What,
Who,
When,
Where,
Which,
How,
Why
Powerful Questions suspend Time
expanding our perspective which in turn expands our thinking
Self Check Don’t
Agenda Driven Questions
Leading Questions
Rhetorical Questions
Closed Ended Questions
Stacking Questions
Look how Smart I am Questions
Self Check?
Does this story empower you?
Have you validated the assumption?
If you changed your belief, what would be possible?
It this a story or a truth?
Have you checked to be sure?
To question the beliefs of others
requires
a deep level of trust
Step back and let the question do the work.
Be unattached to how it plays out.
A powerful question
creates knowledge that previously did not exist
A Method
(listen deeply)
• make a contextual assessment of the situation
• be genuine & relevant
• create expectation: what do you want the question to do?
• discover the “big question”
• be aware of assumptions
• create possibilities (“what if” stories)
• listen for intuition
• ask from authentic curiosity
• leave room for new questions
Are we asking the
really big question?
10 tips to Succeed
1. create a climate of discovery
2. suspend judgement
3. recognize assumptions & beliefs
4. look for connections between ideas
5. encourage diversity
6. promote inclusiveness
7. reward shared discoveries
8. leverage new shared understandings
9. be relentlessly curious
10. Practice, Practice, Practice
In what way do you want to show up more fully alive as a coach?
What are you willing to do toward that end?

Challenging Assumptions & Limiting Beliefs
What are you/we pretending not to know?
What if the opposite were true?
What questions are we not asking?
What rules do we have that are getting in the way?
What stories are we telling ourselves (what are the facts)?
What’s stopping you?
Predicting the Future
How do you suppose it will work out?
How will you change the world?
What are the chances for success?
What does the future hold?
What does your intuition tell you?
Where will this lead?
Decision Making
What are the consequences of avoiding this problem?
What assumptions have we made that we need to test?
What would you be happy about if you chose to be?
What is at risk?
Will this choice move you forward or keep you stuck?
Create Forward Movement
How can we support each other in taking the next step?
What challenges might come our way, and how might we meet them?
What conversation would create new possibilities for the future?
What could you pour yourself into?
What unique contribution can we each make?
Out-of-the-Box
How could we make it worse?
If you had a magic wand, what would you do?
If you knew the answer, what would it be?
What is the gift here?
What question should I ask you?
What do you see?
What could you do?
What will you do?
Powerful Questions
Generate Curiosity
What if…?
How might we…?
I wonder why…?
What do you see?
What do you think?
What would that be like?
The biggest powerful questions reverberate for a long time - sometimes years

Powerful questions mha2017

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