“Lost World Questions” or How to ask questions that reveal the truth
Where are the sheep? The New Zealand farmer who had lived his entire life on this piece of land noticed one day that the sheep were disappearing. The family looked far and wide, but found no clues—no carcasses, no wolves, no traps. It was not until the farmer almost fell into a massive sink-hole that he realized he had to look down in order to solve the mystery of the missing sheep. Alas.
When my husband and I traveled in New Zealand, we went on a (crazy) adventure rappelling 300 feet into that sink hole, past the ferns sprouting from the sides, into the mist, and landing at the lip of an underground river. The farmer now gives tours of his “Lost World.”
To get to the root of things, to unearth hidden mysteries, we have the courage and patience to discover the Lost World.
Many questions we ask are horizontal—they keep the conversation safely in our sight-lines:
What did you do this weekend? Who were you with? How many people were there? What was the food like?
Lost World Questions might sound more like:
What was your favorite part of the weekend? What moved you? What did you learn? How did this make you feel?
Of course, simply keeping quiet, or giving small nudges to continue like, “Say more,” draw the conversation even further into the Lost World. It’s important to keep our own impulses in check so that we don’t hijack the conversation.
We start by asking ourselves,, “What is my intention?” Is it to dig down to find some truth? Is it to build rapport or trust? Think about how these different Intentions might influence the questions we ask:
To connect
To understand
To support
Watch out for the sneaky, default Intentions that might sound like:
To impress
To shut down and get back to work/errands/the news
To keep things safe (sometimes we’d rather not know the truth, but then we are stuck looking for the sheep)
This week I invite you into the Lost World, into curiosity, into finding connection, getting to the root of the issue, by noticing new possibilities and asking the questions that might lead to the sheep…