"What would our network be like if we could achieve our full potential?"
Questions like these were at the core of a workshop that I recently attended that was given by Beth Tener. The workshop was about asking "strategic questions." A strategic question helps open up the person with whom you are speaking to new possibilities. A strategic question is characterized as being open-ended and positive. It asks the other person to look beyond the "shoulds" in their life to explore how a desired state could be attained. A question might be: "what would it take in order for you to attain what you are looking for?" Asking such a question also helps the questioner to have an experience as a positive, possibility-seeking person.
I like the term "strategic question" because it connotes the idea that one is on the move. Such questions can also be called "appreciative questions" or "strength-based questions." I have in the past also referred to these kinds of questions as "provocative questions."
This kind of question can be of use in a network. Such a question can help to open up thought in a network. In the case where there is a cluster of closely connected individuals, the high density of connection in such a group can lead the group to become overly focused on one perspective or locked into a given solution. What can help here is to open up the cluster to new people and new ideas. Questions that might be asked are: "Who else could we be speaking with?" "What diverse perspectives and skill sets would be useful?" "In what other ways could we accomplish what we want?"
In another situation, people may not be connected to one another or weakly connected. A strategic or provocative question can be used to connect people. A person who is friends with two other unconnected people can say to each: "Are you aware that this other person has similar interests to you?" Another question here could be: ""What would happen if the two of you were to combine your resources?"
An individual on their own can also reach out to another person and endeavor to make a new connection. In this regard, several things can help such a person make a connection. A person can strive to be fully present and willing to share a variety of different aspects of him or herself. These can include their intellectual, emotional, physical, artistic or spiritual aspects. Doing this provides more around which the other person can make a connection. It provides a basis for interesting the other person.
It also helps to sincerely ask about the other person. What are their interests, what excites them. Asking the other to talk about the possibilities they see in a given situation is a positive approach that would be inclined to support openness rather than defensiveness.
I find that there is an experience that goes along with this process of questioning. It is an active rather than a passive experience. It is a non-judgmental experience of exploration. It is an experience of caring enough to try to understand the reality of another person.
When one makes these new connections, one reduces the tension borne of having unconnected friends and supplants that with the positive experience of creating mutual friends. Creating new connections helps others bring their fresh ideas into more established groups. It furthers innovation by reaching further out towards the environment of the network.
I think of all of this as supporting a vibrant network that breathes.The network community contracts and expands on an ongoing basis. In the contraction phase, new and stronger ties are built with similar others who are thus pulled into the community. In the expansion phase the realm of perspectives are expanded through reaching out to dissimilar others - people on the boundary of the network. In this ongoing pulsation of life, the network begins to answer the question: "What could we be if we were fully alive?"
Comments