Tonight I played in the land of powerful questions, sparked from a soul-filling conversation with a fellow Art of Hosting mate. Here are some of them:
1. What do you need me to know right now so I can love you better? Or could be framed as: What do you need us to know so we can work well together?
2. There is a story from the book The Way of Council: Imagine that we are going to close down the Ojai Foundation, disburse our assets, and bring all our projects to a close. Is there anything you haven’t done or would regret not doing? What do you need to accomplish to feel complete? This is not merely a hypothetical exercise. Shutting down is a real possibility….. the next morning we held a “visionary council” from which the foundation’s purpose and direction emerged more clearly than ever before.
3. Another footprint for a question comes from Appreciative Community Building: Fast forward to the year 2017, and {your neighbourhood} is filled with inspired and engaged community members whose needs are met and who are actively working toward achieving their dreams and aspirations. Your neighbourhood is exactly as you wanted it to be. Paint the picture for me. What does it look like? What do you see happening that is new, different and better?
4. An excellent question from other Art of Hosting mates: “What could …. also be?”
Good, powerful questions. Reminding me of The Circle Way: A Leader in Every Chair where Christina and Ann write:
Our Danish colleague Toke Paludan Møller says, “If I can only have two tools going into a room, I choose a good question and a talking piece.”
