Questions Behind Answers

THE BOLDER WAY™

QUESTION ANYTHING

QUESTION RESOURCE 0007

THE QUESTION

What Question was this answer answering?

Humans live among answers. Some are personal. Some are inherited. Some become habits, expectations, roles, policies, Systems, norms, or accepted ways of doing things.

A QUESTION TO HOLD

What happens when the answer survives the Question that created it?

BEGIN WHERE SOMETHING GETS YOUR ATTENTION.

You do not have to answer every Question.

THE BOLDER WAY™

QUESTION ANYTHING

QUESTION RESOURCE 0007

BEGIN HERE

What answer am I looking at?

A belief?
A decision?
A habit or practice?
A role?
A policy, rule, process, or System?
A norm or convention?
An answer I gave myself earlier?

What Question was this answer created to answer?

Who asked the Question?
Who answered it?
When?
What problem or condition existed then?
Why did that answer make sense?

TENSION

Does the original Question still exist?

WHAT ARE YOU NOTICING?

THE BOLDER WAY™

QUESTION ANYTHING

QUESTION RESOURCE 0007

CURRENT RELEVANCE

Does the answer still fit?

Has the Question changed?
Has the environment changed?
Has the answer created new problems?
Is anyone still able to reconsider it?
Are we still answering yesterday's Question?

An answer does not have to be wrong to be Questioned.

AUTHORITY

What authority have I given this answer?

rule
policy
tradition
expert
System
family
role
metric
algorithm
norm
Self-story
past decision

When does "this is the answer" become "this is how things are"?

What changes when I remember: Humans made this?

QUESTION / RESPONSE / WHAT I'M NOTICING

THE BOLDER WAY™

QUESTION ANYTHING

QUESTION RESOURCE 0007

LET THE QUESTION MOVE

How am I participating in keeping the answer alive?

Do I repeat it?
Enforce it?
Comply with it?
Reproduce it?
Teach it to the next Human?
Resist or modify it?

What happens when an answer survives after the originating Question disappears from memory?

WHERE CAN ANSWERS LIVE?

SELF

A Self-story can become an answer about who I am.

OTHER HUMANS

Relationship patterns can become answers about how we relate.

SYSTEMS

Policies, processes, rules, and technologies can store Human answers.

SOCIETY

Norms and conventions can carry answers across Humans and generations.

BRING THE QUESTION BACK

What Question was this answering?
Does that Question still exist?
Does the answer still fit?

What changes when I Question the answer without beginning from either compliance or rejection?

What becomes available when the answer becomes Questionable?

Answers can come from anywhere. Questioning remains yours.

Questions Behind Answers — QR-0007