Quotes About Understanding

diagnosing a system just for the sake of diagnosis is not very helpful because in any complex system one can diagnose it from multiple points of view, just as a personality can be diagnosed from many points of view.

smart people don't do stupid things for no reason, so one must locate why they are doing something that looks stupid from our point of view but may make sense from their point of view.

Empathy One is to listen for and be curious about the actual situation or problem that the client is describing. Empathy Two is to listen for and be curious about what is really bothering the speaker as she is explaining the problem or the situation.

In the culture of do and tell, the biggest problem is that we cannot really know how valid or appropriate what we tell or are told is to the situation, unless we ask.

The time when Humble Inquiry is often most needed is when we observe something that makes us angry or anxious. It is at those times that we need to slow down, to ask ourselves and others "What's really going on?" in order to check out the facts. Then we ask ourselves how valid our reactions are before we make a judgment and leap into action.

What we choose to ask, when we ask, what our underlying attitude is as we ask—all are key to relationship building, to communication, and to task performance.

and Tell" and argue that not only do we value telling more than

Humble Inquiry is the fine art of drawing someone out, of asking questions to which you do not already know the answer, of building a relationship based on curiosity and interest in the other person.

How Does Asking Build Relationships?

Humble Inquiry is the fine art of drawing someone out, of asking questions to which you do not already know the answer, of building a relationship based on curiosity and interest in another person.

When a team is trying to solve a tricky problem of what to do next and is stuck among several alternatives, Humble Inquiry means asking, "What else do we need to know?" or "How did we/you arrive at this point?" This is particularly true when others propose something that we oppose or don't understand.

The paradox is that the main inhibitor of useful telling is often our own failure to inquire in a way that makes it safe for others to tell us the truth, or at least to share all of what they know.

The answer runs counter to some important aspects of U.S. culture— we must become better at asking and do less telling in a culture that overvalues telling. It has always bothered me how even ordinary conversations tend to be defined by what we tell rather than by what we ask.

Why does this not occur routinely? Don't we all know how to ask questions? Of course we think we know how to ask, but we fail to notice how often even our questions are just another form of telling—rhetorical or just testing whether what we think is right. We are biased toward telling instead of asking because we live in a pragmatic, problem-solving culture in which knowing things and telling others what we know is valued.

1) Learn to see, feel, and curb the impulses to lash out; (2) Learn to make a habit of listening and figuring out what is going on before taking action; and (3) Try harder to hear, to understand, and acknowledge what others are trying to express to you.

Humble Inquiry is the skill and the art of drawing someone out, of asking questions to which you do not already know the answer, of building a relationship based on curiosity and interest in the other person.

We also know how important telling is from our desire in most conversations to get to the point. When we are listening to someone and don't see where it is going, we ask, "So what is your point?" We expect conversations to get to a conclusion, which is reached by telling something, not by asking more open-ended questions.

If you are trying to develop a good relationship and feel the conversation starting to go in the wrong direction, you can humbly ask some version of "Are we OK?" "Is this working?" or "What is happening here?" to explore what might be going wrong and how it might be improved.

The more we remain curious about the other person in the current context—before letting our own expectations and preconceptions creep in—the better our chances are of staying in the right questioning mode. The more we take a collaborative helping purpose into our conversations, the more likely we are to improve the relationship.

The goal of relationship building should be to reduce each other's blind spots by each revealing more of our concealed selves.

Humble Inquiry works only if the attitude behind it includes the desire to really hear what the other person says, to develop an appropriate level of empathy, and to choose a response that shows interest and curiosity.

The key to Humble Inquiry is to recognize when you need to know why something is happening instead of giving in to a knee-jerk impulse that not only keeps you ignorant but also creates an avoidable disconnect.

Learn to see, feel, and curb the impulses to lash out; (2) Learn to make a habit of listening and figuring out what is going on before taking action; and (3) Try harder to hear, to understand, and acknowledge what others are trying to express to you.

Humble Inquiry is therefore most relevant when you find yourself in a conversation that is initially just transactional but develops into something more personal because one or both of you want it.