Questions Aren't Enough

I used to think that if I asked good enough questions, people would naturally arrive at better thinking.

I'm not so sure I believe that anymore.

Recently, I found myself facilitating a difficult conversation between people who genuinely wanted to solve a problem. They were intelligent, experienced, and cared deeply about the organizations they represented. The questions were thoughtful. The conversation was respectful. Yet it kept circling the same conclusions.

At one point I found myself wondering if the process had failed.

As I reflected afterward, I realized something I hadn't considered before.

The process hadn't failed.

It had simply revealed something that has to exist before any process can work.

A willingness to believe there might be something we haven't yet seen.

That realization challenged me.

Experience is one of our greatest teachers. It shapes our judgment, helps us recognize patterns, and often protects us from repeating past mistakes.

But experience also carries a quiet danger.

The longer we hold a conclusion, the easier it becomes to mistake it for an unquestionable fact.

Sometimes it is a fact.

Sometimes it's a reasonable assumption.

Sometimes it's an educated guess.

And sometimes it's simply a story we've repeated often enough that we've stopped questioning it.

The lesson for me wasn't to ignore experience.

It was to hold my experience with enough humility to ask whether there might be another perspective worth considering.

That led me to a question I've been asking myself ever since:

"Am I willing to be curious about what I might not yet see?"

I've realized that's a much harder question than it first appears.

Because curiosity doesn't ask me to abandon my convictions.

It asks me to test them.

It doesn't ask me to ignore my experience.

It asks me to make sure my experience hasn't quietly become certainty.

Without curiosity, I don't really notice—I simply reinforce what I already believe.

Without curiosity, ownership slowly becomes defensiveness.

Without curiosity, I build solutions on assumptions I never thought to question.

And over time, conviction can quietly harden into stubbornness.

I'm discovering that growth rarely begins with a better answer.

More often, it begins with the humility to ask a better question.

Maybe the greatest obstacle to growth isn't ignorance.

Maybe it's certainty.

— Coach Dave

Your No BS Reflection

NOTICE: What belief have I held for so long that I've stopped questioning whether it's a fact, an assumption, or simply my interpretation?

OWN: Am I protecting my position, or am I genuinely open to discovering something I haven't yet seen?

BUILD: What conversation would change if I led with curiosity instead of certainty?

SUSTAIN: How can I make curiosity a habit rather than something I practice only when it's comfortable?