Teach & Serve V, No. 5
The Right Question
September 4, 2019
Therefore the question is not why are people not doing the things we ask, the question is, when they do the things we desire, why are they doing so?
The year is young. Most of us are well under a month into the school year. Some of us are just getting back. Hopefully our enthusiasm is still evident and our students’ and colleagues’ enthusiasm is still strong. Hopefully our energy remains high. Hopefully our creativity is percolating.
While it is and while we are new to this 2019-2020 year, let us take a step back (or forward) and consider what is coming – what we can almost guarantee is coming: someone letting us down, someone missing our expectations, someone missing our mark.
When this happens, we often ask why did that person not do what they were supposed to do or what we wanted them to do or some variation on that theme.
We are not asking the right question.
When we are somehow thwarted and when we feel crossed we typically go into a negative place with our question and we decide the reason why things are not happening as we wish must also be negative.
It would be better if we focused on the positive. Surely our students and our colleagues are doing something we would like them to do, something we asked of them or directed them to do. If that is not the case, we have bigger problems than a reframing of a question. I do not believe that is the case. I believe that our students and colleagues respond well to us.
This is key to leadership and to relationship: we should reflect at least as much as why things go well as we do on why they do not. Therefore the question is not why are people not doing the things we ask, the question is, when they do the things we ask, why are they doing so?
That’s the right question. It is one we should ask far more frequently than we do.