Drum roll, please…
Question Number One: What?
Question Number Two: So what?
Question Number Three: Now what?
Wait a minute? That’s it? What makes these questions so great?
Well…glad you asked.
What?
Every time we experience something—intellectual, spiritual, physical, social; doesn’t matter what—the instant we become aware that it was, in fact, an experience, the moment we give it our attention and think, “What was that?” and come up with some sort of answer, that’s when it becomes the raw material for learning.
Whether we correctly identify an experience is beside the point for now. The point for now is, we’re awake; something happened and we didn’t miss it. That’s the What? question.
So What?
Whether we noodle with it for a year or react in a flash of holy insight, when we answer the So what? question we assign meaning and value to the experience.
Remember, what sort of experience it was doesn’t matter; we can learn from a bump on the noggin in the same way we can learn from a profound Aha! Truth be told, learning doesn’t even depend on accuracy: People learn the wrong things all the time and learn them well. A word on that in a moment but there’s one more question in the cycle.
Now What?
This one has the potential to make the cash register go cha-ching! because Now what? is where we decide what we’re going to do in response to the experience that started all this. If we think the experience was bad enough, we may decide to close up shop and go home (which may be about cutting our losses and might just as surely be nothing more than giving up). If we think the experience was positive, we’ll look for an opportunity to repeat it as soon as possible.
There you have it then: The Three Best Questions…Ever.
Right or Wrong?
People learn good lessons the same way as bad ones. Once upon a time, the drunk found out a drink could make her feel better—or at least different. As the alcoholic Clancy famously said, “I took the first drink because the older men offered it to me. I took the second, and every one after it for 30 years, because drinking made me feel like other men looked.” Lesson learned:
- What? I took a drink and felt different.
- So What? Drinking makes me feel better about myself.
- Now What? I will drink to feel good about myself.
It works the other way as well. Here’s Brennan Manning1:
I’m an alcoholic. My life was ruined by alcohol abuse and restored by the relentless tenderness of Jesus. When I relapsed, I faced two (and only two) options: surrender again to guilt, fear, depression, and maybe death by alcohol; or rush back to the arms of my heavenly Father.
A different lesson learned:
- What? I slipped and started drinking again.
- So What? History tells me drinking will destroy me. I know only one way out.
- Now What? I wanna live. I’ll rush back to the arms of my heavenly Father.
Anyone who consciously asks, What? So what? Now what? learns something in the process. She may refine it later, or even unlearn it, but for the time being it’s true as far as she knows.
Learning to ask these questions effectively among the members of a small group accelerates group learning like nobody’s bidnez. And, of course, there’s more than one way to ask the questions:
| What? | So What? | Now What? |
|---|---|---|
| What stood out for you? | Why do you think that caught your attention? | What do you think you’d like to do about that? |
| What’s the most significant thing you heard or thought about as you listened? | Talk about the significance of that for you. | Can you define an action in response to that? |
| If somebody asked what that was about, what would you say? | Why do you think it’s about X and not, say, Y? | Talk about your next step. |
| What do you think is the Big Idea here? | What makes that a big deal? | How do you intend to respond? |
| What do you think is the lesson? | Do you think that’s universal? | If you encounter something similar, what do you think you’ll do? |
| Does your reaction surprise you at all? | Why do you think you reacted that way? | If you knew then, what you know now, what would you do differently? |
| What happened? | What do you think it means? | What are you going to do about it? |
There are plenty more where those came from. Mix ‘em, match ‘em, collect the entire set!
What makes these such effective questions is this:
- They engage learners in identifying what they’re prepared to learn (as distinct from what they’re supposed to learn).
- They’re honest questions. The youth worker Wayne Rice said, “A good question is one to which you don’t know the answer,” and, of course he was right because if I already know the answer to the question I’m asking, then it’s a test—or worse: a trap. Honest questions invite participants to answer from their own point of view, which is a good thing because…
- These questions make a learner out of the Guide as well as the Participant. This is a big deal. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, you’re about a step, or half a step ahead of the others in your Learning Group (you could be half a mile ahead; it wouldn’t affect the point). Getting real answers to real questions helps you learn how you help people take the next step of growth. This becomes very important if you find your group is farther along than you thought—or farther behind.
- These questions lead naturally from observation (which is more difficult than it sounds if we ask people to look hard enough to see what’s really there, not just what they expect to be there) to consideration (purposefully engaging mind and heart to find meaning) to application (enhancing assets and reducing liabilities—both good outcomes).
Observation → Consideration → Application = Growth
And, of course, it all loops back around because the more people grow, the better they get at observing what’s really there, so the cycle is self-replenishing.
So there they are: The Three Best Questions…Ever. If you think you have a better set of questions than these, we’d like to learn them.
1 Brennan Manning, Posers, Fakers and Wannabes, 2003, TH1NK Books, p 23
