Essential Questions

Essential Questions Evoke Inquiry, Not “Smart Rat” Answers

We categorize questions as follows:

Requests for known answers, the providing of which confirms the rightness of the answer—not very useful except in game shows and bar bets for drinks.

Requests for previously unknown answers, the providing of which informs the persons asking—useful for getting directions, ordering a meal, or getting a date.

Rhetorical requests for evoking a mental or emotional frame, setting the stage for subsequent discussion, argumentation, examination, or inquiry—useful when asked by a skilled practitioner or group-discussion facilitator. Lacking skill, rhetorical questions induce conflict and jarring disharmony; great if you’re a stand-up comic, not so great in daily life.

Requests to consider alternate interpretations, the accepting of which evokes a condition of inquiry (the process of discovering new, better questions to ask, the asking of which evoke deeper, more comprehensive, or more powerful line of questions and insights)—useful for living life well and essential for every leader or executive to master.

Requests to participate in a deeper inquiry of a big idea, major disruption, or cultural singularity, the participating in which one commits to a community or academy of peers that joins in the:

• Asking of deeper, more comprehensive, or more powerful questions
• Active consideration of all insights or count-points offered by peers
• Accepts the conclusion, “That’s all we know as of this point; some new insight could reverse everything; however, I am willing to wager that X is probably true.”

The first three types of questions share one central feature: answers and fixed mindsets. Just as Archimedes sat in his bath, noticing how his body displaced a volume of water, and shouted ”Eureka!” or I have found it, he also gave name to a type of questions, heuristics or answer-seeking questions.

The last two types of questions do not seek answers; rather the seek transcendence, epiphany, enlightenment, and transformation. In particular, the last type of question—what we call essential questions—evokes a continuous and on-going process of discovery.

We find the only last type of questions - essential questions that induce inquiry -the most interesting, fun, and useful.

Thus, we dedicate this Syncordance to essential questions, full inquiry, deliberative consideration of all the facts, and a commitment to provisional (“the best we know to date”) truth.