“I will also ask you one question.” – Matthew 21:24
Most of the classes I took in college are a mere blur at this point, partly because it was so long ago, but more likely that I was not really paying attention anyway. Except, there was this one unforgettable moment, a rather odd and obscure experience that turned out to be one of the greatest teaching moments of my entire college career. In freshman chemistry lab we were doing qualitative analysis where we were given a small sample of substance from which we were to run tests to determine its identity. When my substance turned a reddish shade in the test tube I asked the lab instructor if that was a positive test for ferrous (iron). But instead of a simple yes or no answer he turned it around on me. “I don’t know,” he shrugged, “what do you think it is?”
I can’t say I learned much about chemistry that day, a subject I ceased pursuing after my freshman year, but it certainly enlightened me about the purpose of university education, as well as about life, that being that the pathway to deeper understanding is stimulated as much or more by provocative questioning as the accumulation of knowledge. It is for that exact reason that for those of us in the profession of executive coaching the most effective tool we have in our toolbox is the use of powerful questions to stimulate deeper thought. It is not at all unusual, for example, for a client who is struggling to resolve a complex issue to ask the coach what the solution is, in which case I often turn it around just like that lab instructor did. “I don’t know,” I’ll reply, “what do you think it is?” I recall one client complaining with a wrinkled brow, “But you’re making me think, and thinking is hard work!” And he was right, thinking is hard work, for the same reason college is harder than high school, and even more so the real world.
There has never been a greater master at asking and handling questions than the Master himself. Scripture tells of a time when Jesus was teaching in the temple courts and a group of chief priests and elders approached him with a question. “By what authority are you doing these things?” they asked. And how did He respond? Just like that clever lab instructor I once had. “I will also ask you one question,” he replied. And it was a question that, to their surprise, did not have an easy answer, forcing them to think. Like that substance I was testing in the lab, yes it turned red in the test tube indicating ferrous, but was it the right shade of red? I had to think, you see, and thinking is hard work!