The Answer to How is Yes Part 2

In The Answer to How is Yes, Peter Block identifies six How? questions that he says are “always reasonable, but when asked too soon and taken too literally may actually postpone the future and keep us encased in our present way of thinking.”

1. How do you do it?

“When I ask this question, I take the position that others know, I don’t. The question carries the belief that what I want is right around the corner; all that prevents me from turning that corner is that I lack information or methodology.”

“The rush to a How? answer runs the risk of skipping the profound question: Is this worth doing?”

2. How long will it take?

“The question How long? drives us to actions that oversimplify the world.”

“The most important effect of the How long? question is that it drives us to answers that meet the criteria of speed.”

3. How much does it cost?

“The question of cost is first cousin to the question of time. Instead of instant gratification, we seek cheap grace.”

“The most common rationalization for doing things we do not believe in is that what we really desire either takes too long or costs too much.”

4. How do you get those people to change?

“This is the power question. . . ‘Those people’ need to change for the good of the organization, they need to change for their own good, for the good of the family, for the sake of the next generation, for the sake of society.”

“We may say we want others to change for good reasons. But no matter how we pose the question, it is always a wish to control others.”

“The behavior we describe in others may be an accurate description, but that is not the point. The point is, our focus on “those people” is a defense against our own responsibility.”

“When we honestly ask ourselves about our role in the creation of a situation that frustrates us, and set aside asking about their role, then the world changes around us.”

5. How do we measure it?

“This question makes the statement ‘If you cannot measure it, it does not exist.'”

“Many thing that matter the most defy measurement. When we enter the realm of human nature and human actions, we are on shaky ground when we require measurable results as a condition of action.”

Isn’t this one of the difficulties in church leadership? We have trouble figuring out what we can legitimately measure. How do you measure the fruit of the spirit? Needing to measure something, we start focusing on things we can count. Only the things we can count aren’t necessarily the things that really count.

6. How have other people done it successfully?

“‘Where else has this worked?’ is a reasonable question, within limits. It is dangerous when it becomes an unspoken statement: If this has not worked well elsewhere, perhaps we should not do it. The wish to attempt only what has been proven creates a life of imitation. We may declare we want to be leaders, but we want to be leaders without taking the risk of invention.”

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So how many times have you been in meetings where these questions have dominated? What was the result? My experience is that we use these questions to talk ourselves out of inspiring ideas that require great risk and could actually make a difference.

In a future post, we’ll look at a different set of questions that can take the conversation in a completely different direction.