What Happened to Asking Questions?

I recently spent time with a friend on a university campus. On the first evening, I took my friend, his son, and his date to dinner. I watched the two sophomores, (computer science and electrical engineering majors) banter about who knew more about circuits, voltage, and transistors without any attention to the two others at the table. After asking several questions about their studies and out-of-school life at the university, I asked if they had any questions for us. “No, not really” was the reply.

At first, I took it personally, but upon reflection realized that my concern was not about me but about a habit I was observing. The experience reminded me of other occasions when people at the table were so engrossed in talking about their lives that they failed to ask about the lives of those seated next to them. It is not just kids who don’t ask questions.

In their case, however, I wondered if they would graduate, enter the world of work, and not have experience in learning through questions. In hindsight, I don’t think it was an age or generation gap. I think it was a lack of basic curiosity about anything besides what is top of mind, as well as a lack of courtesy. More importantly, it made me think about how this same habit often shows up in more consequential settings, such as university board meetings.

I recall meetings where questions were discouraged. The president or chair of the meeting had an agenda, and it was to be followed with no diversions. I heard of more than one occasion when a president told a vice president that his questions bored her. What happened to the old maxim of “Leading by walking around,” even walking around campus and asking, “What is going well? What do you wish we had fixed last week?” That aphorism is a summary of leading by listening and observing.

We live by questions, even inconvenient ones. We ask questions because we are curious, because we want to understand, because we are uncertain about assertions and assumptions. I love the James Baldwin quote: “The role of art is to lay bare the questions hidden by answers.” Too often, we do not clarify the question or the problem before offering an answer or a solution. Asking questions is not inconsiderate; it is engaging.

The role of leaders and board members is to ask questions, not to immediately offer prescriptions. I recall a board meeting at which a trustee cited a radio report about a university that cut tuition by 10% and received national attention about this effort to control college costs. He recommended that we do the same. Another board member, who knew the institution in the news, asked the trustee making the motion if he knew anything about the institution he wanted us to emulate.

He asked, “What do you mean?” The reply described the university in question as a wealthy private university in a rural area surrounded by public institutions that charged less than half that of the one reducing tuition. In addition, the knowledgeable trustee reported that the university’s endowment was about five times the size of ours.

Now, the topic of tuition is a suitable topic for questions and discussion. A better approach would have been to ask how our tuition compared to competitors in our market, the level of increases in recent years, and how students managed to finance the tuition we charged. These questions, instead of a prescription to lower tuition, would demonstrate effective governance.

On another occasion, students petitioned the board of trustees to approve a new system of fraternities and sororities where none existed. With great passion, the student petitioners presented arguments on behalf of Greek Life, acknowledged the challenges presented by fraternities on other campuses, and claimed that ours would be different.

I was concerned about a possible board reaction. I knew a couple of them were totally opposed to fraternities because of their reputations for excessive drinking, maltreatment of pledges, and sexual assault. And then it happened. A board member responded to the lead student in this way: “Fraternities and sororities are an answer to something. What is the question to which they are an answer. They are a proposed solution, but we have not heard what problem they are intended to solve.”

The tone and substance of the discussion changed. We were no longer talking in terms of pro and con but about why. We learned about student frustrations that could be addressed in different ways and the students eventually asked for a system of local “frarorities” that would not discriminate on the basis of gender.

“That’s an answer. What’s the question?” became a guiding question and an essential part of decision-making.

This is why I reacted the way I did when the college students at dinner were so focused on their repartee and one-upmanship that they ignored my friend and me. It was not about us. It was about the value of questions for dialogue, relationships, and moving forward.