Are you getting stuck? Could better questions help?

Whenever you feel stuck, step back and look at the conversations and the questions that are framing the problem you are trying to address.

Adversarial attitudes and methods are deeply ingrained in our culture. We grow up with stories of good versus evil, heroes beating the villains, and the rebel fighting against bureaucracy.

Often, advocacy is framed this way, particularly in the climate space. Of course, we put ourselves in the role of the good guys, the heroes, the ones who know best if only everyone would listen.

This might work in the movies and with simple problems. But, when we have complex or wicked problems with many interlinking issues, it doesn’t. We just end up shouting at each other, lots of small battles, perhaps some minor victories, but not the changes, and certainly not the speed of change, that we hope for. We just get stuck in our opposing positions.

We make little progress with big complex issues like climate change, equity, and social justice, where we have professionals and organisations in diverse disciplines fighting their corner, and the voting public deciding whose side they will take. 

Battles on the Verge

We also see this in the microcosm of verge garden disputes.

Councils are cast in the role of the powerful villains, the gardener is the everyday hero doing good stuff for their community. Everyone is set in their positions. What some see as good and necessary civic governance, others see as bureaucratic overreach.

When there is a dispute, the crowd in the social media pile-ons would rival the most emotional spectators to a schoolyard brawl. It’s a full-scale war with no real winners and lots of mythical war stories. The inaccurate and emotive stories of the Buderim dispute in 2017 still linger.

The question about whether councils can, or should, provide public liability for verge gardens is another example. Each side sees the issue through their lens and shouts from their corner on what the others should do to fix the problem. They jump to the simplest solution that best fits their view.

If we move in the direction of our conversations, the conversations about public liability insurance are taking us nowhere. It’s a stalemate, and everyone is stuck.

How do we get unstuck?

Appreciative Inquiry and framing questions are key skills of Strategic Doing. The best questions frame the conversation to bring out how we align, not oppose. They aren’t simple questions, and one question often leads to another, and another, until we find the right one.

“Who is responsible for public liability if someone has an accident on a verge garden?” is a simple question. There are only two simple answers: the council or the resident. The question has set us up for a fight as we each protect whichever corner befits the role we are in.

Remember that council employees are also residents which puts them in a complicated position.

Other questions we could start with are:

• What is public liability insurance and how does it apply to the verge?

• What makes it necessary or could make it unnecessary?

• How are verge gardens different to the current situation on grassed verges?

These questions move the focus from council versus resident taking responsibility to looking at how might we together find a solution that works for everyone. They get us unstuck, so the conversation can take us in a more productive direction.

Whenever you feel stuck, step back and look at the conversations and the questions that are framing the problem you are trying to address. Have you jumped too quickly to an obvious solution? Are there better questions you could ask to get to the core issues and work together to find better questions and possible solutions?