the mighty crossroads question

I’ve written here before about the power of Peter Block’s questions in Community: The Structure of Belonging. One I have found exceptionally versatile is: “Describe the crossroads where you find yourself.” (You can also throw it in the past tense to get the story of an earlier crossroads.)

Something about this question is incisive without being intrusive, intimate without being weird. It lays bare the other’s values - those principles or ideas that set the stakes of the crossroads decision. It wouldn’t be a crossroads, a difficult but decidable matter, if values weren’t in question. This may be the most potent dimension of the question - the facts of a person’s life story can land like a resume, even in “vulnerable” conversations. It brings you right to the challenging precipice of the decision, rather than the safe, sealed result of it.

If you’re stuck with how to get teammates talking to each other in richer, realer ways about their life stories, this question is a good starting point. 

-Eric