Personal Pronoun Power in Mentor Questions

by Barry Sweeny, 2002

INDEX:

• This page will make more sense if you FIRST read "High Impact Questions"
• A Brief Discovery Activity
• Is The Basic Assumption True? - Can the protégé solve the problem alone?
• What if the Assumption is NOT True? What Can the Mentor Do?

A BRIEF DISCOVERY ACTIVITY -

Below are a description of the three kinds of "High Impact" questions that mentors typically ask in problem solving conversations with their proteges. They are each followed by a series of examples.

STEP #1 - Please read the descriptions and the examples looking for a pattern in the examples.

1. FOR THE MENTOR - Questions which the mentor asks the protégé, but which are for the mentor's own information:

Examples:

• What do you think is the problem?
• What do you think is the cause of this problem?
• How long has this been true for you?
• What have you done so far to address this problem?
• How has any of those solutions worked for you?

2. FOR THE PROTÉGÉ - Questions which are asked by the mentor of the protégé to get the protégé to analyze the situation:

Examples:

• Do you think that you might be causing a part of the problem?
• What have you learned about your approach?
• What's the best thing that can happen for you?
• What's the worst that can happen to you?
• What do you think are your alternatives?

3. FOR A PLAN - Questions the mentor asks of the protégé to guide the protégé's decision making and planning

Examples:

• What result do you want to achieve that would be the "best case scenario"?
• What could you do that could lead to the best case?
• What problems or obstacles might occur that would prevent achieving the best result?
• What can you do that might avoid problems or obstacles?
• Are there any other alternative routes you could take to that same best case result?
• Which of your alternatives is most likely to lead to that result?
• How will you start the process?
• What will you do if the first plan does not work as well as you expect?
• How will you know it's time to switch to the second plan?
• What resources do you have that can help?
• Are those all the resources that you need?
• How can I help you succeed?

STEP #2 - Now look back through all the examples again, looking for the personal pronouns that were used. Examples of personal pronouns are: me, my, I, we, you, us, our, etc. Again, look for a pattern.

STEP #3 - What do you notice about the personal pronouns used in ALL these examples except the very last one? Is there a pattern?

Yep! These questions all use the personal pronoun "you" or "your".

Although it seems so subtle, there is a powerful effect in using the pronoun "you" this way. here's what it accomplishes:

• The "you" assumes the protégé can figure out the problem and what would be the best solution (with the mentor's questions as a guide).
• The "you" keeps the ownership of the problem and the responsibility for that decision making and solution finding with the protégé.
• It allows the mentor to ask the kind of open-ended questions that the mentor knows a more experienced person would ask themselves. Done a number times with different problems, the protégé will begin to anticipate the questions to be addressed. This shows that the protégé is starting to internalize those questions and learn to think that way as well, which is the goal

Is This Assumption True?

If the assumption stated in the first bullet item above is true, this strategy is very empowering and can serve to help the protégé learn to think like a more experienced person. If it is true, the success of the protégé's plan will give the protégé an increasing sense of self-efficacy and self-confidence as well. However, often this assumption will not be what the mentor believes.

What if the Assumption is NOT True? What Can the Mentor Do?

However, if the mentor is concerned that the protégé lacks sufficient experience to know some of the answers and can NOT analyze and solve the problem alone, what should the mentor do that is most helpful?

The answer is that the mentor should change the personal pronouns in the questions from "you", which excludes the mentor from participating in answering the questions, to more inclusive pronouns like "we", "our, and "us". Switching to inclusive personal pronouns has the effect of including the mentor in the ownership of the problem, and it keeps the mentor in the thinking, and decision making process.

The net result of including the mentor in the process is that:

It allows the mentor to let the protégé do as much as possible, but...

It also allows the mentor to reflect and wonder about things out loud and, thereby to model expert thinking and choice making, all of which would be invisible to the protégé unless the mentor is part of the process, "unpacking his or her own thinking.

Notice below the effect on all the same questions of this subtle but powerful pronoun change.

1. FOR THE MENTOR - Questions which the mentor asks the protégé, but which are for the mentors own information:

Examples:

• What do you think is our problem?
• What do you think is the cause of our problem?
• How long has this been true for us?
• What have we done so far to address this problem?
• How has any of those solutions worked for us?

2. FOR THE PROTÉGÉ - Questions which are asked by the mentor of the protégé to get the protégé to analyze the situation:

Examples:

• Do you think that we might be causing a part of the problem?
• What have you learned about our approach?
• What's the best thing that can happen for us?
• What's the worst that can happen to us?
• What do you think are our alternatives?

3. FOR A PLAN - Questions the mentor asks of the protégé to guide the protégé's decision making and planning

Examples:

• What result might we try to achieve that would be the "best case scenario"?
• What could we do that could lead to the best case?
• What problems or obstacles might we encounter that would prevent us from achieving the best result?
• What can we do that might avoid problems or obstacles?
• Are there any other alternative routes we could take to that same best case result?
• Which of our alternatives is most likely to lead us to that result?
• How will we start the process?
• What will we do if the first plan does not work as well as we expect?
• How will we know it's time to switch to the second plan?
• What resources do we have that can help?
• Are those all the resources that we need?
• How can we help each other succeed?

Finally, the mentor can change the pronouns anytime that it becomes clear the basic assumption is not true. Even in the middle of speaking a sentence, the mentor can switch from using "you" to "we".

All information on this web page is copyright protected under USA and international laws, © 2003, by the International Mentoring Association, http://www.mentoring-association.org

However, you MAY copy this page, but only under the following conditions:

1. You retain all elements in this page as it prints out, including the web site banner, this copyright notice, and contact info.

2. You provide the information to others for free.

3. You do not sell this information or page, nor do you provide it to others along with services for which you are paid.