Once upon a time I was the C++ programming language guru in an organization of 200 software developers. People would come to me with all sorts of esoteric C++ problems, and I’d give them the answer. It often seemed—more often than mere coincidence can account for—that whatever problem someone was having, I’d had the same problem myself, and solved it, only the day before. So I was often able to give the answer off the top of my head, which gave me an aura of being smarter than I really was.

This encouraged people to come to me with even more problems. Eventually they posed problems—not only about programming but also about other sticky issues—that I couldn’t solve off the top of my head. In order to understand the problem better so that I could solve it, I’d ask questions to get more information. Simple questions such as What have you tried so far? and What happened? and What else did you try? I noticed that often as people were answering my questions they would suddenly say, “Ah, I’ve got it!” It turned out that I didn’t need even to understand the problem, much less to solve it.

I began to enjoy helping people with those problems most of all, the problems that I had no idea how to solve. I learned to notice what puzzled me and to ask questions about my puzzles. Not leading questions with embedded advice (”Have you tried regrafting the Johnson rods?”), but questions simply to help me understand more clearly what was happening. And in answering the questions, people became more clear themselves about what was happening. I was surprised and delighted to learn that as people understood their problems better, they were usually able to come up with great advice of their own, advice that was far more useful than anything I might have offered.

Over time I’ve added other questions to my repertoire, questions not only about understanding the problem per se, but about understanding how the person is going about trying to solve the problem. Those “meta-problem” questions, such as the ones I asked Paul, the dream-home builder, seem to have great power to help people create their own advice. And they help people learn to examine their own problem-solving process, to jiggle themselves loose when they’re stuck so they can better solve their own problems.

One day Sriram poked his head into my cube, raised a finger, and said, “Dale, I— No, I got it.” And off he went.

Later I asked him what that was all about. He said, “On my way to your office, I was asking myself, ‘What questions would Dale ask me?’ I answered those questions, and I came up with the answer myself!”

I’d helped Sriram without even being there! That’s the moment I knew I could be a great coach. If only I could find a way to get paid for stuff like that.

“How do I feel about what I’m feeling?” This seemingly silly question is one of the more powerful questions in my repertoire. When I’m knocked for a loop by a painful feeling, aswering this question helps me to regain my balance. Here are two examples.

In 1996 I was an apprentice, along with Amanda Mathis and Nyra Hill, at a week-long leadership workshop led by Jerry Weinberg and Jean McLendon. The three of us apprentices were tasked, among other things, with helping each other with our own learning goals. We spent a lot of time together on that, and got to know each other quite well. We’d made a wonderful team, and the experience of working with Nyra and Amanda was one of the high points of my career.

At the end of the week, I was eating dinner with Jerry, Jean, Amanda, and Nyra. I was feeling quite low, and was not in a mood to eat. I had gathered a plate of fruit (the easiest thing to eat when I’m not in the mood to eat) and was picking at it. Jerry noticed and asked, “What’s going on?”

I said, “I’m going to miss all of you.”

“How do you feel about that?” Jerry said.

After a moment I burst out laughing. “I feel great about that,” I said. “It means that I love all of you.” I spent the rest of the evening enjoying the company of my wonderful companions.

On February 19, 1999 I moved from Portland, Oregon to Sunnyvale, California. That evening I was carjacked in the parking lot of my temporary apartment, and driven around in my car for 30 minutes with a gun pressed to the back of my neck.

One evening a few days later I was walking across a parking lot toward some department store. I noticed someone walking toward me and started to feel quite afraid. And then I felt afraid of feeling afraid. “What if I get stuck like this? I don’t want to feel afraid every damned time I walk across a parking lot!”

Then I remembered the “feeling about the feeling” question, and asked myself, “How do I feel about feeling afraid?” I realized that I felt just fine about it. Feeling afraid, and even “hypervigilant” as my critical incident counsellor called it, was all part of the healing process. The fear encouraged me to be more aware of my surroundings. I still felt the fear, but I no longer feared being stuck forever in that fearful mood.

From these and other incidents I’ve come to appreciate the power of that question. “How do you feel about what you’re feeling?” I now call it The Acceptance Question, because it invites me to test whether I accept what I am feeling, and whether I accept myself for feeling what I am feeling. I’ve thought about why this simple question works so well so often, and I think I understand some of it.

Our feelings come not just from what’s happening, but from a combination of what’s happening, our needs, and the stories we tell ourselves based on our assumptions and expectations. Many times the stories that give rise to our feelings are about some other time and place. “I’m going to miss all of you” was about the following weeks and months when I would be somewhere else. My fear in the parking lot was largely about what had happened a few days earlier.

One thing The Acceptance Question does is to bring me back to the here and now. The question doesn’t ask me to deny anything. It asks me to attend to information that I was neglecting, information about what is true here and now. And in the here and now, I’m usually doing just fine. The people I may miss in the future are here with me now, and I’m okay. The carjackers are not here with me now, and I’m okay. In the here and now I’m alive, I’m healthy, and I’m okay.

Another thing The Acceptance Question does is to allow me to tell a different story, one that is just as true as the story that gives rise to the painful feeling. “I’m here now with people I love” is just as true as “I’m going to miss all of you.” And given that it’s a story about here and now, it’s probably more true. Changing the story changes the feelings.

The Acceptance Question encourages me be more present with what is happening here and now, both inside me and outside me. This helps me to regain my balance, and to respond more effectively to my surroundings and to my needs.

The Pecker Principle: The people who care most about the pecking order are usually the biggest peckers.