Listening Through the Questions

Are there more chairs in the world or people?

There are many questions like this one, but this was always my go-to during staff training as we prepared young adults to navigate and steward the experience of the campers that summer. When the question is asked, individuals would throw out their first thought of either chairs or people, and then mild debate would occur until the inevitable sub-question surfaced: ‘what counts as a chair?’.

Does a couch?
Does a bench?
Do seats in a car? A bus?
What about stadiums or concert halls?
Must it be portable?

This is where I would pause the conversation. I would highlight that we’re answering a different question now from the original. We’re discussing a more fundamental component of the original question. As a collective, we have gone deeper; we are listening through or into the question at hand. We would then launch into our main topic for that session (often a session on “active listening”), but the concept of listening through recurred throughout training and throughout the program.

Teaching summer staff to see, hear, and listen deeper into the camp experience is a critical component of training, and a critical component of a program’s success. These young adults, after all, form the crux of the camper experience. Staff at thriving camps understand their role in creating the magic of camp. They are not the sole magician, of course, and there are many elements involved. But the power of camp is stewarded by the people involved. It does not happen by default.

So much of Kaleidoscope’s work in consulting is posing questions and listening through the answers to find the threads of vision or understanding. What are the assumptions we have about our organization or our operation? What are the implications of our potential choices moving forward? We pride ourselves in being process-based, involving the wisdom of collective groups with many voices to develop the best answers. We ask the right questions in the right order and listen through to the key insights. That’s why our impact has that sparkle of camp magic.