I’ve been reading the latest book from Andy Crouch, Playing God: ——. Crouch is the editor at Christianity Today and an all-around great thinker. In his latest book he explores the ins and outs of a topic that seems to get neglected, coveted, or misunderstood: power. One of the lessons I most valued was Crouch’s take on the notion that although power can be misused, it is essentially good. He points out that a chief sign that power is being well-used or abused is the effect the use of power has on others. When power is wielded well, it creates more power. When power is used for ill, it results in others having less power.

We bear the image of our Creator when we apply power in ways that result in others experiencing what might be called “flourishing” or as my friend Travis Guse says “to thrive.” So there is not less power as a result, but more. Crouch’s commentary on this brings up images of the Old Testament creation story and the wise stewards of the New Testament. Power that skews the image of our Creator results in diminished power. Crouch points to idolatry and injustice as twin pillars of power that diminishes.
All this talk about power got me thinking about the power of conversations. In the book of James we learn that words have the power to do great good or great harm: the power to bless or to curse. It’s easy to draw the simple interpretation that the words we use are important and that we should check our intent for how we use words. That’s certainly true. There is also a deeper truth about the power of words: how we choose to hold conversations can either create more or result in less. Our approach to conversations can create space for ideas to flourish or reduce space and diminish the possibility of anything new coming forth.

Of all the ways that we humans create, words are the most primary and godly. God spoke the world into creation, and God even spoke into being beings who could speak creatively. Of course, the enemy also speaks, but his words are deceptive and destructive. Most of us don’t aim to be deceptive or destructive in our conversations, but our speech is not as generative as it could be. Here are three conversation practices that diminish creativity (don’t do these):

1. Believing yourself to be the superior person in the conversation. When we believe ourselves to be superior (in whatever way), we cannot help but treat the other person as inferior, even if we don’t think we are. This is why I often tell coaching students to “take a dumb pill” before starting a coaching conversation. When we think ourselves as having more than the other person (more intelligence, more wisdom, more experience, more problem-solving ability), we treat him as less. In doing so we diminish his creativity and resourcefulness. Now the pragmatic reader might think, “Wait, there are times when I am more intelligent or do have more experience.” That may well be true, but it does not make you superior. Generative conversations happen in the space between two equal (but not identical) persons.

2. Interrupting. I can think of very few reasons to interrupt another person. It’s almost never a good idea to interrupt. When we choose to talk on top of another person, we produce two very negative consequences. First, immediately we stop the train of thoughts that is moving from the person’s mind through their mouth and toward two sets of ears (ours and hers). Who knows what that train would have brought forth? And we don’t just stop the train; we stop it by crashing into it with another train (our own thoughts). Second, we send a strong signal that another crash is likely to happen, and that tends to result in the other person being more cautious and less free with her conversation. In many ways, our interruption communicates that this is not a safe space to share.

3. Poor questioning. There are many species of poor questions. The two that do the most to diminish creativity are informational questions and leading questions. Informational questions invite the person to share information with you. That might sound harmless, or even helpful, but in reality it limits the conversation. When we ask for information, we don’t invite the other person to go anywhere new in her thinking. We don’t invite creativity, we invite a report, an inventory, an audit of what she already has. We also send the signal that we are going to do something with the information she gives us. It’s as if we’re telling her, “You’re not smart enough to figure this out, so give me the data and let me see what I can do with it.” Leading questions have a similar effect. When we use questions to lead the person to a perspective or conclusion that is our own, not only do we come off as disingenuous, but we cause a cognitive switching problem for the other person: she is not sure whether to engage the question thoughtfully (as a quest) or to evaluate it (since it’s really a suggestion) or to agree out of deference to our suggestion (out of politeness or uncertainty). Leading questions do not bring forth the best thinking from our conversation partners.

Some coaching students misunderstand advice such as these three points and think a coach (or any good conversation partner) should never add anything to the conversation, never have a thought or suggestion or feedback. That’s not true. We don’t increase the other person’s power for creativity by limiting our own (to Crouch’s point, that would be the misuse of power). Instead, we creatively and curiously engage the other person in ways that invite and practically conjure their creativity. Depending on the nature of the conversation, we add to it in various ways, but never do we add in ways that subtract from the other person. I believe our lives are filled with opportunities to have creative and powerful conversations. Doing so is not just for coaches, and not just for coaching conversations. Any conversation can be a positively powerful experience – one that allows all parties to reflect the image of a creative and communicative God.