1: “Why does this matter to you?”
That’s the question author, consultant, and facilitator Peter Block asked Daniel Coyle
They had just met. Daniel, a writer, had set up an interview with Peter. They met at a coffee shop in Cincinnati, which is where Peter now calls home.
“A rangy eighty-five-year-old, Peter had settled into his chair and gave me a fond, knowing smile, as if we’d met each other before,” Daniel observes in his book Flourish: The Art of Building Meaning, Joy, and Fulfillment.
Daniel began telling Peter about his project, his research, and the people he had spoken with.
Peter “listened closely, then asked again, with a steady smile, ‘So why does this matter to you?'”
Daniel leaned back in his chair and took a breath. Then he began sharing why the project mattered to him.
How both of his parents had passed away.
How his four daughters were entering their twenties.
And how he and his wife were beginning a new season of life as empty nesters.
As I was speaking,” Daniel writes, “I was feeling a shift, within me and in the air between us, an energy that’s somewhere between vulnerability and excitement.
“This is what Peter Block does.”
2: Yesterday, we looked at how Peter led a community meeting following a fatal shooting that had occurred in the Clifton Heights neighborhood of Cincinnati.
The audience expected “a conventional postcrisis event in which authorities would offer official statements, reassurances, and a structured action plan,” Daniel writes.
But that’s not what happened. Instead, Peter asked everyone to split into groups of three and answer three questions:
1: “When did you start caring about Clifton Heights?”
2: “What is your contribution to making this neighborhood less safe than it might be?”
3: “Tell each other what gifts you received during this conversation.”
3: Through his work, Peter has developed a methodology that prompts people to reveal authentic parts of themselves and connect with others in ways that feel “organic and alive,” Daniel describes.
- Step one: Drop the armor.
- Step two: Spark deep questions.
- Step three: Nurture connection.
And what’s striking is how simple his approach is.
Step one: Drop the Armor.
Peter begins by creating “conditions of warmth, safety, and directness that allow people to let go of their normal defenses,” Daniel writes.
As a facilitator, he has people gather in small groups of three to six and arranges it so that they are no more than a few feet apart.
“The smallness is essential,” Daniel explains, “because it creates a space where nobody can disappear into the margins, where every voice matters.”
Peter is known for rearranging the chairs so everybody can see everyone else.
Once, at a friend’s memorial service, Peter asked the widow if he could move the chairs from rows into a circle so that people could see one another’s faces. “We all lost him,” Peter observed. “Now we need to see each other to help us get through it.”
A key part of Peter’s approach is making sure everyone understands they are not there to “solve problems,” “correct each other,” or “offer advice.”
As Peter says, “Seeking answers drives people apart. Questions bring people together.”
And, “I’m not interested in your opinions. . . Everybody’s got opinions, and they change all the time. I want to know what you really want, down deep. What is really meaningful to you, and why?”
Dropping your armor also means that if someone doesn’t want to participate, they can opt out. “If you can’t say no, your yes is worthless,” he says.
Step two: Spark Deep Questions.
At the heart of Peter’s work is asking open-ended questions.
Here are a few:
- Why does being here matter to you?
- What is the crossroads you are at right now?
- What question is animating your life right now?
- What gift do you have that people aren’t aware of?
- What don’t we understand about you?
“These are not simple questions. They’re searching and layered,” Daniel observes. “They ask for real vulnerability.”
Peter believes in embedding questions into the environment. “You are not forcing a response,” he says. “You are awakening a conversation that is already ready to happen.”
Deep questions tend to fall into several recurring themes.
- Turning points: “What’s shaped you?”
- Hopes and fears: “What’s pulling you forward or holding you back?”
- Gifts: “What have you received that has helped you become who you are?”
Daniel explains: “They are not really questions in the conventional sense of the word—they’re invitations to let go of control, to widen awareness, to illuminate meaning.”
Aren’t people nervous about answering questions like these in small groups?
“At first, they often are; there’s a moment of hesitation,” Daniel notes. “But then, almost without fail, something shifts; people dive in to begin what is almost invariably a memorable, energizing conversation.
“Deep questions bypass the usual cognitive shortcuts of analysis and opinion and go straight for the real stuff: What matters to you, and why?”
A good deep question is personal: “It asks people to be vulnerable, to reflect on their experiences, values, hopes, and commitments.”
It is ambiguous: “It lacks a clear or binary answer, and it invites exploration rather than certainty.”
And it sparks accountability: “It moves people toward ownership, not just discussion.”
Step three: Nurture Connection.
The bigger goal is always to bring about shared understanding and a sense of community.
“Once the conversations have begun, Peter steps back. He doesn’t direct, summarize, or frame takeaways,” Daniel notes.
“He simply gives people a small stretch of time—no more than ten or twelve minutes per question—and trusts the process to unfold.”
That can be harder than it sounds. Our natural instinct is often to jump in and fill the awkward silence.
“But Peter resists that impulse; instead, he protects what’s happening, radiating his enjoyment,” Daniel writes.
At the end, Peter likes to ask the small groups to talk through one last question: “What gifts have you received today?”
“The question is simple, yet the effect is anything but. As people reflect,” Daniel notes, “their attention illuminates each other and their shared experience; gratitude surfaces.
“People name what they appreciate—a story, a kindness, a conversation they didn’t expect—and in doing so, the invisible threads between them thicken and grow.”
The result is powerful.
“What tends to happen,” Peter says, “is that people fall in love with each other. There’s a quality of aliveness that comes out in the room, in the body language, in the tone of voice, in the eyes.
“You’re creating a context where people can create a small version of a world they want to inhabit, where they can have the experience of living in that world together and express that to each other. Where you’re activating a larger version of yourself.”
More tomorrow!
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Reflection: Think about your most meaningful conversations. What was it about the setting or the questions that allowed you to open up?
Action: The next time you’re with a small group, skip the small talk and ask a deeper question: “What is the crossroads you are at right now?” Then resist the urge to fill the silence. Listen.
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