Why Are Questions So Powerful?

I've been blessed with a curious mind.

I ask myself a lot of questions. Things like, "Why is life so wonderfully mysterious and why am I growing less and less tolerant of simple, pat answers?" Over the years, inquisitiveness has led me to new perspectives, meaningful relationships, and creative inspiration. So much so, that I'm becoming convinced that asking more and better questions may be the most important skill we need to develop.

Recently, I ran across an idea. The premise was this; instead of making a New Year's resolution, why not come up with a meaningful New Year's question? This led me to some interesting resources, including the book, "A More Beautiful Question", by Warren Berger. Warren eloquently explores the power of questions, and why questions trump answers. He points out how four-year-olds ask an average of 390 questions a day, and how we systematically (and quickly) lose that skill as we age. The book is full of poignant examples of how many of today's innovations were born out of simple questions. I would certainly recommend this provocative, inspiring, yet practical book on the power of inquiry.

As Simple as a Game


Many years ago, I stumbled across the Un-game. The author, unable to speak due to medical reasons, wondered, "Why do we spend so much time talking… but never communicate?" She developed a "game" which, in essence, consisted of a variety of questions to ask people, allowing them to then respond without being interrupted. We found this simple experience to be revolutionary in connecting with those we care about.  The Un-game questions added a spark to many date nights, family outings, and social gatherings. How might we refresh this discovery that is so easily buried in the dust of passing time?

It's also interesting that the best selling book of all time, The Bible, is full of questions, apparently over 3,000 of them. In fact, many significant questions are asked by God himself to awaken a neglectful humanity. Why are so many so easily pacified, using this resource as a simple answer book, when it is so pregnant with challenge and discovery?

How Can We Ask Better Questions?


How might we, once again, battle the atrophy and learn to ask better questions, improving our creative contribution?  Since it's Question Week, (March 14, corresponding to Einstein's birthday), why not head over to the QuestionWeek.com website for some helpful resources?



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The 90-9-1 Rule

Image
What does successful collaboration look like? Understanding how communities and people interact online is essential for setting the right expectations. Often people misinterpret metrics or focus their energy in the wrong direction because they do not have a reasonable benchmark to assess how well their on-line communities are functioning. All Things Are Not Equal In any team or community you can expect to find a variety of expertise and strengths. We usually don't expect everyone to do the exact same thing, or to have the same skill sets and strengths. In fact, the complementary nature of individual strengths is essential to creating strong teams and vibrant communities. Knowing this, it is surprising that the default expectation for online interaction is identical contribution, with performance metrics that reinforce this unhealthy view. Not only is this unrealistic, it's a sure recipe for failure! Setting Expectations Most everyone is familiar with the Pareto principle
Read more

Superstar Productivity in the Cloud

Image
I've been a Getting Things Done © disciple for a few years. Over that time I learned a couple of secrets to leverage David Allen's principles in my day to day work environment: Work context is everything - physical context is becoming less important Keep it simple - use the parts that make sense for you Work Context I spend 80% of my day online.  Either on my computer, or my Android phone.  A large portion of that time is spent communicating with people ... and Gmail does most of the heavy lifting.  Since this is where I work from, this is where my GTD experiments were honed.  If you have a similar work profile, perhaps you'll find something useful in my experience. Getting Organized 1. Collection The Gmail Inbox is a natural collector.  Don't fight it ... feed it! Stuff all ideas, tasks and loose ends into your inbox.  How?  Simply email yourself. I've added a little twist to boost this process.  First, I added a contact with the email address of my_email+ac
Read more

The Knowledge Factory

Image
SECI Model at Fuji Xerox - from the Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology A Model for Learning When researching knowledge management and organizational learning you're bound to come across the SECI model and the work of the Nonaka and Takeuchi. Appreciating the value of tacit knowledge (carried in people's minds) and explicit knowledge (codified or articulated) is paramount for the knowledge based industries. The authors of the SECI model emphasize that as valuable as the knowledge assets may be, the process of creating knowledge and how it is transformed is where the real potential lies. Simply managing existing knowledge is not enough . The Heart of the Machine Intuitively we know that human talent is the critical success factor in hi-tech and other knowledge based contexts. Creativity and innovation are primarily human functions and are hard to systematize but are essential for ongoing success. Additionally, the picture below demonstrates how all significa
Read more