Writing about questions
My last book, Glimmer, was about how designers and other innovators think—how they come up with brilliant new ideas that can change the way we live. One of the things I learned while studying some of the world's leading innovators is that they tend to be masters at the art and science of asking questions. They have a knack for looking at the world around them—at the existing reality that everyone else usually just accepts—and asking: What if we did this? Or tried that?
Interestingly, we all start out as super-questioners—no one asks more questions than your average 5-year-old. But the habit of asking questions is trained out of us by the educational system. And then, as we make our way into the business world, we find that too often the emphasis is on short-term answers rather than exploring more far-reaching, potentially game-changing ideas. Research shows that many people in business are actually afraid to question the way things are done because they fear it will make them seem incompetent.
But this is not just a business-related issue: In our lives, in general, there's a tendency to move along on auto-pilot when we really ought to be in the habit of regularly stepping back and questioning everything—about our career choices, about our attitudes and beliefs, about the ways we choose to live. Questioning is good for us. It can help to open up new possibilities in our lives. It's a first step in solving problems. It makes us more successful as leaders. People who ask a lot of questions tend to be more engaged in their lives, more fulfilled, and happier.
So why don't we ask more questions?
With this blog, I'm going to explore that and other questions, such as:
How do we develop and foster the habit of questioning?
How do we go about formulating better questions (or what might be thought of as "beautiful questions")?
And what happens after an important and "beautiful" question has been raised—what can we learn about the journey that starts with asking "why" or "what if" and eventually leads us to discovery, change, and progress?
Those are some big questions, I know. It's going to take a good deal of inquiry on my part—with help from inquisitive, interested people like you—to arrive at a better understanding of this important and intriguing subject. Please share any thoughts, anecdotes, ideas (and of course, questions) here in the comments. And be sure to subscribe to this blog and/or the comments if you want to be part of the ongoing conversation.
