The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth About Extraordinary Results

by Gary Keller

the quality of any answer is directly determined by the quality of the question. Ask the wrong question, get the wrong answer. Ask the right question, get the right answer. Ask the most powerful question possible, and the answer can be life altering. Voltaire once wrote, “Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers.” Sir Francis Bacon added, “A prudent question is one-half of wisdom.” Indira Gandhi concluded that “the power to question is the basis of all human progress.” Great questions are clearly the quickest path to great answers. Every discoverer and inventor begins his quest with a transformative question. The scientific method asks questions of the universe in hypothesis form. The more than 2,000-year-old Socratic Method, teaching through questions, is still embraced by educators from the heights of Harvard Law School to the local kindergarten class. Questions engage our critical thinking. Research shows that asking questions improves learning and performance by as much as 150 percent.