A More Beautiful Question: The Power of Inquiry to Spark Breakthrough Ideas

by Warren Berger

throughout the organization. Having a leader serve as the “questioner in chief” is fine, but it’s not enough. Today’s companies are often tackling complex challenges that require collaborative, multidisciplinary problem solving. Creative thinking must come from all parts of the company (and from outside the company, too). When a business culture is inquisitive, the questioning, learning, and sharing of information becomes contagious—and gives people permission to explore new ideas across boundaries and silos.

The business writer Dale Dauten has41 described a common situation in which people who inquire about a problem at their workplace—say, something the company is not doing as well as it might—are then told, “You found the problem; now it’s your job to fix it. In addition to your normal duties, of course.” As Dauten notes, that is a surefire way to get people to stop finding problems and asking questions, because most are not seeking to add to their workload.

The better approach is to ask the problem-finders to what extent and how they would want to be involved in working on that problem. The understanding should be they won’t have to go it alone;

that they’ll be given as much time and support as is feasible; and that, even if they never ultimately answer the question, they...

In general, people need time to be able to ask and to work on difficult questions. You can’t “step back” if you’re always rushing to get things done. Here, policies like Google’s much-celebrated “20 percent time,” which stipulates that employees can devote one fifth of their time to indep...

Regarded as one of the world’s most innovative companies, Gore is also known for its distinctive corporate structure: It is one of the flattest, least hierarchical large companies in existence. Its founder, Bill Gore, understood that corporate bureaucracy and hierarchy do

not foster questioning or any open communication within a company.

Gore was, in effect, trying to answer, How do you make a company that’s more like a car pool?

The company was set up with no titles—ten thousand employees and not one manager. When people are first hired at Gore, they often start out wondering, Who’s my boss? Eventually, they realize there is no boss. The corporate structure is built around what Gore calls the Lattice, an elaborate networking system within the company that connects every employee to every other employee. When a new hire joins the

company, their first relationship is with a sponsor (or mentor), “who will lend their credibility and their lattice to the new person, until that person has built up their own lattice,” France says. One of the most important effects of this networked, nonhierarchical structure is that employees, from day one, are self-directed. Since no one tells you what to do, you mu...

Communication flows freely through the Gore network. Any questions or ideas can be shared with anyone else. “It’s very personal,” says France. “If you have feedb...

even a more traditional corporate structure can foster an atmosphere conducive to questioning and a culture that, in Dev Patnaik’s words, “embraces curiosity as a fundamental value.”

Since curiosity and learning go hand in hand, one of the big questions some companies are now working on is How do we transform a workplace into a learn-place?

TED founder Richard Saul Wurman told me that one

of the best ways to stimulate curiosity among any group of people is simply to expose them to as many original ideas and unusual viewpoints as possible. Thus a company might not only bring in guests but have employees themselves do TED-like presentations for the group—focusing on something interesting they’ve learned that others might not know.

Part of building a culture of inquiry is teaching people to defer judgment while exploring new ideas and big questions. This is necessary because many of46 us are conditioned to react to questions by trying to answer them too quickly or by countering them “devil’s advocate” style. The more hardheaded within the group may need to be shown that innovative questioning works best when it starts with the impractical and works toward the practical. The “dreamers” should be given their moment to ask big, ambitious, impractical questions; the pragmatic “implementers”47 (to use Min Basadur’s term) will likely hold sway during the down-to-earth How stages of developing an idea and trying to make it real.

the journalist and pioneering congresswoman Clare Booth Luce. While visiting John F. Kennedy early in his presidency, Luce expressed concern that Kennedy might be in danger of trying to do too much, thereby losing focus. She told him “a great man is a sentence”—meaning that a leader with a clear and strong purpose could be summed up in a single line (e.g., “Abraham Lincoln preserved the union and freed the slaves”). Pink believes this concept can be useful to anyone, not just presidents. Your sentence might be, “He raised four kids who became happy, healthy adults,” or “She invented a device that made people’s lives easier.” If your sentence is a goal not yet achieved, then you also must ask: How might I live up to my own sentence?

the best coaches, consultants, and therapists all emphasize there is no substitute for self-questioning—often the most important thing that an adviser can do is guide someone toward asking the right questions (as the business consultant Peter Drucker did when he coached the world’s top business executives). Anyone in a coaching/advising role who offers generic answers should

be eyed warily because nobody can provide answers that will fit your life, your particular problems or challenges.

That word process is key. You don’t just “find” answers to complex life problems (or any type of complex problem, including business ones). You work your way, gradually, toward figuring out those answers, relying on questions each step of the way.

We have to construct meaning in our lives, based on everyday choices—and every one of those choices is a question. Why should I do X? Is it worth my time and effort to do Y?

As you make those daily choices about what to spend your time on and which possibilities to pursue, the author and consultant John Hagel suggests you ask yourself13 this question: When I look back in five years, which of these options will make the better story? As Hagel points out, “No one ever regrets taking the path that leads to a better story.”

If you fear not having answers to the questions you might ask yourself, remember that one of the hallmarks of innovative problem solvers is that they are willing to raise questions without having any idea of what the answer might be. Part of being able to tackle complex and difficult questions is accepting that there is nothing wrong with not knowing. People who are good at questioning are comfortable with uncertainty.

For those concerned about not knowing what questions to ask, the work of the Right Question Institute (as well as Hal Gregersen’s question-storming exercises on page 154) shows that if you force yourself to sit with a problem or a topic and try to think of appropriate questions, you will almost certainly come up with many. The challenge, though, is not just to think of questions, but to then think about those questions—culling the best ones, improving them, and figuring out how you might begin to act on them. Questioning should be done as a matter of habit and process—otherwise,

it’s not likely to find a place in busy schedules. In applying a rigorous system of inquiry to everyday life,

all starts with slowing down, stepping back, and trying to shift perspective in order to see your own life—and the problems, opportunities, and challenges worth tackling—more clearly.

The main premise of appreciative inquiry is that positive questions, focusing on strengths and assets, tend to yield more effective results than negative questions focusing on problems or deficits. Strength-based questioning focuses on what is working in our lives—so that we can build upon that and get more out of it.

filmmaker Roko Belic, who believes that “gratitude is a shortcut to happiness.”

Belic has spent years trekking around the world and trying to answer his own questions about why some people are happier than others and whether it’s possible for someone to become happier. The answer to his questions can be found in his documentary film Happy, but one of the key findings is that people who value and appreciate the basics—family and friends, a sense of belonging to a community, the simple pleasure that comes with engaging in a hobby or

learning something new—tend to be a...

Regardless of circumstance, Belic found that “community and connectedness” formed the common thread among the happiest people. “It does not mean that to be happy you have to be very social or outgoing or have a million friends,” he said. But the happiest people he encountered —including some living extremely modestly—had a strong connection to

those around them. “They laughed and really enjoyed being around the people they love.”

This link between happiness and strong relationships is hardly a startling revelation. Yet, as Belic points out, “most of us spend more of our time working to make money—often to support a lifestyle that involves bigger houses or nice cars and clothes—than the ti...

Why do I seem to “shine” when doing certain things? (What is it about those activities/places that brings out the best in me?) What if I could find a way to incorporate these interests/activities, or some aspect of them, into my life more? And maybe even into my work?

quotes Habitat for Humanity founder Millard Fuller, who said, “It’s easier to act your way33 into a new way of thinking than to think your way into a new way of acting.” Jacobs has found this to be true in his own small-change experiments: “If you just go ahead and do something differently, and you do it enough times, it will change your mind. If you force yourself to smile, you trick your brain and then you start to become happier.” Jacobs has tried this “act as if” approach with everything from changing his posture to behaving as if he were more confident than he is. When he finds that he’s doubting himself on a project, Jacobs asks, What would an optimistic, confident person do?

probably cast aside those doubts and forge ahead, so Jacobs tries to do likewise.

Articulating a personal challenge in the form of a question has other benefits. It allows you to be bold and adventurous because anyone can question anything. You don’t have to be a recognized expert; you just have to be willing to say, I’m going to venture forth in the world with my question and see what I find. As you do this, you’re in a strong position to build ideas and attract support. Because, whereas people are more likely to ignore or challenge you when you come at them with answers, they

almost can’t resist advising or helping you to answer a great question. All of this helps to build momentum. Questions (the right ones, anyway) are good at generating momentum, which is why change-makers so often use them as a starting point.

Look for a question that is “ambitious yet actionable”—or, as the physicist Edward Witten puts it, a question that’s hard enough to be interesting, but realistic

enough that you have some hope of answering it. (Not that you have to find an answer to all beautiful questions; the string theorist Witten, for instance, has never fully answered his biggest questions about the nature of the universe, but he told me that the pursuit of those questions has led him to many other interesting discoveries along the way.)

parents who take the time and trouble to inquire, How can I encourage questioning in my child?, are more likely to raise inquisitive kids who grow up to be resourceful, problem-solving

solving adults. That makes it a beautiful question worth pursuing.

maybe your beautiful question will focus on creating a more fulfilled, more curious, more interesting you.

When you find your beautiful question, stay with it. If it’s a question worth pursuing, it will likely also be confounding, frustrating, exhausting. If you find yourself stuck, follow the advice of Acumen’s Novogratz—“just try to get to the next question.” Break your big question into smaller ones and work on those. Keep cycling through Whys, What Ifs, and Hows, subjecting everything—even your being stuck—to a fresh set of queries.

Be sure to take your question for walks, and to the museum. Create the time and space for inspiration, which, as Van Phillips observes, comes in unexpected waves. As an innovator, “you’re like a surfer waiting patiently for that wave to come in,” says Phillips (yes, he surfs, as well as runs, on that foot he made). You don’t know when the wave will come in—when those unpredictable connections in the nether regions of the brain will happen—but you must prepare and be ready for it. If you haven’t sufficiently thought about your question—if you haven’t even asked it—the connections are unlikely to happen and the wave will never materialize.