“The kids used their time much more efficiently by constructing right away. They tried one way of building, and if it didn’t work, they quickly tried another. They got in a lot more tries. They learned from their mistakes as they went along, instead of attempting to figure out everything in advance. The point of the marshmallow experiment was not to humble MBA students (if anything, that was a side benefit), but rather to better understand how to make progress when tasked with a difficult challenge in uncertain conditions. What we learn from those kids is that there’s no substitute for quickly trying things out to see what works. Looking at this through the questioning prism: The MBA students got stuck too long contemplating the possible What Ifs, while the kids moved quickly from What If to How. As soon as they thought of a possible combination, they tried it to see how it would work.”