What we know about divergent thinking is that it mostly happens in the more creative right hemisphere of the brain; that it taps into imagination and often triggers random association of ideas (which is a primary source of creativity); and that it can be intellectually stimulating and rewarding. So to the extent that questioning triggers divergent

Picasso was onto this truth fifty years ago when he commented, “Computers are useless—they only give31 you answers.”

And those not in leadership roles frequently perceive (often correctly) that questioning can be hazardous to one’s career: that to raise a hand in the conference room and ask “Why?” is to risk being seen as uninformed, or possibly insubordinate, or maybe both.

When innovators talk about the virtues of beginner’s mind or neoteny, to use the term favored by MIT Media Lab’s Joi Ito, one of the desirable things they’re referring to is that state where you see things without labels, without categorization. Because once things have been labeled and filed, they become known quantities—and we don’t think about t

A year before Jennifer’s question and Land’s feverish walk, in December of 1942, he had said to Polaroid employees, “If you dream of something worth doing and then simply go to work on it . . . if you think of, detail by detail, what you have to do next, it is a wonderful dream even if the end is a long way off, for there are about five thousand st

What may be even more important is the tone of questions. Confronted with a challenge or problem, one could respond with the question Oh my God, what are we going to do? Faced with the same situation, one might ask, What if this change represents an opportunity for us? How might we make the most of the situation?

In my inquiry into the value of inquiry, I’ve become convinced that questioning is more important today than it was yesterday—and will be even more important tomorrow—in helping us figure out what matters, where opportunity lies, and how to get there. We’re all hungry for better answers. But first, we need to learn how to ask the right questions.

Rothstein points out, however, that questions not only open up thinking—they also can direct and focus it. In his exercises, students may begin with wide-open, divergent “what-if” speculation, but they gradually use their own questions to do “convergent” (focused) thinking as they get at the core of a difficult problem and reach consensus on how to

Clay Christensen suggests a bolder version of this question: What if the company didn’t exist? That question allows you to take a clean-slate approach in thinking about the industry and your place in it. Christensen points out that thinking about your company as if there were no history enables leaders to stop focusing on preexisting beliefs and st