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

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

whereas in the past one needed to appear to have “all the answers” in order to rise in companies, today, at least in some enlightened segments of the business world, the corner office is there for the askers.

That’s only part of what’s required to ask powerful Why questions. To do so, we must: • Step back. • Notice what others miss. • Challenge assumptions (including our own). • Gain a deeper understanding of the situation or problem at hand, through contextual inquiry. • Question the questions we’re asking. • Take ownership of a particular question.

So then, one of the primary drivers of questioning is an awareness of what we don’t know—which is a form of higher awareness that separates not only man from monkey but also the smart and curious person from the dullard who doesn’t know or care.

With the constant change we face today, we may be forced to spend less time on autopilot, more time in questioning mode—attempting to adapt, looking to re-create careers, redefining old ideas about living, working, and retiring, reexamining priorities, seeking new ways to be creative, or to solve various problems in our own lives or the lives of ot

At that moment, Phillips exhibited one of the telltale signs of an innovative questioner: a refusal to accept the existing reality.

The Polaroid story is a favorite of innovators and questioners because it shows a number of interesting things about the dynamics of questioning. To begin with, it demonstrates that a game-changing question can come from anyone, even a naïve child. This underscores a point made earlier, that nonexperts or outsiders are often better at questioning t

Frank Lloyd Wright put it well when he remarked that an expert is someone who has “stopped thinking because he ‘knows.’”

“These days it’s easier and less expensive to just try out your ideas than to figure out if you should try them out.”