Quotes from Warren Berger

Just asking Why and What If will not necessarily cause these neural connections to occur—but questioning can help nourish the trees and extend the reach of those branches.

Five learning skills, or "habits of mind," were at the core of her school, and each was matched up with a corresponding question: Evidence: How do we know what's true or false? What evidence counts? Viewpoint: How might this look if we stepped into other shoes, or looked at it from a different direction? Connection: Is there a pattern? Have we seen something like this before? Conjecture: What if it were different? Relevance: Why does this matter?

It also helps to have a wide base of knowledge on all sorts of things that might seem to be unrelated to the problem—the more eclectic your storehouse of information, the more possibilities for unexpected connections.

Always the beautiful answer Who asks a more beautiful question. —E.E. Cummings

the more general problem of schools favoring memorized answers over creative questions is nothing new. Some point out that it's built into an educational system that was created in a different time, the Industrial Age, and for a different purpose.

When I used to take tests in college, I would be very anxious," he told me. "So I came up with a process whereby I would always answer the more obvious questions first. Then, as my anxiety would lessen, I'd start to answer more of the questions that required real thinking.

In the more relaxed state, neural networks open up and connections of all kinds form more freely.

For a questioner, it's important to spend time with challenging questions instead of trying to answer them right away. By "living with" a question, thinking about it and then stepping away from it, allowing it to marinate, you give your brain a chance to come up with the kinds of fresh insights and What If possibilities that can lead to breakthroughs.

It's also critical for company leaders to be on the lookout for ways in which questioning gets punished—though the punishment may not be obvious or intentional. The operative question is If an employee asks questions at our company, is he or she asking for trouble

Google's scientist-in-residence Ray Kurzweil47 revealed in an interview. He said that when he is working on a difficult problem, he sets aside time, right before going to bed, to review all the pertinent issues and challenges. Then he goes to sleep and allows his unconscious mind to go to work.

The mind of the beginner is empty, free of the habits of the expert." Such a mind, he added, is "open to all possibilities" and "can see things as they are." Suzuki

In some ways, Meier was trying to extend the kindergarten experience through all grades. Teaching kindergarten "was such an extraordinary intellectual experience, and I thought, Why couldn't we just keep doing that?" Only in kindergarten, she told me, "do we put up with kids asking questions that are off-topic.

The sleeping or relaxed brain cuts off distractions and turns inward, as the right hemisphere becomes more active, leading to periods of greater connectivity.

the best corporate learning environments have some common elements. Bringing in outsiders to teach and inspire; encouraging insiders to teach each other; putting employees' work on the walls to share ideas, especially on work in progress—all invite questioning and feedback from others and encourage greater collaboration

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.

Importantly, the professor was also "willing to ask questions without knowing the answer. Teachers and professors, we think our authority rests on having answers. But students find it really liberating to have a teacher say, 'I don't know the answer—so let's figure this out together.

We come out of the womb questioning," noted the small-schools-movement pioneer Deborah Meier.

And it's possible you may get different results depending on which hand you doodle with," Kounios says. "Using the left hand may stimulate the brain's right hemisphere.

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.

The designer George Lois, who claims some of his best ideas have come while meandering through the Metropolitan Museum, says, "Museums are the custodians of epiphanies.")

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. While a fairly straightforward process, it begins by moving backward.

In one of his lectures on creativity, the comedian John Cleese talked about the need to find one's own "tortoise enclosure"—that19 sheltered, quiet place where you can go for extended periods to escape from the distractions of the outside world so that you can think without interruption.

at least temporarily, it's necessary to stop doing and stop knowing in order to start asking.

beautiful question is an ambitious yet actionable question that can begin to shift the way we perceive or think about something—and that might serve as a catalyst to bring about change.