Quotes About Questioning

Exploring What If possibilities is a wide-open, fun stage of questioning and should not be rushed.

This great quote from Close was featured recently on the site BrainPickings: "Ask yourself an interesting enough question3 and your attempt to find a tailor-made solution to that question will push you to a place where, pretty soon, you'll find yourself all by your lonesome—which I think is a more interesting place to be.")

With so much evidence in its favor and with everyone from Einstein to Jobs in its corner, why, then, is questioning underappreciated in business, undertaught in schools, and underutilized in our everyday lives?

Yet chances are, for the rest of her life, that four-year-old girl will never again ask questions as instinctively, as imaginatively, or as freely as she does at that shining moment. Unless she is exceptional, that age is her questioning peak.

In some ways, it can be more difficult or risky for those in authority to question. In Hal Gregersen's study of business leaders who question, he found that they exhibited an unusual "blend of humility and confidence"15—they were humble enough to acknowledge a lack of knowledge, and confident enough to admit this in front of others.

Being willing to question is one thing; questioning well and effectively is another.

The How stage of questioning is where the rubber meets the road or, in Nanda's case, the clock hits the floor. It's the point at which things come together and then, more often than not, fall apart, repeatedly. Reality intrudes and nothing goes quite as planned.

All of which means that, 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

questions challenge authority and disrupt established structures, processes, and systems, forcing people to have to at least think about doing something differently. To encourage or even allow questioning is to cede power

when we want to shake things up and instigate change, it's necessary to break free of familiar thought patterns and easy assumptions. We have to veer off the beaten neural path. And we do this, in large part, by questioning.

incumbency has an interest in maintaining the status quo. To question well, you must have the ability to say, 'It doesn't have to be that way.

A journey of inquiry that (hopefully) culminates in change can be a long road, with pitfalls and detours and often nary an answer in sight. That's why it can be helpful to approach inquiry systematically, as a step-by-step progression. The best innovators are able to live with not having the answer right away because they're focused on just trying to get to the next question.

If we're born to inquire, then why must it be taught?

What might the potential for humans be if we really encouraged that spirit of questioning in children, instead of closing it down? I

If employees in a company are given more leeway to question, it means policies may be challenged. Established methods and practices might suddenly be looked at in a new light: Why are we doing it this way? Not everyone wants to have to continually defend proven methods.

One of the most important things questioning does is to enable people to think and act in the face of uncertainty. As Steve Quatrano of the Right Question Institute puts it, forming questions helps us "to organize our thinking around18 what we don't know.

When companies are facing disruptive change (and these days, what company isn't?), old habits and traditions can sometimes get in the way of progress. One of the things hypothetical What If questioning can do is remove those constraints, if only briefly, to allow for more fresh thinking.

As I was examining the ways some of today's cutting-edge companies are trying to reinvent brainstorming, an interesting trend surfaced: a specific form of questioning using three words—How might we?

Don't just teach your children to read. Teach them to question what they read. Teach them to question everything." After

questions challenge authority and disrupt established structures, processes, and systems, forcing people to have to at least think about doing something differently.

What if our schools could train students to be better lifelong learners and better adapters to change, by enabling them to be better questioners?

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

most creative, successful business leaders have tended to be expert questioners. They're known to question the conventional wisdom of their industry, the fundamental practices of their company, even the validity of their own assumptions.

What's required is a willingness to go out into the world with a curious and open mind, to observe closely, and—perhaps most important, according to a number of the questioners I've interviewed—to listen.