Quotes About Inquiry

Humble Inquiry is the fine art of drawing someone out, of asking questions to which you do not already know the answer, of building a relationship based on curiosity and interest in another person.

When a team is trying to solve a tricky problem of what to do next and is stuck among several alternatives, Humble Inquiry means asking, "What else do we need to know?" or "How did we/you arrive at this point?" This is particularly true when others propose something that we oppose or don't understand.

The Humble Inquiry attitude does not require that humility be a major personality trait of a good inquirer. But even the most confident or arrogant among us will find ourselves humbled by the reality of being dependent on others, and by the sheer complexity of trying to figure out what is important and what is not. We can think of this as Here-and-now Humility, accepting our dependence on each for information sharing and task completion.

The paradox is that the main inhibitor of useful telling is often our own failure to inquire in a way that makes it safe for others to tell us the truth, or at least to share all of what they know.

We see Humble Inquiry as primarily about reducing one's ignorance, making sense of complicated situations, and in that process, deepening relationships. In contrast, the primary role of helping inquiry is to influence—to teach, coach, counsel, and heal.

The answer runs counter to some important aspects of U.S. culture— we must become better at asking and do less telling in a culture that overvalues telling. It has always bothered me how even ordinary conversations tend to be defined by what we tell rather than by what we ask.

But especially if you are dependent on others—if you are the boss or senior person trying to increase the likelihood that your subordinates will help you and be open with you—then Humble Inquiry will not only be desirable but essential. Why is this so difficult? We need next to look at the cultural forces that favor telling.

What are you working on?" Because Ken was genuinely interested, the pair would end up in a long conversation that would be satisfying both technically and personally. Even when the company had over 100,000

Why does this not occur routinely? Don't we all know how to ask questions? Of course we think we know how to ask, but we fail to notice how often even our questions are just another form of telling—rhetorical or just testing whether what we think is right. We are biased toward telling instead of asking because we live in a pragmatic, problem-solving culture in which knowing things and telling others what we know is valued.

Humble Inquiry is the skill and the art of drawing someone out, of asking questions to which you do not already know the answer, of building a relationship based on curiosity and interest in the other person.

The power of this kind of inquiry is that it focuses on the relationship and enables both parties to assess whether their relationship goals are being met.

Humble Inquiry works only if the attitude behind it includes the desire to really hear what the other person says, to develop an appropriate level of empathy, and to choose a response that shows interest and curiosity.

The key to Humble Inquiry is to recognize when you need to know why something is happening instead of giving in to a knee-jerk impulse that not only keeps you ignorant but also creates an avoidable disconnect.

Humble Inquiry goes beyond mere questioning and displays an attitude of interest and curiosity that hopefully engenders a similar reciprocal demeanor of curiosity in the other person in the conversation. You can open the door to a relationship through your own Humble Inquiry, yet a relationship only flourishes if that attitude is reciprocated.

we must become better at asking and do less telling in a culture that overvalues telling. It

The dilemma in U.S. culture is that we don't really distinguish what I am defining as Humble Inquiry carefully enough from leading questions, rhetorical questions, embarrassing questions, or statements in the form of questions—such as journalists seem to love— which are deliberately provocative and intended to put you down.

Skepticism is history's bedfellow.

Law is not justice and a trial is not a scientific inquiry into truth. A trial is the resolution of a dispute.

Columbus had all the spirit of a crusader, and, at the same time, the investigating nature of a modern man of science.

The first and simplest emotion which we discover in the human mind, is curiosity

The man who satisfies a ceaseless intellectual curiousity probably squeezes more out of life in the long run than anyone else.

Tecnologia é a resposta, mas qual é a questão?

Y desde dónde nos llama, señora Cargols? Desde Sant Joan Despí.

Not all questions can be answered.