2018-09-04 - A More Beautiful Question by Warren Berger ======================================================= Curious Tortoise Introduction: Why Questioning? ============================== ... 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--not something that is done lightly in hierarchical companies or in government organizations, or even in classrooms... Anything that forces people to think is not an easy sell... We operate on autopilot--which can help us save mental energy, allowing us to multitask, and enabling us to get through the daily grind. But when we want to shake things 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. A 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. Chapter 1: The Power of Inquiry =============================== At that moment, Phillips exhibited one of the telltale signs of an innovative questioner: a refusal to accept the existing reality. One of the many interesting and appealing things about questioning is that it often has an inverse relationship to expertise--such that, within their own subject areas, experts are apt to be poor questioners. Another critical step for a questioner tackling a challenge: Take ownership of a question. Divergent thinking: the mental process of trying to come up with alternative ideas. It is a form of asking the question "What if I think differently about this?" It mostly happens in the more creative right hemisphere of the brain... and often triggers random association of ideas (which is a primary source of creativity)... Open questions with a positive tone tend to yield better answers and instigate change. Serial mastery: the need for modern workers to constantly adapt. [IOW, Be curious or die.] Q + A (action) = I (innovation) Q - A = P (philosophy) Why? -> What if? -> How? -> Solution "design thinking": * frame problem and learn more about it * generate ideas * build on those ideas through prototyping Classical four-stage process of creativity developed nearly a century ago by British psychologist Graham Wallas: * Preparation * Incubation * Illumination * Implementation Having a process helps you keep taking next steps so that even when you don't know what you're doing, you still know what to do. Often the very worst thing that you can do with a difficult question is to try to answer it too quickly. Connective inquiry: connecting existing ideas in unusual and interesting ways, AKA combinatory thinking Chapter 2, Why we stop questioning ================================== Neoteny: a state where you see things without labels, without categorization, AKA beginner's mind. Pre-schoolers immediately begin to ask fewer questions. The more preschool models itself after regular school, the more it seems to squelch natural curiosity. As kids begin in grade school, their questioning really starts to disappear. As kids stop questioning, they simultaneously become less engaged in school. Synaptic pruning begins at about age five. Many of today's schools are product-driven. Under pressure to improve test scores, they've tried to instill businesslike efficiency... Activity-permissive education: advocates letting kids move as they learn To the extent that a school is like a factory, students who inquire about "the way things are" could be seen as insubordinate... If schools were built on a factory model, were they actually designed to squelch questions? Five learning skills, or "habits of mind," were at the core of Deborah Meier's school: * Evidence: How do we know what's true or fake? What evidence counts? * Viewpoint: How might this look if we looked at it from another direction? * Connection: Is there a pattern? Have we seen something like this before? * Conjecture: What if it were different? * Relevance: Why does this matter? Before settling on her five habits of mind, Meier started with two particular ways of thinking she wanted to emphasize--skepticism and empathy. In her schools, students were given much more autonomy and freedom... often when you give kids more freedom to pursue what they're interested in, they become easier to control. Inquiry-based learning schools share many core principles with Montessori schools. What Dan Meyer did... was to transfer ownership: Instead of asking the question himself, he allowed students to think of it on their own--at which point it became THEIR question... this issue of "Who gets to ask questions in class?" touches on purpose, power, control, and even race and social class. ... those who don't know how to ask the right questions are vulnerable to being denied that which they might need or are entitled to have. Right Question Institute technique for K-12 classroom program: * Teachers design a question focus * Students produce questions * Students improve their questions * Students prioritize their questions * Students and teachers decide on next steps * Students reflect on what they have learned Nikhil Goyal thinks this is where the future of learning-by-inquiry is going to happen--not in schools, but in makeshift classrooms, often held in "maker" or "hacker" spaces. Libraries are being re-made as interesting maker spaces. Chapter 3: The Why, What If, and How of Innovative Questioning ============================================================== To ask powerful Why questions 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 ... at least temporarily it is necessary to stop doing and stop knowing in order to start asking. "Steve Jobs had an unusual relationship with Zen. He got the artistic side of it but not the Buddhist side--the art, but not the heart." The five Why's methodology originated in Japan and is credited to Sakichi Toyoda, the founder of Toyota Industries. Contextual inquiry is about asking questions up close and in context, relying on observation, listening, and empathy to guide us towards a more intelligent, and therefore more effective, question. David Kord Murray, a former rocket-scientist who worked on a project for NASA and later became head innovator at Intuit, made a study of connective creativity in his book Borrowing Brilliance. According to Murray, "The nature of innovation [is that] we build new ideas out of existing ideas." "These days it's easier and less expensive to just try out your ideas than to figure out IF you should try them out." The best learning comes from looking at success and failures side by side. In this failure, what went wrong? What went right? Am i failing differently each time? If yes, then you are learning. Collaborative inquiry begins with asking others, "Do you find this question as interesting as i do? Want to join me in trying to answer it?" Chapter 4: Questioning In Business ================================== The Innovator's Dilemma by Clayton Christensen: Should we make better products that we can sell for higher profits to our best customers--or make worse products that none of our customers would buy, and that would ruin our margins? Keith Yamashita observes that in the business world at large "we're coming off a 25-year post-eighties period of efficiency, efficiency, efficiency. I think the unintended consequence of that entire efficiency era is that people diminished their questions to very small-minded ones. In this quest for incremental improvement, it became all about asking, "How can we save a little bit of $, make it a little more efficient, where can we cut costs?" But... "In order to innovate now, they have to ask more expansive questions. What is our purpose on this Earth? Who must we fearlessly become? What if the company didn't exist? Who would miss us? What does the world hunger for? Panera Cares pay-what-you-can cafe "There is too much pressure and too much influence from others in the group," according to Debra Kay, author of the book Red Thread Thinking. "The free association done in brainstorming sessions is often shackled by peer pressure and as a result generates obvious responses." One solution is to generate questions instead of ideas. Chapter 5: Questioning For Life =============================== As you make these daily choices about what to spend your time on and which possibilities to pursue, the author and consultant John Hagel suggests you ask yourself this question: When I look back in five years, which of these options will make the better story? Appreciative inquiry is usually focused on building upon current strengths, but sometimes by looking into the past, you can glimpse what might improve your life in the present and future... experimentation can be thought of as, simply, the ways you act upon questions. "It's easier to act your way into a new way of thinking than to think your way into a new way of acting." -- Millard Fuller, founder of Habitat For Humanity. According to Herminia Ibarra, a professor of organizational behavior at INSEAD in Fontainebleau, France, and author of Working Identity: Unconventional Strategies for Reinventing Your Career, the best way to find a new career is to keep asking, and quickly acting upon, the question "What if I try this?" The typical career change, she notes, often involves poring over self-help books, talking to people who can offer advice, and waiting for the epiphany that shows you your "true self"--at which point you can strike out confidently in a new direction. That's all wrong, says Ibarra: "We need to act." Through her research, Ibarra learned that most real-life career transitions take about three years, and they rarely happen in a linear path. It's a series of trials and errors, and where we end up often surprises us. But the main thing is to get the testing and learning under way as soon as possible. Jon Bond considers questions to be "the verbal equivalent of nonviolent conflict resolution." Related links: The Spirit of Inquiry TED talk: Questions In Service of the Asked: author: Berger, Warren detail: LOC: HD53 .B448 tags: book,non-fiction,self-help title: A More Beautiful Question Tags ==== book non-fiction self-help