Questions Are the Answer

“First, if you want better answers at work and in life, you must ask better questions.” (Gregersen, Prologue) In our life I would imagine none of us really question enough. We may think we do and maybe we question some things and/or people around us but we don’t question enough in the right ways. I think many of us also fall into the trap of not asking ourselves enough of the tough questions. We all have those inclinations of how we can improve ourselves or maybe the world around us but we don’t take the time to dig into as much as we probably should be doing. If we are really wanting the positive changes in life and if we are wanting to make significant changes that are for the better for our own lives and the lives of those we care about we must be more into the habit of asking questions. I think what is key after reading through this book is developing the habit of asking questions but also make sure to dig into the type of questions we are asking along with following through with finding those answers. “There’s a corollary to the thesis that breakthrough solutions spring from better questions: by getting better and questioning you raise your chances of unlocking better answers.” (Gregersen, p.17)

“In a tentative, non-aggressive way, questions crack open taboo territory and encourage us – individually and collectively – to reexamine fundamental assumptions we are making.” (Gregersen, p.26) When we question things we will ask those around us to look at things again and possibly in a different way. We get caught up sometimes not really taking a look at things and questioning if we are doing them in the best ways. I think the pandemic caused many things that had harmful effects, but in some ways being challenged in our lives, especially our work lives, to reexamine how we do things is something positive that came from this time. In my world of public education it made us look again at how we do things in terms of teaching and using technology. We had to pivot quickly even if we were not ready to do so and ‘build the place as we fly it’ so to speak. It hasn’t fully come to fruition the questions and rethinking that had to be done through this time frame in education, but those still in education are starting to see how we need to rethink things we are doing. “In any field, students generally need a grounding in fundamental facts and theory–that is, foundational knowledge of what has already been established beyond questions–to be able to make insightful, productive inquiries of their own.” (Gregersen, p.38) One of the most productive outcomes is thinking more about how we are building learners and how we should be helping them become critical thinkers. The world in which they will be living once they graduate will face different challenges and ones that may be just as impactful and unexpected as the pandemic. This means in education we should be rethinking how we approach creating critical thinkers.

“But most people never pause to think that questions come in different shades of good and bad, and therefore the stinging effects of toxic questioning taint all questions activity for them.” (Gregersen, p.45) This is the negative side of questioning that we see all too often. We see people using questions as a weapon and it has become way too common to see this happening. We see people use questioning as a way to create chaos and to bring other people down instead of focusing on how questions could be used to bring more positive change. This tells us not only how powerful questions are, but it also tells us the importance of thinking about the right type of questions, not just the practice of asking questions. It is not the author’s point to say all questions are worth exploring but the practice of good questioning is what leads us to more creative, innovative, and positive change in our world.

“People often hesitate to ask questions because they would rather not gain information that would make them confront a need for change.” (Gregersen, p.47) One of the reasons that people are afraid to ask questions is the fact of turning those questions internally. We are creatures of habit and this means we fall into the habit of not asking questions because we would rather not have to change our lives from what we have gotten used to but rather just continue on our same comfortable path. In some ways I think making the movement towards becoming more of a questioner lies in making the uncomfort more comfortable for us. We should make it more habitual that we are living in a level of discomfort. This is where the rubber meets the road in creativity, innovation, and growth. “My hunch, too, is that the kinds of questions people ask are very different depending on whether they have a growth mindset or fixed mindset. Those who lack the mindset that invites change and growth are less comfortable raising the kinds of questions that challenge assumptions and invite creative thinking about what could change.” (Gregersen, p.48) Getting to the point of asking the right types of questions I think definitely comes down to the mindset we approach it with. If we have a growth mindset we are focused on growth and we know that growth is possible. A fixed mindset is focused more on life and mindset is being what it is without much change. If we have a growth mindset we will focus enough on growth that we will approach questions in this same way. We will want to think about asking questions that are going to lead to growth in our lives and the lives of others. If we are approaching questions from a fixed mindset we will ask questions not to truly bring on any changes because that is not what we truly want in that mindset.?

“”Notes Day”. The inspiration is the longtime tradition in filmmaking for people high up in a studio hierarchy to periodically ask for a screening of a film in progress so they can provide feedback in the form of “notes”. Notes Day took that familiar practice and extended it to the task of assessing whether the studio itself, rather than one of its products, could use some serious tweaks or rewrites.” (Gregersen, p.87) One of the best activities from the book is this type of organizational thinking and approach. The Pixar company is where this comes from and their stretch of success is due in part to this process and activity. It seems it has created a culture of rethinking and looking deep into how they can be better and create a better product. It is an organizational approach to improvement and reflection. Instead of a focus on the product they take the approach of looking at the processes. In any organization this should be regular practice.? “They accomplish great things because they always suspect there is some other, better way to get something done, or another thing they can do, and they “put a question mark on everything we are doing, all the time.”” (Gregersen, p.100) This is the hallmark of the growth mindset and is what all companies should be working to create within their culture. I have found some of the best ways of doing this is when you give voice to those new employees as they come into the organization. Those people who are new have not been ingrained into the culture yet and most likely have other experiences they can bring to the table. “When wrongness gets revealed, perhaps because something they tried did not work out, they do not rush to sweep it under the rug and distance themselves from it. Instead, they hold it up to the light to get a good look at it.” (Gregersen, p.119)

“If you want to find a new angle on a problem and ultimately find a breakthrough solution, you must rid yourself of the impulse always to display deep competence. For the right questions to surface, you must spend more time feeling mistaken.” (Gregersen, p.103) One of the hardest things for any of us to say is ‘I don’t know’. We don’t like to feel as if there is something we don’t know and many of us have become good at acting as if we do know. We have conversations with others and we are possibly in leadership positions in which we try to act as if we know when we truly do not. There is nothing wrong with not knowing and being in a place of learning. There is nothing wrong with being able to admit when you don’t know. I would say the opposite is actually true. I think we need more of the approach of admitting when we don’t know and admit when we are wrong. This creates transparency, but also it helps to create a culture of risk taking. It creates risk taking because people realize that being wrong or not knowing is not the end of the world and is where we see the most creativity and growth. Gregersen gets into how to create those environments and ways in which we can push our thinking and get to more discomfort that leads to questions.? “One way is simply engaging in activities and being in places where you find it hard to get your bearings; this will give you practice in being unashamedly ignorant.” (Gregersen, p.109) I think too many times we don’t push ourselves to learn something new. We get caught up in the busyness in life and allow that to overtake our energy and not push towards learning anything new. This could be as simple as changing up some routines and putting ourselves in places that are different than where we usually spend time. Once you switch things up even in the smallest of ways you can use some habit stacking to create more and more opportunities to learn and to stretch yourself. “Not knowing is more exciting than knowing, because it means there is much more to learn. To be in that great state of feeling wrong and confused is to be more open to new possibilities and more apt to challenge old understandings.” (Gregersen, p.123)

“If you want thinking to be challenged in productive in new ways, you have to start talking to different people, ideally in different places.” (Gregersen, p.145) I think even with all the ways we can connect and communicate in this world and culture we find ways to isolate too much. I think we sometimes overvalue what we think is truly connected with things that really are not connecting with others. Social media is great for connecting but many of those are not meaningful connections for pushing our thinking. Using social media in conjunction with other forms of connecting is what is useful and productive. We should work on talking with people in different professions and like it says ideally we do that in different places. We can talk with different people and when doing so in different places we open up our senses and push our perspectives on how we see and think about different things. We find this same impact when we are having trouble remembering something and then when we turn our attention elsewhere we find that ‘aha’ moment when we finally remember what we were trying to remember. This same concept is applicable when thinking about ideas in general and how we question things.

“As Nick Beighton, CEO of ASOS, put it to me. “Observing and listening are two of the most underrated skills, and if I find myself doing too much telling, I’m normally doing the wrong thing.”” (Gregersen, p.155) None of us can truly say that we do enough observing or listening. We spend too much time filling our minds with things. We are in a constant state of filling our lives with things. We are surrounded by a constant pull of attention and this takes away from spending time observing and listening as we should be in our life. I think we all could take consistent time to slow down and observe the world and people around us while also listening to those people around us. Observing, listening, and then following up with reflection is not done enough in our world and we are missing opportunities. We are missing opportunities to seek out more questions and more ideas if we don’t take time to observe, listen, and then reflect.

“We often teach and encourage young people to work on their debating skills and public speaking capabilities so they’ll be able to make the case for something they care about when the time comes. I wonder, though, if we are not emphasizing enough how important listening is to achieving convergence on a good idea.” (Gregersen, p.156) I cannot tell you enough how much this resonates with someone in education. We take so much time to develop the skills of public speaking and debating without taking as much time listening and questioning. Part of the push that I work on with teachers I work with and with the students I work with is developing the opportunity to have discourse. If you are having appropriate discourse you not only have the time to discuss, but more importantly you need to listen. This is where you have the opportunity to develop ideas even further and have that ‘convergence’ being spoken of here. If you are not taking time to allow for listening I don’t know how you can truly develop ideas because you aren’t allowing your mind to think about what is being discussed. A part of being able to listen and observe is how you give yourself the opportunity to find ideas and surprises in work and life. “It’s important to remember that if you don’t go actively looking for surprises at work and in life, surprise will sooner or later snake up on you. Being on the hunt for them is the best way to see the unseen before it’s too late.” (Gregersen, p.163) Actively looking for surprises sometimes meaning that we are actively observing and listening. We don’t know what others have in their minds and the ideas they have unless we are taking time to observe and listen. We also should be seeking ways to observe and listen through the numerous resources out there through books, podcasts, and free videos. “Our entire society will benefit to the extent that we intentionally raise more good questioners. This means building a set of mental habits and behavioral priorities in our youngest citizens that is best established–or at least not nipped in the bud–in the setting of families and homes.” (Gregersen, p.203)?

“Being mindful means paying more attention to the things you don’t normally notice, the things you take for granted, and the questions you stopped asking long ago. It is, in short, the opposite of being mindless.” (Gregersen. p.167) Taking notice of things that are part of our routine takes mindfulness. We are in a world that is always working to move at breakneck speed and it takes us away from the time to look around at the usual things we come across. We are creatures of routine and in our routines it is good to switch it up some and pay attention to things we may take for granted. In the same way we do this in our everyday routines it is a form of questioning. We are questioning things when we take time to be mindful of those things we may miss in our routine. Questioning comes down to a form of mindfulness in rethinking the normalness that exists in all the different walks of work and life that we go through.

“But the time commitment involved in reading a book, and the full attention demanded by the reading process, might bring with it a greater commitment to engaging with the ideas.” (Gregersen, p.170) I know it may sound cliche because I am an educator, but we don’t have people who read enough. The amount of resources and knowledge at our disposal in the form of reading materials is ridiculous. We really have no excuse for not being able to seek out knowledge. Furthermore if we took more time to read we would find ourselves pushing our boundaries in terms of attention and effort it takes to read through a text. It is one of the most impactful and at the same time the most underrated things we can do for gaining more knowledge in or out of our current industry. In education we are always pushing for students to read more and more. Once we were all students and when we left some went on to college for more reading or went in different paths in our careers. We cannot stop reading no matter where we are in life or no matter our career. We are doing a disservice to ourselves and to the industry in which we work when we stop pushing ourselves to read.

“Meditation is a practice with known physiological effects. Studies have shown, for example, that it lowers blood pressure and rate of respiration, But the evidence is strong that it boosts creative thinking as well by creating the space for new questions and insight to arise.” (Gregersen, p.171) Once we read as stated in the previous paragraph we should follow that up with meditation. As I stated before we don’t take enough time for reflection and furthermore we don’t take enough time for reflection after our time reading. This can happen whether you are reading through a fiction or nonfiction text and it should be happening during that time reading as well. Beyond the point of reflection being beneficial for the academics that can be involved and the creativity involved we also have the above biological influences from meditation. “Many people arrive at the right question to guide their daily actions only after they are struck by a sudden awareness of being guided by the wrong one.” (Gregersen, p.271)

“To use my favorite metaphor, the question is catalytic: it lowers barriers to thinking and sends energy down a different path. But that energy still has to be connected to some engine of change.” (Gregersen, p.177) When we are in the mode of questioning it takes on different energy for both the questioner and receiver. I think this is a great method of diffusing a potentially difficult situation or conversation. If you have been in those types of difficult conversations and on either end you can attest to using questions as a way of lowering the negative energy and focusing more on what is important. I have used this in my educational leadership with students, parents, and staff members. The more I am able to question it helps me to focus on understanding first what has happened to lead to this moment and from there it also helps me to think about how we move forward. When you break it down in this way the simplest way to think of moving through a heated moment is to think of how we got there and where we go from there. Questions can help not only to understand where each side is coming from but can also have the right type of energy to move forward.

“When it comes to managing the emotional arc of getting from an inspiring question to a viable answer, one objective is to get the maximum distance out of that initial question’s energy burst. Try not to let it diffuse in too many directions.” (Gregersen, p.189) This is one of the hardest things to make sure to avoid. If you have been in those moments of getting that energy burst not just after questioning but in brainstorming it is important to build and not let that subside. The world of education likes to fall into different fads and everything becomes somewhat cyclical the longer you spend in the world of public education. This is where we lose some good teachers and staff members because we don’t end up building on the burst of energy but rather we allow that energy to slip away. I am not saying you chase every new thing down every new rabbit hole, but when you find yourself in those moments when questions have led to some answers and you have the momentum behind the ideas generated you cannot allow yourself to become complacent. It can be easy to fall into this trap in leadership. You get that energy burst and you feel as though things are going in the right direction and then you allow the energy to die off because there is nothing built on top of that. Beyond the burst of energy comes down to the consistency of going that important pathway and keeping those with you going in that same direction.“It is critical too, that people in your organization see good questions spurring real follow-up. Ultimately they know that their creative input isn’t valued if nothing ever happens as a result of it.” (Gregersen, p.239)

“Another, probably more accurate way of saying ‘big questions' is to refer to them as ‘fundamental questions’. The most significant, potentially transformative questions are the ones that go back to first principles.” (Gregersen, p.264) Having a mindset of asking the important and as put here the ‘fundamental questions’ means we have to take the time for focusing on those in all parts of our life. We need to have this type of mindset when we are going through our personal life and we also need this if we are working to make a difference in our work life. If we are needing big and fundamental answers it starts with asking these types of questions.?

Reference

Gregersen, H. B. (2018). Questions are the answer: A breakthrough approach to your most vexing problems at work and in life. HarperBusiness, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.