"We're all hungry today for better answers. But first we must learn to ask the right questions."

With Creative thinking and innovative problem solving as essential skill during crisis times, I found this book very relevant and fascinating.

It's not just a book about change for change's sake, either. Revolution minus reason is not the goal. Innovation requires perseverance, personal motivation, and a specific need. Questions.

I’ll try summarize a few key insights I’m taking away, plus try best outline the systematic approach to Innovative Questioning.

The Big Idea

"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."

Beautiful questions aren’t necessarily the deeply philosophical ones like “Is there life after death?” but the actionable ones that today’s creative people, entrepreneurs, and pioneering companies were bold enough to pursue and engage:

• “Could computers be used to link information rather than simply compute numbers?” (Led to the modern World Wide Web.)
• “What if dots and dashes could sort the world?” (Led to the modern “Barcode”.)
• “What if a car windshield could blink?” (Mary Anderson and the modern windshield wiper.)
• “Should mission statements be mission questions?”
• “Why must we question the question”?

The starting point of all innovation begins with the beautiful question. But bold and continuous inquiry is an art and a skill – a part of the creative process – that must be relearned and embraced again.

As kicks this comes naturally to us, but over time most stop practicing, refining and forget.

This book helps recognize why our relentless question-machine toddler actually has the right idea.

Insight #1

"Often the worst thing you can do with a difficult question is to try to answer it too quickly."

Many of the psychologists and scientists in the book believed that children were ideal scientists and anthropologists. One even compared children to being humanity’s “dedicated R&D division.” Kids are fearless in their experiments and inquiries.

But then grade school, federal mandates, and overambitious parenting happened.

Asking “Why” actually kicks off the first stage of innovative questioning. It can be applied to anything:

* Why does a particular situation exist?

* Why has no one addressed this need or solved this problem before?

* Why does it present a problem or create a need or opportunity, and for whom?

Berger also noted a common thread in the way master questioners proceeded with inquiry, many which took the format of Why/What if/How.

First, master questioners begin with Why when they’ve confronted a less than ideal situation. Second, new possibilities are imagined in the form of What If. Finally, one of those possibilities is chosen and implemented by asking How.

This Why/What If/How sequence of questioning is a simplified framework, but it correlates with past theories of creativity. Is this exact pattern a rule? Nope! This just shows that even master questioners and problem solvers had some “process” to bring order to chaos so that next steps could be taken.

We know that even in the 21st century, many business leaders stop their companies from asking the obvious. Professor Clayton Christensen of Harvard Business School says asking “Why” can be seen as insubordinate and “inefficient” because too many leaders are anxious for straight action.

Asking “Why” is how you uncover problems and opportunities in the first place.

Insight #2

The Power of "How Might We?"

"When people within companies try to innovate, they often talk about the challenges they’re facing by using language that can inhibit creativity instead of encouraging it..."

Companies even today can still spin their wheels asking the wrong questions. Basadur says “might” surpasses “can” or “should.” Might allows us to diverge freely and make new connections. When we default to “can” or “should,” judgment, permission-seeking, and limitations are implied and we constrict everyone’s ability to imagine.

Dream Your Way Out of a Problem: Ask Yourself “What If?”

A “what if” question gives you the right mental foundation for the processes which are essential when it comes to creativity, invention, and imagination: mixing, connecting, and recombining ideas.

Do you think that Einstein and Jobs grand ideas came to them out of the blue? Of course not!

They just recombined old ideas in a new way, once they had the step-back luxury of a “why” or a “why not.”

Einstein’s revelation came when he asked himself a fairly childlike question: “What if you could travel on a motorcycle at the speed of light?”

Insight #3. 

Acquire the Perseverance of the Realist: Experiment Through the “How?”

Of course, once you’ve dealt with the whys and the what ifs – and moved from freshness of naivety to the endlessness of dreaming, it’s time that you transform your knowledge into something much more tangible.

How?

Key Tips

1. Make it visual. 
2. Move quickly from ‘What If’ to ‘How’ 
3. Use questioning to deal with, and be ok with failure
4. Embrace “How Might We?” as a tool for Collaborative Inquiry 

Of course, this third stage of the “actionable inquiry” process is the most difficult one, since it requires time, knowledge, experimentation, and a lot of endurance. But, the most rewarding.

Building a Culture of Inquiry

Keys to a Culture of Inquiry:

1. Make it safe and worthwhile to question

2. Frame questions appreciatively

3. Provide time and space to question

4. Provide the tools to question well