Book Summary: A More Beautiful Question by Warren Berger

Is it possible that the world would be a better place if we asked more and better questions?

In his excellent work, A More Beautiful Question, Warren Berger attempts to answer this question.

A recent survey has found that the average four-year-old British girl asks an average of 390 questions a day. Which raises the obvious question—why do we ask them less and less as time goes on?

And, maybe more crucially for those of us in business, how can we ask them better? After all, according to a recent study, skilled questioners are the most innovative and effective company leaders.

According to Berger, a beautiful question is a bold yet achievable inquiry that may transform the way we view or think about something and function as a catalyst for change.

Let's look at how we might all ask more beautiful questions in our work and personal life.

The power of questions, and why we can't stop asking them

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As Berger points out, good questioners are comfortable with their ignorance. They're even willing to admit that they don't know something and explore discoveries in the process.

According to Stuart Fierstein, the good thing about a question is that it can inspire new ideas. Answers are useful, but they often end the process because people think they have everything figured out.

However, being willing to ask questions is one thing; successfully asking questions is quite another. Great questions may give birth to multibillion-dollar businesses that make an indelible imprint on the world.

Consider the history of Netflix, which began because Reed Hastings failed to return some DVDs to Blockbuster and was charged excessive late fees.

"Why should I have to pay these fees?" Hastings wondered, and "how am I going to explain this to my wife?"

"What if a video-rental firm was operated as a health club?" prompted the next query. He then set himself the goal of starting a movie rental business with a monthly subscription and no late penalties.

Today, Blockbuster is no longer in business, and Netflix has moved on to a new set of ground-breaking ideas, such as "What if we not only leased the films and shows but also produced them?"

The power of asking great questions is realized in three steps: why, what if, and how. It may appear straightforward, but the devil is in the details.

Let us start.

Why?

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The first step is "why," It involves a new way of seeing and interpreting the world. For example, Edward Land's daughter led him to think, "Why not create a picture that can be produced immediately away?"

This question would eventually lead to the creation of the Polaroid instant camera, which was a revolutionary invention at the time.

We live in a world that celebrates progress and looks down on anyone or anything who wants to slam on the brakes and examine why things are done the way they are.

One of the reasons we aren't very good at asking questions is because we are virtually never encouraged to do so.

So, to ask great questions, we must first get comfortable with not knowing the answers in a culture that punishes that same trait.

"At IDEO, I position myself relentlessly as an idiot...being comfortable with not knowing - that's the first part of being able to question," says Paul Bennet, creative director at famous design company IDEO.

One of the benefits of asking naive questions is that they can bring clarity to a situation.

You'll start to create many inquiries about the world around you once you let go and ask naïve queries.

Using the "opening and closing" method of your questions is one way to improve your questioning skills. "Why is my father-in-law difficult to get along with?" asks Berger in the book. This is a question that does not have a clear answer.

When you close that question, though, you're left with "Is my father-in-law difficult to get along with?" which compels you to address the initial question's premise.

You should close your open questions and open your closed ones using this method. If you do, you'll begin to perceive the world from entirely different angles.

What If

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Now that we've questioned some fundamental assumptions about our world, it's time to start envisioning how things may be different by asking, "What if?"

Combining ideas is one of the most effective methods to do this. In his book, Borrowing Brilliance: The Art of Borrowing, David Kord Murray, a former NASA rocket scientist who subsequently became the head of innovation at Intuit, points out that:

"The nature of innovation [is that] we build new ideas out of existing ideas."

"What if this amusement park could be like a movie, brought to life?" Walt Disney, for example, wondered.

The good news for us is that, according to the most recent neurological research, the human brain is created specifically for this sort of activity, continuously sifting through your brain's random input and thinking, "What if I put this along with that?"

The only issue is that we don't have conscious control over this process because it occurs mostly in the subconscious mind.

That is why the first step, asking "Why?" is so crucial. According to Chen-Bo Zhong, a professor at the Rotman School of Management, if the conscious mind raises a huge question, the unconscious mind will strive to solve it.

Another aspect to consider is that the brain searches for these connections using the knowledge it has. As a result, the more information you have and the more diverse it is, the more chances you'll have to make unexpected connections.

It pays to study as much as you can in as many areas as possible if you want to be creative and inventive, even if the return isn't immediately apparent.

Although most of this occurs instinctively, you may use methods and strategies to speed up the process.

One approach that may be traced back to Edward de Bono's work as a creativity guru is to "think wrong." You ask questions that appear to be the worst ideas you can think of at first. "What if a restaurant only gave customers a menu when they leave?" for example.

Consider the scenario: "What if a firm started selling mismatched socks?" This is the exact question posed by a group of dinner guests, which led to the establishment of LittleMissMatched. This firm offers mismatched socks to young girls looking to make a colorful fashion statement.

How

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Now that we've created our "why" question and brainstormed many hypothetical scenarios called "what ifs," it's time to move on to the next step: formulating actions.

At this point, the world's greatest creative brains recognize that they aren't particularly good at predicting which ideas would succeed and which will fail, so they use a technique known as fast prototyping.

Rather than arguing a concept endlessly, they find a means to put it to the test swiftly and cheaply, then analyze the findings. The MIT Media Lab's director, Joi Ito, explains it this way:

"These days, it's easier and less expensive just to try out your ideas than to figure out if you should try them out."

There's no reason why someone with a great concept should be held back by the implementation stage. These days, you may locate and contact professionals all around the world simply by sending an email.

When Jack Andraka discovered this when he was fifteen years old, he had an idea to create a novel, highly successful, and low-cost cancer screening method. He formed his "what if" query using the tremendous amount of knowledge he'd collected in his spare time by reading medical journals:

"What if I exposed a single-wall carbon nanotube with an antibody to a protein overexposed in pancreatic cancer?"

He required a great deal of assistance, including a lab and specialists to help him verify his theory.

As a result, he wrote virtually everyone he could locate in his region who knew anything about pancreatic cancer, requesting assistance. He eventually found a scientist ready to offer his lab to him and assist him in finalizing his screening test, which is now used worldwide.

Questioning in Business

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Now let's look at some of the most effective business questions you can ask yourself.

"What if our business didn't exist?" you might wonder. This question might help you examine all of the things in your firm that aren't functioning right now, as well as outdated initiatives, methods, and items that should be discarded or reassessed.

"What if money wasn't an issue? How could we approach the project in a new way?"

Your workers will be free to think about the greatest potential solution to a problem if you temporarily remove constraints. Your team may come up with game-changing ideas that can be toned back to make them more economical.

"What are we up against?"

We spend a lot of time considering what we stand for in business, but not nearly as much time thinking about what we may stand against.

"What is something that I believe that nearly no one agrees with me on?" Peter Thiel, a well-known venture capitalist, believes we should all be asking ourselves this question. The most popular new ideas are frequently the ones that are the most innovative.

"Should our mission statement be a question?"

If you have a mission question, it informs the firm that we haven't yet arrived at our objective and requests that they develop strategies to assist you in getting there.

The company's purpose then shifts to finding innovative ways to fulfill the mission. This is a far more potent starting point.

"How can we foster an inquiry culture?" As Berger points out, when a culture is curious and continuously questions things, it allows individuals to explore new ideas and communicate across silos. Starting at the top, the leader should ask a lot of disruptive and challenging questions.

Conclusion

In both our enterprises and our personal lives, we don't ask nearly enough questions.

We would all be more creative, inventive, and successful if we could develop the practice of asking why, what if, and how daily. So, to wrap up this Book Brief, here's one more question: why not start right now?

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