Questioning Fuels Innovation. So Why Don’t We Inquire More?
by Warren Berger
Recently I had a conversation with a chief executive who expressed concern about several of her senior managers. They were smart, experienced, competent. So what was the problem? “They’re not asking enough questions,” she said.
This wouldn’t have been a bad thing in the business world of a few years ago, where the rules for success were: know your job, do your work, and if a problem arises, solve it and don’t bother us with a lot of questions.
But increasingly I’m finding that business leaders want the people working around them to be more curious, more cognizant of what they don’t know, and more inquisitive—about everything from Why am I doing my job the way I do it? to How might our company find new opportunities?
I may be hyper-aware of this trend because I think of myself as a “questionologist,” having studied the art of questioning and written a book about it. But I also think there are real forces in business today that are causing people to value curiosity and inquiry more than in the past.
Companies in many industries today must contend with rapid change and rising uncertainty. In such conditions, even a well-established company cannot rest on its expertise; there is pressure to keep learning what’s new and anticipating what’s next. It’s hard to do any of that without asking questions. Steve Quatrano, a partner with the Right Question Institute, a nonprofit research group, explains that the act of formulating questions enables us “to organize our thinking around what we don’t know.” This makes questioning a good skill to hone in dynamic times.
Asking questions also can help to spark the innovative ideas that many companies are hungry for these days. In the research for my book, I studied a number of business breakthroughs—from the invention of the Polaroid instant camera and the Nest thermostat to the genesis of startups like Netflix, Square, and Airbnb—and found that in each case, some curious soul looked at a current problem and asked insightful questions about why that problem existed and how it might be tackled. (The Polaroid story is my favorite: the inspiration for the instant camera sprang from a question asked in the mid-1940s by founder Edwin Land’s three-year-old daughter. She was impatient to see a photograph her father had just snapped of her, and when he tried to explain that the film had to be processed first, she wondered aloud: Why do we have to wait for the picture?)
One might assume people can easily ask such questions, given that young children do it so well. But research shows that question-asking peaks at age 4 or 5—then steadily drops off, as kids pass through school (where answers are often more valued than questions) and mature into adults. By the time we’re in the workplace, many of us have gotten out of the habit of asking fundamental questions about what’s going on around us. And some people worry that asking questions at work reveals ignorance or may be seen as slowing things down.
So how can companies encourage more question-asking? There are simple ways to train people to become more comfortable and proficient at it. For example, question formulation exercises can be used as a substitute for conventional brainstorming sessions. The idea is to put a problem or challenge in front of a group of people—and instead of asking for ideas, instruct participants to generate as many relevant questions as they can. Kristi Schaffner, an executive at Microsoft, regularly conducts such exercises there and says they sharpen analytical skills.
Another exercise I sometimes use at companies involves teaching people to use a “Why-What If-How” cycle of questioning to solve problems. These three different types of open-ended questions, when used in sequence, can help in understanding why a 
problem exists (or what the real, underlying problem is); hypothesizing about possible what-if scenarios and solutions; and advancing to more practical how questions—as in, How do we choose the best “what-if” idea? and How do we make it actually work?
Getting people throughout a company to ask more questions is the easy part; getting management to respond well to those questions can be harder. When company leaders claim they want “everyone to ask more questions,” I sometimes (in my bolder moments) ask: Do you really want that? And what will you do with those questions once people start asking them?
For questioning to thrive in a company, management must find ways to reward the behavior—if only by acknowledging the good questions that have been asked. For example, I visited one company that asked all employees to think of what if and how might we questions about the company’s goals and future plans. Management and employees together decided which of these “mission questions” were best, then displayed them on banners on the walls.
Leaders can also encourage company-wide questioning by being more curious and inquisitive themselves. This is not necessarily easy for senior executives—who are used to being the ones with the answers. I’ve noticed during questioning exercises at some companies that top execs sit in the back of the room, laptops open, attending to other business; they seem to think their employees are the only ones that need to learn. As they do this, these leaders are modeling precisely the kind of incurious behavior they’re trying to change in others.
They could take a lesson from the late Steve Jobs. When asked in a 1995 interview to name the most valuable thing he learned while running Apple, Jobs said he discovered there was nothing more important than regularly going through each department of the company and asking, “Why are we doing things the way we’re doing them?”
By being willing to ask ‘why,’ inquiring leaders can inspire others around them to do likewise. And as the questions proliferate, some good answers are likely to follow.
A shorter version of this article originally ran in the July 3, 2016 New York Times Business “Preoccupations” column. Image by Abbey Lossing.
“Why has a book like this never been written before? Here is a persuasive case for the simple and yet extraordinary power of a question. Fascinating, engaging stories give life to a strong argument about how much can be accomplished, in every domain of our lives, ‘just’ by asking questions. Innovators, entrepreneurs, citizens, parents, teachers, idealists and realists—all of us have much to gain by reading 
“Questions have literally moved mountains, powered rockets, and instantly developed images. Berger focuses on what he calls ‘Beautiful Questions’… that can lead to game-changing answers and results. These are questions that, once raised, tend to get people thinking in a different way.”
“The desire to ask bigger and better questions is on the rise… Warren Berger has been tracking a movement toward questioning that is running very strong in Silicon Valley, but also seems to be spreading throughout the business, nonprofit and education sectors.”
Warren:
Thanks… another insightful post on the imperative need to ask questions.
I find your suggestion to ask for questions instead of ideas helpful. Also, the “Why, What If, and How” exercise.
I like your observation about leaders being aggressive in asking good questions and listening to the answers they get from direct reports and frontline associates and how that can set the stage for potential breakthrough innovations; showing the members of their organizations that it is okay to ask challenging questions that provoke and promote an open minded culture.
Again, I appreciate your helpful and timely insights.
James W. Sanderson