Books About Questioning

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

In his 2018 book THE BOOK OF BEAUTIFUL QUESTIONS, a follow up to his bestselling A MORE BEAUTIFUL QUESTION, journalist and innovation expert Warren Berger shows that one of the most powerful forces for igniting change in business and in our daily lives is a simple, under-appreciated tool—one that has been available to us since childhood. Questioning—deeply, imaginatively, “beautifully”—can help us identify and solve problems, come up with game-changing ideas, and pursue fresh opportunities. So why are we often reluctant to ask “Why?”

Berger’s surprising findings reveal that even though children start out asking hundreds of questions a day, questioning “falls off a cliff” as kids enter school. In an education and business culture devised to reward rote answers over challenging inquiry, questioning isn’t encouraged—and, in fact, is sometimes barely tolerated.

And yet, as Berger shows, the most creative, successful people tend to be expert questioners. They’ve mastered the art of inquiry, raising questions no one else is asking—and finding the answers everyone else is seeking. The author takes us inside red-hot businesses like Google, Netflix, IDEO, and Airbnb to show how questioning is baked into their organizational DNA. He also shares dozens of inspiring stories of artists, teachers, entrepreneurs, basement tinkerers, and social activists who changed their lives and the world around them—by starting with a “beautiful question.”

In THE BOOK OF BEAUTIFUL QUESTIONS Berger provides the essential questions readers need to make the best choices when it truly counts, with a particular focus on four key areas: decision making, creativity, leadership, and relationships.

Berger’s expanded mission is to ensure that our classrooms are fostering the essential skill of questioning so that questioning no longer falls off the educational cliff. A longtime business speaker, for the past six years Berger has also been traveling the world speaking about the importance of teaching children how to become better questioners, and in spring 2020 he published BEAUTIFUL QUESTIONS IN THE CLASSROOM (Corwin Press), aimed at educators everywhere.

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Innovation expert and questionologist Warren Berger has studied hundreds of the world’s foremost innovators, entrepreneurs, and creative thinkers to learn how they ask questions, generate original ideas, and solve problems. He is the author or co-author of 12 books, including his three books about the power of questioning:  BEAUTIFUL QUESTIONS IN THE CLASSROOM: Transforming Classrooms Into Cultures of Curiosity and Inquiry, THE BOOK OF BEAUTIFUL QUESTIONS: The Powerful Questions That Will Help You Decide, Create, Connect, and Lead, and A MORE BEAUTIFUL QUESTION: The Power of Inquiry to Spark Breakthrough Ideas. Warren’s writing appears regularly in Psychology Today, Fast CompanyHarvard Business Review, and The New York Times. He lives in New York. Follow him on Twitter at @GlimmerGuy and subscribe to his blog posts.

Visit Warren’s author website to read more about his previous books and articles.  


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