Why should you be stuck without a bed if I’ve got an extra air mattress? {AMBQ Excerpt}
Airbnb’s $10 billion valuation all started with a Beautiful Question.
What Can We Learn from “Master Questioners”?
In my research for the book A More Beautiful Question, I interviewed more than a hundred innovators, entrepreneurs, artists, and creative thinkers—all of whom tend to use questioning as a central part of their work. I also drew from the writing and research of well-known questioners who are no longer alive, but whose influence lives on.
So what can we learn from these “Master Questioners,” past and present? A lot. They provide great insights and examples on how to tackle challenges by asking great questions. And they remind us that the smartest, most successful people are not the ones who think they have all the answers. Some of my articles, profiles and interviews with these “Master Questioners” can be seen below. (And the complete list of all the questioners—individuals and organizations featured in A More Beautiful Question—is in the sidebar.)
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“Always the beautiful answer / who asks a more beautiful question.”
—e.e. cummings
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- AMBQ Overview
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What is a Beautiful Question?
A question could be considered “beautiful” for all kinds of reasons. Here’s mine….
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Warren Berger’s Books on Questioning
Three “beautiful question” books filled with essential questions and inspiration…
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What’s your “Inquiry Quotient”?
Think you’re already a good questioner? See where you rank.
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Why Should You Care About Questioning?
The importance of questioning in school, business, and daily life.
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Freebies, Anyone?
Promotions, contests, merchandise, and free things….
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What Can We Learn from “Master Questioners?”
A lot. Insights, examples, inspiration…
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Quotes About Questioning
Many famous people have opined on the rich topic of questioning.
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What’s Your Beautiful Question?
A list of reader-submitted Beautiful Questions, and send us yours.
A Gallery of Beautiful Questions
If we were kicked out of the company, what do you think the new CEO would do?
Facing disruptive change.
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Why do we have to wait for the picture?
Out of the mouth of babes.
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What if we could paint over our mistakes?
From secretary to millionaire.
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Why aren’t the players urinating more?
A coach’s strange question.
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How might we prepare during the peace to offer help in times of war?
Preparedness is all.
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Why did my candy bar melt? (And will my popcorn pop?)
The first energy bar.
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If they can put a man on the moon, why can’t they make a decent foot?
A decades-long journey by a water-skier.
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How do you fit a large golf course on a small island?
Jack Nicklaus asks some tough questions.
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What if a video rental business were run like a health club?
This guy really hated late fees.
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Why isn’t the water reaching the people who need it?
Creating rainmakers around the world.
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Why do movie tickets cost the same for hits or duds?
A question of basic economics.
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What if countries competed on playing fields instead of battlefields?
An Olympics-worthy question.
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Master Questioners: Articles,
“Today, we can’t afford to become adults”
MIT’s Joichi Ito’s thoughts on change, questioning, and childlike wonder
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Can questioning help us to keep up in ‘exponential times?’
Futurist John Seely Brown says “Yes!”
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Is questioning the starting point of creativity?
Neuroscientist Susan Greenfied offers a view inside the creative mind.
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Entrepreneur Mick Ebeling makes a difference by taking ownership of big questions.
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How do you get people to care about water?
Matt Damon and Gary White know.
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Eric Ries: What if everyone in the company could answer their own questions?
Eric Ries and the role of questioning within the Lean Startup methodology.
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Peter Drucker: The consultant as “Master Questioner”
Why was Peter Drucker so in demand?
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Panera: A place where the questions are baked-in
Questions fuel Ron Shaich’s business.
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“Neoteny”: How can we release the 5-year-old questioner inside all of us?
LinkedIn’s Jeff Weiner and Albert Einstein
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TED Prize winner Sugata Mitra reframes the way we think about learning.
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A historian’s view of questioning
Historian David Hackett Fischer and six universal axioms.
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Profiles and Interviews
What happened when young Woz asked “Why”
Steve Wozniak has lots of stories. But the ones I found most interesting have to do with Wozniak’s curiosity as a boy. When he would ask his engineer father questions, the answers changed Wozniak’s world. Whose world have you changed lately?
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Can you see the opportunity right in front of you?
A repost of my HBR.org article about releasing your inner George Carlin in order to innovate.
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How do we connect? (And how do we disconnect?)
Filmmaker Tiffany Shlain & tech.
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A historian’s view of questioning
Historian David Hackett Fischer and six universal axioms.
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A beautiful question that spawned a futuristic car
Frank Moss at MIT Media Lab.
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The DNA of a master questioner
Guess what’s one of the 5 essential skills great innovators share? Author and educator Hal Gregersen talks about how businesses need to integrate questioning into their culture in order to be more innovative.
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Inquiring about the “Good Life”
Jonathan Fields and the “Good Life Project” video interviews.
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How will you measure your life?
Business guru Clayton Christensen gets personal.
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How do we put the ‘cool’ in school?
Tony Danza’s year of teaching.
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Take ownership of your questions
Mark Noonan’s pain became a great idea.
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Tackling big questions with Morgan Freeman and Alan Alda
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A question that defined a life
If you’re looking for an example of what I would call a “beautiful question”—a question that takes on a big and important idea, one that causes people to step back and re-assess the way they think—consider King’s famous question, “Can we all get along?”
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Videos & Slideshares
“What Kills Questioning?,” the trailer for my first book on questioning.
What’s Inside “The Book of Beautiful Questions?” (book trailer)
Encouraging Questioning in the Classroom • Want to find out more? Visit QuestionWeek.com
Lindsay Woods
James W. Sanderson
Warren Berger
Warren on the web