Ask High-Value Questions

“If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on the solution, I would spend the first fifty five minutes determining the proper question to ask, for once I knew the proper question, I could solve the problem in less than five minutes.”

— Albert Einstein

Among the 12 Manners of Voicing, asking questions is, from my experience, the most productive of learning and innovation. I have started to illustrate asking high-value questions in a prior blog post (“Personal Learning History”).

Last March 28, 2007 I was invited to be a reactor to several paper presenters in the “National Conference on Improving Competitiveness through Science & Technology Human Resource Development.” It was sponsored by the Science Education Institute of the Department of Science and Technology of the Philippine government.

As reactor I was expected to comment on the papers presented: expand on ideas I agree with, criticize ideas I don’t agree with, etc. I decided to completely change my approach. I decided not to provide answers. Instead my “reaction” was a series of questions:

1. Provocative questions
2. Mind-opening questions
3. Assumption-exposing questions
4. Mental model-challenging questions
5. Bias-awareness questions
6. Blindfolds-discovering questions
7. Discovering-what-we-don’t-know questions
8. Attention-shifting questions
9. Market opportunities-attentive questions
10. Reframing questions.

You can read my short (only 5 substantive slides) presentation by holding “Ctrl” and left-clicking HERE to view my presentation in a new tab.

Learn to ask high-value questions. I call them “high-value” questions because they can lead to answers that are high-value knowledge, for example:

1. Delighting customers instead of just satisfying them, and thereby converting customers to willing and eager salespersons convincing their friends to buy your product.
2. Changing how we see reality: this is why “reframing” questions are very powerful. For example, if we change how we view the market then it may enable us to see new market opportunities that we hardly saw before. This can lead to —
3. Challenging and changing the assumptions behind our business model, resulting in a better or new business model that can revive a losing business or radically outstrip all competition or lead to an entirely new and successful business venture with its own niche!

Cheers!

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Note that there are embedded links in this blog post. They show up as colored text. While pressing “Ctrl” click on any link to create a new tab to reach the webpages pointed to. Thanks to Wikimedia Commons for the use of the image in this post.

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Q8- Wanted: Workable Tools for Voluntary Paradigm Shifting

Today — the inauguration of President Barack Hussein Obama — is a big day for the people of the United States of America; many people including me are proud of them. The big event today started in 1954… but let us back up a bit first.

This quotation from Gregory Bateson summarizes the previous blogpost (Q7- We Found the Enemy: Our Own Concepts!?)

“The major problems in the world are the result of the difference between the way nature works and the way man thinks.”

We have a big problem: it takes so long for mankind to change the way it thinks on important issues:

It took more than half a century to get the American people to where they are today from Rosa Park’s refusal to give up her bus seat to a white man in Montgomery City, Alabama — a landmark refusal that dramatically initiated the Civil Rights Movement in the US.

Notice that two factors result to very long periods of time to change people’s thinking about important things: (1) institutionalized vested interests and/or (2) institutionalized rules to prevent members from thinking freely. The technical jargon for important changes in people’s thinking is “paradigm shift” from Thomas Kuhn’s “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions”. The religious jargon is “conversion” or “metanoia” (=from Greek word that means fundamental change in thinking). Equivalent laymen terms are “change in perspective”, “reframing” or “Aha! experience”.

Notice too that the data above shows that it takes about one average human lifetime to change how people think. So, does this suggest that you do not change how people think; you WAIT for them to die off?

Is there a faster way? We need workable tools for voluntary and conscious paradigm shifting. We need them ASAP (=as soon as possible)! The longer we wait, the more social costs (=human sufferings) accumulate.

Or, the longer we wait, the more people will forego enjoyment of benefits that would result from paradigm shifts. This was my motive when I wrote the book “99 Paradigm Shifts for Survival in the Knowledge Economy: a Knowledge Management Reader.” You can download the e-book for free from the CCLFI website.

How else can we help people undergo desirable paradigm shifts? Do you have other ideas to offer? What tools are on hand to help people change their thinking for the better?

Please share.

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