MANAGEMENT SPECIAL............. What’s the Question?

What’s the Question?  If you want to use your mission statement to motivate people then phrase it as a question     Most children are taught to be well behaved and generally not make a nuisance of themselves. The most common instruction? Don’t ask too many questions. Warren Berger, innovation expert and author, A More Beautiful Question, says that in some ways, companies are like people: “Just like children, companies start off by asking a lot of questions, but then, as they grow, they start relying on what they know rather than asking questions about what they don’t. What they know becomes obsolete and someone else will ask the questions and get better than them. Asking questions according to him is at the heart of innovation.” What makes a question a beautiful question is that it has the power bring about a change in some way. It challenges and shifts the way people think about something. Berger, whose earlier book Glimmer was about how innovative design thinking is transforming the way we live, was writing about innovators and entrepreneurs when he realised that one thing they had in common was that they were all very good at asking questions. They worked hard on framing the right question as they went through their creative process and attacked problems. “The question was the starting point for them to understand the problem in a way other people hadn’t understood it,” he says. Berger traced back various innovations and realised that asking a question was possibly the starting point for most of them. For instance Polaroid cameras came into existence simply because its inventor Edwin Land’s little daughter asked him why they had to wait so long for the picture. Similarly, video rental service Netflix came about because of founder Reed Hastings’ annoyance at having to pay late fees at a video rental chain, prompting him to ask why someone hadn’t come up with a different model already. Business has a love-hate relationship with questions. Companies realise that asking questions is important to driving innovation but worry about it because it challenges authority. “Asking questions is seen as ineffective and slowing things down. The perception is that questions get in the way of doing something. But if done right, it can be a productive and not a negative force,” says Berger. There is an art and science to asking great questions, which can spark innovation. The best way to undo years of conditioning against asking questions is to drive it from the top. Companies can pro-actively create a culture conducive to asking questions if it is driven by the leadership. Google is a great example. The senior management of the company has often spoken out on the importance of asking questions and has policies that encourage this. There is a system in place where employees put up their questions online and these are voted on by other people in the organization. The CEO then answers selected questions at a weekly gathering. The 70-20-10 model allows employees to spend time working on their own projects, where invariably they are working on finding answers to their own questions. Berger recommends that companies replace their mission statements with questions. “Questions are more motivational than statements. If you want to use your mission statement to motivate people then phrase it as a question. A statement makes seems as though you’ve already achieved it. A question seems more like a goal you have to reach and it invites employees to help you get there,” he says. It can be difficult for a leader to step up and ask a question as it can be seen as a sign of weakness. However it is important for him to overcome this fear and ask questions he doesn’t know the answers to in front of the whole company. “Rather than a sign of weakness, this shows that you are curious and adventurous,” says Berger. While there isn’t a simple formula to get better at asking questions, the first step is to become more observant – about your own work, processes at the company and things in the daily routine that you don’t notice much. You need to sit back and see everyday things with a fresh eye, like a child. You have to be willing to ask fundamental questions, even at the risk of seeming naïve. Most important, you have to act on it. Wondering and debating a question makes it philosophy, you’ve to act on it for it to become innovation. As you brainstorm and move from the theoretical to the practical, the questions you are asking will evolve from ‘why’ to ‘what if’ to ‘how’. One of his favourite examples stems from this simple practice. A football coach once questioned why the players weren’t urinating enough despite drinking large amounts of water. He posed the question to a professor of renal medicine and they realised that the sweating players weren’t replenishing fluids well enough, leading to the creation of Gatorade, and eventually a near $20 billion sports drink industry. And it started with a simple, albeit unusual question. The trick to getting better at questioning is to adjust our attitude towards it. We instinctively tend to be uncomfortable and impatient when it comes to questions, wanting to find answers as quickly as possible. “Life changing questions are those that we have to be willing to spend some time with and work on, not just look up on google,” says Berger. If you do manage to make this shift, the same annoying questions can end up being a positive force in your life and give you something to strive for. CD 5 P OIN T S T O P O N D E R5 5 A BEAUTIFUL QUESTION HAS THE POTENTIAL TO CHANGE THE WAY YOU VIEW SOMETHING 4 INNOVATORS ASK HARD QUESTIONS THAT ENABLE THEM TO UNDERSTAND A PROBLEM BETTER 3 LEADERS MUST TAKE A LEAP OF FAITH AND ASK QUESTIONS THEY DON’T KNOW THE ANSWERS TO 2 QUESTIONS CAN BE A PRODUCTIVE, AND NOT A NEGATIVE FORCE IN YOUR LIFE 1 BE WILLING TO SPEND TIME TRYING TO ANSWER A POTENTIALLY LIFE CHANGING QUESTION How to be a questioner Questioners pay close attention to the world around them. Questioners don’t assume or accept Questioners are unafraid to ask the most basic questions Questioners dig deep Questioners use their imagination Questioners share their questions with others Questioners don’t always expect to get answers right away Questioners move from asking to action ( s o u r c e: a m o r e b e a u t i f u l q u e s t i o n.c o m )

b y Priyanka Sangani ETCD 140411