"Goals, dreams, and accomplishments require thought to achieve greatness. What's an answer without the question?"
--- Iceberg Gem ---
"Questions ignite imaginations, avert catastrophes, and reveal unexpected paths to brighter destinations. The right questions don’t allow people to remain passive. They require reflection, followed by action."
http://www.inc.com/magazine/201404/leigh-buchanan/100-questions-business-leaders-should-ask.html
"A beautiful question reframes an issue and forces you to look at it in a different way. It challenges assumptions and is really ambitious. Often, these questions begin with the phrase "How might we..." They have a magnetic quality that makes people want to answer them, to talk about them, to work on them. They make the imagination race. The Polaroid camera came out of a 3-year-old girl's asking, "Why do we have to wait for the picture?" That's a beautiful question.
What if we could map the DNA of music?
Innovation: Pandora
Why can't everyone accept credit cards?
Innovation: Square
Why aren't football players urinating more?
Innovation: Gatorade "
Companies generally reward people for coming up with answers. How do you motivate employees to ask questions?
It has to start with leaders asking questions themselves. That's a difficult adjustment, because a lot of leaders are trained to think, People look to me for answers. If I start asking questions, it will shake their confidence. But great leaders do ask questions, and as long as they are interesting and ambitious, people don't get freaked out.
So it starts with the leader and flows downward to create a culture of inquiry, where people feel they can ask questions without necessarily knowing the answer. It drives me crazy when bosses say, "If you are going to bring a problem to me, you'd better have solutions." Great questions don't get answered in 10 minutes. They may take six months. You want people to bring you those great questions, and maybe the whole company ends up working on them."
http://www.inc.com/magazine/201403/leigh-buchanan/questions-drive-innovation.html
