Answers are dime a dozen. What is rare in this world is a great question. What is your’s?
From The Dan Sullivan Question
There is no doubt in today’s world and right from our education to even businesses, people are rewarded for giving answers!
We are all trained to give answers. There are tons of answers to every question and our mind always looks for solutions!
Unfortunately in times of uncertainties and crises, there are no ready answers to solve our problems! What is required is the ability to ask questions. Yes, you read it right. It is about “Asking Questions!”.
Why ask questions?
The answers you seek lie in the questions you ask
Jiddu Krishnamurthy
From time immemorial, philosophers, scientists, leaders have all resorted to the only tool to gain clarity, seek truth i,e by asking questions!
The Upanishads are all about self-inquiry in the form of asking questions starting from Who am I? What is my Dharma? What is Death?
The scientific method of inquiry puts great emphasis on questioning. Einstein discovered the theory of relativity by asking a question to himself, “what would happen if he travels at speed of light and puts a mirror in front of him”?
Asking questions and doubting accepted beliefs are part of every scientist’s tool kit.
To succeed in businesses and career the very competence of asking questions and challenging key assumptions is a key tool or intellectual instrument. But asking questions doesn’t come easily.
During times of crisis, when facing problems, making tough choices, what is required in the first place is to gain clarity.
The clarity is needed in terms of what capabilities required, what direction we need to be taken and what risks to be addressed etc. To gain clarity, asking questions is what helps.
For any problem we have, it is natural to look outside for a solution than asking ourselves, “What is the great question to ask for the current problem?”.
Knowing the answers will help you in school. Knowing how to question will help you in life.
Warren Berger
5 elements of great questions
There are good questions, and there are great questions.
Good questions are mostly related to specific problems. The thinking part is mostly over and it is about finding steps or processes to execute. But it is a positive question towards achieving something.
For example, any questions from How|When are a good questions.
For example,
- How do I start writing blogs?
- How do we as a team get this project delivered in less than a week?
- How to become more healthy?
- When will you get this completed?
As you can see, for most of the above questions, answers exist in some form other. All you may need is little searching or seeking help from others, who are experts.
But then there are great questions. They are with the words What & Why. They are more of a thinking type and helps us go inward.
The answers to these questions cannot be found by others. Others can only guide us to help us find the answers within ourselves.
5 elements of great questions are,
- They are visual. It helps us to future-cast to imagining something in the future and helps us to visualize.
- The single big question must answer many other questions. It should remove the confusion which surrounds most of us. The measure of problem one has depends on a number of questions on gets about his future. So a good question must answer most of his problems.
- A great question is one, which will trigger a response from inside. It is not something you can find the answer outside in a book or searching Google.
- A great question should provide a framework which helps to solve the complexities
- A great question must lead to decisions and achievements
How to come up with your great question?
Questions are always context and situation-specific. A great question for one may not seem great for others depending on their situations & contexts.
So, the ability to come up with great questions is most important. Here I am giving some of the questions that will help anyone in entrepreneurship, being productive, career goals.
The idea is to use these questions are to develop your own questions using these as a reference,
Dan Sullivan, the Strategic Coach has one single big question for Entrepreneurs, who are seeking long term directions
- If we were having this discussion 3 years from today, and you were looking back over those 3 years, what has to have happened in your life, both personally and professionally, for you to feel happy with your progress? Specifically what dangers do you have that needs to be eliminated, what opportunities to be captured, and what strengths need to be maximized?
If you want to be more productive and get over urgency addiction, the following 3 question helps
- What is the one activity that you know if you did very well and consistently would have significant positive results in your personal life?
- What is the one activity that you know if you did superbly well and consistently would have significant positive results in your professional or work life?
- If you know these things would make such a significant difference, why are you not doing them now?
If you have to do your work better and get more done from others, asking the following questions helps
- What knowledge or skills do I need to do the job better and interact more effectively with other people?
- What actions or opportunities I want my team to be focused on?
- Am I exercising the courage to move things ahead and deal with the issues?
- Am I constantly looking for an alternative, out of box solutions?
If you are looking for a change, such as starting a new business or a new career, then start by asking Why questions!
- Why do you want to enter into business?
- Why do you want to start working on a new product?
- Why you want your company to grow?
- Why do you want to quit your job, or rise up to new levels in your current job?
- Why do you want to move to a new career?
As you can see above, open questions starting with What & Why, don’t have ready answers. To really find the answer, we must let our imagination take charge, visualize, feel the emotions.
But to make questions leave a huge impact, one must own the questions and develop the attitude to go inward to find the true answer.
Conclusion
Asking questions is the first step and pursuing the answers requires 3 key characteristics, that is
- Calm mind,
- Patience and
- Perseverance.
Because for what and why questions, no ready answers exist. Other’s answers won’t help us. Each one needs to contemplate with a calm mind for hours, days, weeks to find the true answer. The first level answers will most likely not true answers.
Many I have seen for a question on “Why they want to leave their current job”, say casually, “I want more money”, or “I want better field” or “I don’t like my existing job”.
These are surface-level answers and don’t give the true picture. They are not coming from inside. Further questioning as, “Why they want more money, or why they want to be No #1”, they would have never thought! Some even feel agitated to answer.
During my coaching sessions, I ask clients 5 levels deeper or even 7 levels deeper by asking consistent Why’s? Some find extremely difficult to answer and feel to give up.
But if followed with persistence many reveal answers they would have never thought or imagined. So one must find the courage to ask bold questions and pursue the answers. I hope the article has helped you to develop the habit of “asking questions”!!.
Why wait, start asking great questions and the find the answers you seek from those questions.
Finally want to end the article with a quote from greatest scientist,
The important thing is not to stop questioning.
Albert Einstein
