Enlightening Questions

Throughout our working lives, we are trained to find the answers to questions that have been given to us by our managers, employees, and peers, rather than spending time defining the questions to be solved in the first place. Yet as young children, we were always asking questions. Studies show that four-year-olds ask as many as 200-300 questions a day.
Asking enlightening questions can help frame our field of vision and train our focus onto the topics that we wish to explore. Enlightening questions can also help build a safe space with others which creates more opportunity to innovate since everyone feels comfortable to voice their opinion.
In order to ask better questions, consider the following:
- Great questions require a mindset that is curious and outward-focused. If you are not genuinely interested in the answer, then don’t ask the question.
- Great questions are often open rather than closed-ended. Open-ended
questions offer others the opportunity to explore and diverge.
- Finally, some of the best questions are those that are formulated with only a few words; if it takes more than a sentence to articulate our question, then it’s probably not the right one!
But we can take the quality of our questions even higher.
Instead of a common perspective question, ask a sense-making question.
From being past-focused, become future-focused.
From focusing on the mind having the answers, try understanding what the heart wants.
So, what’s the most important question that you should be asking today? And to whom?
For this and other perspectives on growing your leadership, visit www.thnk.org
Narrated by Betty de Haan
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Animation by Sarah Nguyen
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Written and Directed by Rod Ben Zeev
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Additional Content by Rajiv Ball
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Executive Produced by Mark Vernooij
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