creativity

Ask a question.

I love best the learning that is born from questions. I have my biases — there are certain kinds of questions that, for me, go right to the heart of what it means to be a learning human being. These are my favorites: What if? How does? What might we? And my all-time favorite: Why? (And Why not?). These are questions that open doors. These are questions that drive us towards solutions, towards breakthroughs and progress.

So simple, so powerful.

When we were kids, we asked questions all the time (if you don’t remember this, I’m sure there’s a parent, or a teacher, or even an older sister or brother who does!). Humans are wired to be curious and to ask questions — and not just when we’re kids. But the older we get, the less we tend to ask questions. Questioning “falls off a cliff,” as progressive educator Ken Robinson says. Maybe after years of formal education, where we have to sit quietly and passively absorb information, we realize that our own questions aren’t valued. Maybe we have a job in a work culture that frowns on asking questions because they’re interpreted as a challenge to authority. I don’t know. It’s probably a lot of things. But we’re pretty thoroughly trained to believe that having an answer is more important than having a question — that it’s more important to be a knower than a learner.

And at this point in time, as a human society, we can’t afford that. We can’t afford to not ask questions or to keep our questions to ourselves. Questions — our own questions, the questions that matter to us personally — are where learning begins. Questions and curiosity propel us on our journeys to understand. Innovation, creativity, and great ideas all begin with questions. Change begins with questions.

In this interview with IDEO, inquiry guru Warren Berger says, “Many things begin with a question. It’s this catalytic force. When you arrive at an interesting question and take ownership of that question, it can lead you to innovation.” Berger is my personal inquiry hero, and I highly recommend his book “A More Beautiful Question.”

This Information Age we’re in? I really hope that it’s followed by an Inquiry Age. Let’s start it. Find that inner five year-old and put some questions out there. It’s empowering (and kinda subversive).

And it’s only human.