The art and science of asking questions is the source of all knowledge. Thomas Berger
To grow in life and in career, we need to keep learning new things and how we can learn new things is by knowing what we don’t know. The answer of what we don’t will come from asking good questions. And once we start asking questions, our ignorance will be gone and our knowledge will increase.
Socrates, the Greek philosopher and one of the founders of Western philosophy, devised a method called Socratic Questioning on asking good questions.
Socratic questioning is disciplined questioning that can be used to pursue thought in many directions and for many purposes, including: to explore complex ideas, to get to the truth of things, to open up issues and problems, to uncover assumptions, to analyze concepts, to distinguish what we know from what we don’t know, to follow out logical implications of thought, or to control the discussion. The key to distinguishing Socratic questioning from questioning per se is that Socratic questioning is systematic, disciplined, and deep, and usually focuses on fundamental concepts, principles, theories, issues, or problems. (Source: Wikipedia)
Professor Bakshi, in his immensely educating post Playing Socratic Solitaire on A Gal Called NIMBY, writes –
Charlie Munger started using these Socratic devices in a variation he called Socratic Solitaire, because, instead of a dialogue with someone else, his method involves solitary play. Munger used to display Socratic Solitaire at shareholder meetings of Wesco Corporation. He would start by asking a series of questions. Then he would answer them himself. Back and forth. Question and Answer. He would do this for a while. And he would enthrall the audience by displaying the breadth and the depth of his multidisciplinary mind.What warren buffet wrote on asking good questions in 2017 Birkshire hathaway annual letter:
our hope is that the analysts and journalists will ask questions that add to our owners’ understanding and knowledge of their investment. Neither Charlie nor I will get so much as a clue about the questions headed our way. Some will be tough, for sure, and that’s the way we like it.
We ask question, to know something that we don't know and via asking question, we learn the worldly wisdom. What Socrates said on wisdom:
Let’s figure out why as we grow, we stop asking questions?
To ask a right question, we need to put pressure on our mind and we need to think and articulate a right question, so that we don’t look like a fool to others.
We are made in such a way that we try to avoid this mental pressure, so most of the time we avoid asking questions and accept whatever comes to our way or whatever presented to us.
To question, we need to first understand our ignorance that we know nothing. We need to be curious to ask questions, we should be having the fire within yourself to know the things out there.
To get the wisdom, we need to remove the garbage from out mind and fill it with right questions and wisdom. We can get the wisdom from books, great leaders, teachers, good blogs, good friends and by our own experience.
We must understand that the questions are more valuable than the answers.
Someone asked Albert Einstein for his phone number. Einstein looked up for his own number in the phone book. When asked why a genius like him cannot remember his own number, he replied – there’s no reason to fill his mind with information that can easily be looked up. This is very true In the current era of internet.
If I want to know something or about someone, why to remember, if I can get that from the internet easily.
Albert Einstein once said –
The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing. -SocratesAn average four-year-old kid in Britain asks around 400 questions a day. But as we grow in age, we stop asking questions. Our reading and writing skills went up but our questioning skills went down a lot. In the book A More Beautiful Question – Warren Berger explains why questions are more important than answers and how to improve our questioning skills.
Let’s figure out why as we grow, we stop asking questions?
To ask a right question, we need to put pressure on our mind and we need to think and articulate a right question, so that we don’t look like a fool to others.
We are made in such a way that we try to avoid this mental pressure, so most of the time we avoid asking questions and accept whatever comes to our way or whatever presented to us.
To question, we need to first understand our ignorance that we know nothing. We need to be curious to ask questions, we should be having the fire within yourself to know the things out there.
To get the wisdom, we need to remove the garbage from out mind and fill it with right questions and wisdom. We can get the wisdom from books, great leaders, teachers, good blogs, good friends and by our own experience.
We must understand that the questions are more valuable than the answers.
Someone asked Albert Einstein for his phone number. Einstein looked up for his own number in the phone book. When asked why a genius like him cannot remember his own number, he replied – there’s no reason to fill his mind with information that can easily be looked up. This is very true In the current era of internet.
If I want to know something or about someone, why to remember, if I can get that from the internet easily.
Albert Einstein once said –
If I had an hour to solve a problem I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes thinking about solutions.The same is said by Abraham Lincoln as well-
Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.
A beautiful question is an ambitious yet actionable question that can begin to shift the way we perceive or think about something – and that might serve as a catalyst to bring about change.
To ask good questions that produces change he(Warren Berger) proposes a framework called as Why-What If-How:
Why – Person encounters a situation that is less than ideal and asks why.
What If – Person begins to come up with ideas for possible improvements and solutions – with such ideas usually surfacing in the form of what If possibilities.
How – Person takes one of those possibilities and tries to implement it or make it real; this mostly involves figuring out how.
To ask a good question,
just adopt the following suggestions:
1. You should know the
end purpose: Before asking the
question, you should be aware about what you want to achieve by asking the
question. You should be clear on your requirement.
2: Your question should
be in a planned way: Once you know the
end goal, and then plan all your questions in a systematic manner, so the
answer should guide you towards your goal or requirement.
3: Your question should
be in the form of an open conversation: Ask question in a way that will open the doors for an interesting
conversation. Participate in the discus and understand the scenario to the
depth.
4: Use simple language: Don't try to be over smart and don't use the
tough words to ask the questions, use as simple as possible words to ask the
question.
5: Ask one thing at a time: Don't try to mingle all your questions in
a single big sentence. Just break it in small and simple questions and ask one
by one. Don't confuse yourself and the person, to whom you are asking the
questions.
6: Ask only important
questions: Don't waste your time as
well as the person who is giving the answers. Ask only the questions that are
important.
7: Don't interrupt,
Listen first carefully: While the person is giving the answer of your question, don't
interrupt in the middle, let him first complete the answer, then ask the next
question.
8: Read good stuff, to
understand the big picture: To
enhance your persona, read good books and good stuff like this blog. Via reading,
you learn new things and your quality of question asking will improve so the
wisdom will improve. Everything is linked; it’s a butter-fly effect
in play.
Let's see, how asking
good questions help you:
1. Asking good questions provide clarity to your
knowledge and allow your mind to understand everything in a better and
broad sense
2. Asking good questions at work place benefits
you to make better working relations. As an example of question - Instead
of “Did you make your sales goal?” asks, “How have sales been
going?”
3. Asking good questions help you to thing in
analytical and logical way. You think about the consequences of every action or
inaction.
4. They inspire people to reflect and see things
in fresh, unpredictable ways: “Why did this work?” and "Why did
this does not work?”
5. They encourage out of the box thinking: for
any situation you thing different ways for the solution - “Can that be done
in any other way?”
6. They challenge assumptions, they force you to
think: “What do you think you will lose if you start sharing responsibility
for the implementation process?”
7. They create ownership of solutions, you
started feeling that the work in hand is your responsibility and this will
improve your work attitude: “Based on your experience, what do you suggest
we do here?”
8. You started feeling more responsible.
I will end the post
with the beautiful suggestion by Mr. Charlie Munger :
Disclosure: To write this post, i have taken the help from Safal Niveshak, Fundoo Professor and janav's writings. This are really wonderful people, please do read this blogs as well. Thanks Sanjay sir, Vishal and Jana for the wonderful blogs.
- Keep reading, Keep Learning
- Mahesh
True Mahesh. If confused, ask questions. Gain clarity. Learn. Gain confidence. I am pretty curious and love learning and goodness this has helped me enjoy life along with having some worldly success too.
ReplyDeleteThanks Ryan for liking the post and for the encouragement with such a beautiful comments.
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