A More Beautiful Question (43 page)

Does a brainstorm produce more lightning when it’s raining questions?

What would Neil Patrick Harris do?

How would IKEA tackle a challenge like this?

What if your idea had to involve speed dating? Or puppets?

What would Jay-Z do in this situation? How would J.K. Rowling think about this?

How might we create a more refreshing soap of our own?

Why are we trying so hard to make another green-striped soap?

How might we predict whether a flu outbreak is going to happen, based on search queries?

Will anyone follow a leader who embraces uncertainty?

Why can’t everyone accept credit cards? Why is it that only companies are able to accept them?, (Jack Dorsey’s question)

What if all you needed to swipe a credit card was a smart phone or tablet?

Do we really need this? What can we take away?, (Dorsey on simplicity)

What does a CEO look like and feel like? What’s the texture of what you’re supposed to be?

Where did the balance between thinking and doing get out of equilibrium?

Should mission statements be mission questions?

What if we were to take the typical mission statement and hang a question mark on the end of it?

What if a bookstore could be like summer camp?

What can we offer that Amazon can’t?

Does the mission still make sense today?

Are we, as a company, still living up to it (if we ever did)?

Are we all on this mission together?

Does a mission mean anything if the people throughout the company don’t feel invested in it?

How might we create a culture of inquiry?

Do we really want a culture of inquiry?

Why are you trying to ruin the company?

How do you reward questioning?

If an employee asks questions at our company, is he/she asking for trouble?

Why can’t I get the gears on my mountain bike to shift more smoothly?

What if I put plastic coating on guitar strings?

How do you make a company that’s more like a car pool?, (W.L. Gore’s question)

Who’s my boss?

Is this opportunity real? Is there a customer who needs it?

How do we transform a workplace into a learn-place?

What if we could create the experience of a TED conference, every day, within the company?

What would you do if you ran the U.S. Postal Service?

How much will it cost? Who’s going to do all this new work? What happens if the idea fails?

What if a job interview tested one’s ability to ask questions, as well as answer them?

Why should we ‘live the questions?’

Why weren’t loans going to the entrepreneurs who, potentially, could solve some of these countries’ most pressing needs and biggest problems?

Did Novogratz want to leave a secure, well-paid job in banking for a risky one in the nonprofit sector? What was most important to her, at this point in her life? What would her family think if she walked away from a promising business career?

What if we could invest as a means and not as an end?, (Jacqueline Novogratz’s question)

What if we could help parched small farms around the world to double their yield?

Why can’t we use solar power to create low-cost lights for the poor?

What if we could limit the spread of malaria in Africa—and create jobs in the process?

Who or what is this predator, and why is it chasing us?

What is your sentence?

How might I live up to my own sentence?

Looking back on your career, 20 or 30 years from now, what do you want to say you’ve accomplished?

What are you all about? What makes you tick?

Why am I climbing this mountain in the first place?

What is waiting for me at the top? What am I going to do once I get there? Am I enjoying the climb itself? What am I leaving behind, down below?

How do I improve my standing in the company and enhance my job security? How can I angle for a promotion?

Why do so many people long for a big house in the suburbs?

Why do we tend to avoid taking the time to ask important and fundamental questions about our lives?

As we rush around, from task to task and from one distraction to the next, is it possible that “questioning,” itself, is the predator we’re trying to escape?

What if we find we have no good answers to the important questions we raise?

How can I find the meaning of life? (cited as example of a “worthless question”)

When I look back in five years, which of these options will make the better story?

Is there something else you might want to want—besides what you’ve been told to want?

Sooner or later, like it or not, you’ll be faced with challenging questions—so why not get in the habit of asking them sooner?

How many people does it take to change a light bulb for a senior citizen?

Before we “lean in,” what if we stepped back?

What is all of this technology taking away from us?

Where is my tortoise enclosure?

When is my tech Shabbat?

What should I have for lunch later on? What time do I need to pick up the kids? (examples of “small thought” questions) , 190

What if we start with what we already have?

Why don’t I have more money, a better job, a bigger circle of friends?

What am I grateful for?

Why is it that people who have so little and have suffered so much seem to be happier than others who are more fortunate?, (Roko Belic’s question)

If being a beautiful, talented, amazing movie star doesn’t make you happy, then what does?

What is important to you?

Why don’t I know more of my neighbors?

How might I find that sense of community and connectedness I experienced in those small villages in Africa and India?

What did I love doing as child?

What has worked for me before—and how can I bring more of that into my life now?

What are you doing when you feel most beautiful?

When you’re in a bookstore, what section are you drawn to?

Why do I seem to “shine” when doing certain things? What if I could find a way to incorporate these interests/activities, or some aspect of them, into my life and my work?

What if you made one small change?

What if you really lived by everything in the Bible?

What if I outsourced my life?

Why did A.J. Jacobs use Crest toothpaste?

Why do it the same old way? What if you tried something different?

What would an optimistic, confident person do?

What if a TV drama could inspire real-life change?

What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?

What if cost wasn’t an issue—how might we do things differently?

What does failure mean to me: Do I see it as an end-state, or a temporary stage in a process? How do I distinguish between an acceptable failure and unacceptable one?

Can I use productive “small failures” as a means of avoiding devastating “big failures?

If I fail, how will I recover?

If the worst happens, how could I cope?

What if I do nothing?

What if I succeed?

What’s truly worth doing, whether you fail or succeed?

How might we pry off the lid and stir the paint?

How do you feel about the condition of the river? How do you explain the condition of the river to your children?

How are you preparing your children to clean up the river?

What would you do to reach yourself?, (Joel van Dyke’s question)

If we don’t agree on an answer yet, can we at least come to terms on a question?

Do you care about gun violence? Are you for gun responsibility?

Why might they see the issue this way? Why do I see it differently? What assumptions are we each operating under?

What are the odds I’m wrong?

Why, exactly, do I feel as if we’re not getting along? Why do I want to try to change that?

Considering we only see each other at chaotic family gatherings, what if we could arrange to meet in a more relaxed setting?

What went well in the family this past week? What could we do better? What things will we commit to working on in the coming week?

How might we, as a family, better serve the community? How might we carry on the tradition of our forebears?

How will you find your Beautiful Question?

Why do we have a situation in this country wherein 1 in 6 people is hungry?

How can an obese person be hungry?

Why does so much good food end up in landfills?

What if you could use one problem to solve the other?

How do we get food from the supermarket to the food desert?

Why not give the food away?

How do we do the launch, how do we get people in the door, how do we make the numbers add up?

What if we offer a bargain instead of a handout?

Should we retire the concept of ‘retirement?’

Can we still afford to have so many people retire in their 60s?

Is retirement really the most satisfying, productive way to spend one’s later years?, (Marc Freedman’s question)

Why can’t we turn this dependence into abundance?

Why would I want to limit myself to one beautiful question? And if I did, how would I figure out the right one for me?

Why do so many lack this basic thing that the rest of us take for granted? (the question behind water.org)

How can I encourage questioning in my child?

How do I stay inspired?

How do we continually find inspiration so that we can inspire others?

Why do we do the work we do, and what if we could take it to a different place and another level? How, exactly, might we do that?

What do you want to say? Why does it need to be said? What if you could say it in a way that has never been done before?

What if we cultivated ignorance instead of fearing it?, (Stuart Firestein’s question)

What if it turned out the tool with which to cultivate ignorance had been right there in our back pocket, ever since childhood?

A Note on the Author

Warren Berger
has studied hundreds of the world’s leading innovators, entrepreneurs, and creative thinkers to learn how they ask questions, generate original ideas, and solve problems. His writing and research on questioning and innovation have appeared in
Fast Company, Harvard Business Review
, and
Wired
. He is the author of the internationally acclaimed book
Glimmer
, an in-depth analysis of creative thinking that was named one of
BusinessWeek’s
Best Innovation and Design Books of the Year. Berger has appeared on NBC’s
Today Show
, ABC’s
World News
, CNN, and NPR’s
All Things Considered
. He lives with his wife, Laura E. Kelly, in Westchester, New York. Visit his website at www.AMoreBeautifulQuestion.com.

Copyright © 2014 by Warren Berger

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