A More Beautiful Question
As soon as I heard Warren Berger speak through one of the webinar put together by WBECS, I knew I had to get my hands on his book A More Beautiful Question.
What makes a powerful question?
- Is simple and clear
- Is thought provoking
- Generates energy
- Focuses inquiry
- Opens new possibilities
- Surfaces assumptions
- Sparks innovation
- Helps solve problems
- Helps adapt to change (curious mind set)
- Makes you a better leader
The Right Question Institute says questioning is “the ability to organize our thinking around what we don’t know.”
The small publication The Art of Powerful Questions by Vogt, Brown and Isaacs states “Questions open the door to dialogue and discovery. They are an invitation to creativity and breakthrough thinking. Questions can lead to movement and action on key issues; by generating creative insights, they can ignite change.”
Since my discovery of Warren Berger’s book, and the Vogt, Brown and Isaacs publication, I am constantly on the look out for and collect questions. I approach or at least try very hard to live the question when I prepare for a workshop, training or coaching session. It’s a wonderful journey to be on, not knowing, to be curious, to let assumptions go.
Let me ask you this question – what unique contribution can we each make in asking each other a more beautiful question?
Finally, I would like to leave you with Jonas Salk interpretation of a powerful question – What people think of as a moment of discovery is really the discovery of the question.