PURPOSE:To develop the skill of asking the right questions, especially when answers are unavailable. This ability enhances our thinking power, makes us more fascinating, and cuts through red tape at lightning speed.
Albert Einstein represented the best of creative thinkers when he observed:
“To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination.”
We live in a world that demands constant innovation. To be relevant in this world, we must give priority to the science and art of questioning.
It has become almost routine for individuals and corporations, perhaps even entire societies and nations, to solve the wrong problem precisely. We birth creativity when we dare to challenge the status quo. This is best done by asking questions.
In fact, if we turn a question mark upside down, it becomes a hook ~ upon which we can hang our ideas!
Indeed, the opposite of a great question is often another great question. An answer brings closure; but a question creates an opening, an unfolding, a blossoming.
See whether you can come up with answers or questions to the following sample of questions:
■ What would induce you to give up your present way of living in order to face the unknown? Could you feel uncomfortable immersing yourself in the void, secure in the knowledge that all will be well?
■ If you found a wallet stacked with cash, what would you do? Would you keep it?
■ If you knew the exact date of your death, would it make a difference to the way you lived your life?
■ When you do a good deed, or make a monumental sacrifice, do you feel the need to tell others about it?
■ Would you prefer to have dreams that never come to pass, or to have no dreams at all?
■ Are you able to influence people in such a way that their lives are immediately transformed for the better?
■ Assuming that you can tell when you are truly in love, would you feel betrayed if your mate were dishonest, indifferent, or unfaithful? Would you be strong enough to forgive and continue to simply keep on loving him or her?
Now, suppose your organisation has a problem with employees arriving late for work. Your boss fumes:
“This problem is getting out of hand. Such tardiness is unacceptable. Better do something about it.”
Tardiness is not a problem; it is a symptom. The problem, meanwhile, is still unknown.
If you are running a high fever, and someone envelopes you in ice, you will die. However, if the cause of the fever is eliminated, the fever will subside. Once again, fever, like tardiness, is a symptom.
Reportedly, Gertrude Stein, significant writer and thinker, received on her deathbed, the following question from her disciples who were gathered around her:
“Now that you are ready to die, what is the answer?”
Maintaining composure and exuding wisdom, Ms Stein responded with her illustrious last words, “What is the question?”
Say you wish to communicate with someone by letter. You wrote it, posted it, but received no reply even after a few months. The absence of a reply is a symptom.
The problem is addressed by investigating the various possible reasons for there being no reply. Once the cause has been determined and eradicated, the symptom will disappear.
Perhaps the following causes are valid:
■ no postage stamp was put on your letter
■ the mailing address was incorrect
■ the plane carrying the mail crashed
■ the recipient of your letter forgot to reply
■ your letter went to the wrong address
■ a reply was sent to the wrong address
There are many more possibilities. Question persistently, and the answer will emerge.
Too often, people are blamed for the symptom, whilst the problem remains unaddressed. This sort of traditional knee- jerk reaction creates a vicious circle of:
event -> symptom -> blame -> event -> symptom -> blame, and so on.
We tend to focus on symptoms where the stress is the greatest. However, solutions to symptoms result in short-term gain, and long-term pain.
For example, when we spray pesticide over crops, we use a symptomatic solution that kills all the ‘good’ insects in the process.
[To be continued in the Next Post. Excerpted from 'Surfing the Intellect: Building Intellectual Capital for a Knowledge Economy'', by Dilip Mukerjea. All the images in this post are the intellectual property of Dilip Mukerjea.]
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