The Art of Asking
What questions should we ask?
In Warren Berger's book, A more beautiful question: The power of inquiry to spark breakthrough ideas, many anecdotes, ideas, and methods of questioning are shared with the reader. A few of these concepts that I wanted to highlight and discuss were:
IDEO Creative Director Paul Bennett's fearless approach to asking questions in any setting.
Vuja de, or a moment I might call the inverse of déjà vu, it's a feeling that what you're seeing/hearing/experiencing is a complete novelty.
Jacqueline Novogratz's resolution to ask better questions because there are no easy, clear answers.
Asking questions, in certain contexts, can be very intimidating. Paul Bennett said, "I position myself relentlessly as an idiot at IDEO, and that's not a negative, it's a positive. Because being comfortable with not knowing, that's the first part of being able to question." To me, I simultaneously love the notion but acknowledge that it is perhaps a bit myopic coming from a British man. We had a discussion about this particular figure from the book with my MAET classmates and after I read his ideas I thought, "That's so great, we should be fearless and ask those silly or 'stupid' questions!" but when we analyzed the lens from which this perspective is being shared I was reminded that as a woman of color the reactions of my professional peers, or colleagues, may be much different, and likely not as favorable, if I were to ask these same silly or 'stupid' questions. I would like to persevere, and open up space for other women, BIPOC, or any marginalized peoples to be able to ask questions freely without consequences like being questioned in their validity, being seen as less than for not knowing, or not being taken seriously for trying to gain clarity in a conversation.
I have always loved George Carlin and joked that he would be my second husband (many years ago), so I was ecstatic to see that the master of social commentary and my crush made an appearance in the book. He was truly remarkable at asking questions that made people think and inspiring or coining phrases to describe phenomena in memorable and entertaining ways.
"... years before IDEO or even Sutton talked about vuja de, the term was mentioned, albeit briefly, in a stand-up comedy routine by the American comedian George Carlin. ... as [Carlin] explained, [vuja de] was "the strange feeling that, somehow, none of this has ever happened before."
Vuja de is an incredibly useful neologism that is especially applicable to the art of asking better questions. It highlights the importance of pausing to take a step back and evaluate where you are at in a process, and ask if you're making progress in the best direction for your needs and wants.
Jacqueline Novogratz worked with Chase Manhattan Bank for a while before completely jumping ship to join a small microfinance group run by women in New York because she thought, "... I knew if I didn't jump right then, I might never jump." During her time working to provide loans globally to women entrepreneurs she developed a new question, "What if we could invest as a means and not as an end?" Her earlier questions about what her family might say or think were not as important as what she really wanted to do with her life, and I find her choice bold, brave, and beautiful.
It may seem a little dark, but I thought while setting out to analyze my own questioning and solution finding, in what ways could I fail? Like, how could I fail at [goal] so hard that it would be a true failure? In what way could I truly 'fail'? Am I really afraid of using my voice? The more I thought about how things might go wrong I reminded myself of a sort of motto I acquired during my time studying with MSU's MAET overseas program in Galway, Ireland, "Don't let perfect be the enemy of good." With that in mind I think the only way I, or anyone, could truly fail is to never try.