RAFFIAPALM

Resources for product teams from industry experts.

You may discover, as many questioners do when they begin to burrow into a problem, that there is much more to know than you could have imagined at the outset. Don’t be put off by learning how much you don’t know. That darkness was always out there, surrounding you; you just had no idea how vast it was until you began probing with your question flashlight.

— A More Beautiful Question: The Power of Inquiry to Spark Breakthrough Ideas by Warren Berger

Source: Amazon Kindle

Related Stories and Excerpts:

  1. Articulating a personal challenge in the form of a question has other benefits. It allows you to be bold and adventurous because anyone can question anything. You don’t have to be a recognized expert; you just have to be willing to say, I’m going to venture forth into the world with my question and see what I find. As you do this, you’re in a strong position to build ideas and attract support. Because, whereas people are more likely to ignore or challenge you when you come at them with answers, they almost can’t resist advising or helping you […]
  2. A question that’s hard enough to be interesting, but realistic enough that you have some hope of answering it. (Not that you have to find an answer to all beautiful questions; the string theorist Witten, for instance, has never fully answered his biggest questions about the nature of the universe, but he told me that the pursuit of those questions has led him to many other interesting discoveries along the way.) — A More Beautiful Question: The Power of Inquiry to Spark Breakthrough Ideas by Warren Berger Source: Amazon Kindle […]
  3. But the principle of constantly expanding your experience, both personally and vicariously, does matter tremendously in any idea-producing job. Make no mistake about that. Another point to encourage you. No doubt you have seen people who seem to spark ideas—good ideas—right off the “top of their heads,” without ever going through all this process that I have described. Sometimes you have only seen the “Eureka! I have it!” stage takes place. But sometimes you have also seen the fruits of long discipline in the practices here advocated. This discipline produces a mind so well stocked, and so quick at […]
  4. Habits are behavioral autopilot, and that’s why they’re such a critical tool for leaders. Leaders who can instill habits that reinforce their teams’ goals are essentially making progress for free. They’ve changed behavior in a way that doesn’t draw down the Rider’s reserves of self-control. Habits will form inevitably, whether they’re formed intentionally or not. You’ve probably created lots of team habits unwittingly. If your staff meetings always start out with genial small talk, then you’ve created a habit. You’ve designed your meeting autopilot to yield a few minutes of warm-up small talk. The hard question for a leader […]
  5. When studying events, we look at them through analytical, logical lenses. We break them down into small, understandable chunks, and we fish for scapegoats while looking for cause-and-effect relationships. Is the economy going south? It must be the result of the poor decisions of a politician. Is the newspaper arriving late? That lazy mailman. For sure, he stopped to chat with the neighbor. Is your wife cold and distant lately? It must be her job. We seek linear, immediate, sensible explanations for problems surrounding us. But by doing so, we run the risk of seeing issues as being inflicted […]

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