The One Childhood Trait That will Help You Grow
A crucial skill to spark positive change and unlock new insight at work and in life
“If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.” — Jam 1:5
I am proof that we are born with that one crucial trait, and improving this skill has been pivotal in my growth at work and in life.
Riders take turns in planning and posting the regular rides to our cycling WhatsApp group for others to build a roll. During the previous week, before this article, someone posted — “Friday endurance ride 300km.” I saw the post after six names on the roll. My keyboard was clanging like an automatic rifle as I shot off a trail of questions until our chairman called off the ride. Phew, we were saved by questions!
A broad grin filled my countenance, telling myself — “I still got it”, reminiscing how as a kid, I would wear adults out with incessant questioning. My dad’s favourite recollection of my questioning prowess was when, after a long losing streak at Ludo, I asked a family friend, “do you think you are clever than God?”. A chat with toddler Dunstan was not for the faint-hearted. My question bank included questions like, “Where does the sun go behind the sea in the evening?” “If God made us, then who made God?”
I developed my love for books from my grandma, who had the patience and tenacity to withstand my interrogation. I asked questions faster than she could read, but she never shut me down. God bless her for encouraging me to keep asking questions. But not everyone is that fortunate. Sadly, just like creativity, some of us lose this trait as we grow because of the dictates of our sect, school or society. We must build or rediscover our capacity to ask questions to help us solve problems and make breakthroughs at whatever we face.
Through his review of relevant research and interviews with creative people, Hal Gregersen, the author of Questions Are The Answer, discovered that:
1) “If you want better answers at work and in life, you must ask better questions.
2) If you want better questions to ask, you do not have to resign yourself to chance and hope they will occur to you. You can actively create for yourself the special conditions in which questions thrive.
3) People who ask great questions are not born different. We all start out with the capacity to ask about things we don’t know. The ones who choose to keep their questioning skills strong, just get better at it.”
I developed an entrepreneurial endeavour by asking, “how can I stop this bounty of unharvested mangoes from perishing?”
I believe I got the CFO promotion I sought because I asked my mentors, “what skills do I need to develop to be a good CFO?”
To get what you want, you must ask questions and ask the right ones. The journey to solving a problem starts with asking the right questions.
“The important and difficult job is never to find the right answers. It is to find the right questions. For there are a few things as useless if not dangerous as the right answer to the wrong question.” — Peter Drucker
“Why are computers’ cost five times as much as the sum of their parts?” was the catalyst for the business model for Dell Computers.
According to Hal Gregersen, the first of the five behaviours that make up the innovators’ DNA is the habit of asking more questions. I gleaned the following four benefits of asking the right questions from the prologue to Hal Gregersen’s book.
Questions help us:
1) See how things would be different to develop original thinking
2) Spark positive change and unlock new insight for innovation and progress
3) Challenge assumptions and conventions to break the status quo
4) Breakdown barriers to thinking, opening the way for productive dialogue
Information is power only if we turn it into insight. Finding the answers to Jim Kwik’s three questions will turn information into insight.
“How can I use this?”
“Why must I use this?”
“When will I use this?”
Rediscover the kid within you, be curious again and ask more questions. And when you find the answers to the right questions, be sure to act on them. I ponder the following questions to help me grow, improve, and develop at work and in life.
1) What will people say at my funeral?
2) What is most important in my life, and how must I act today to prove that?
3) What can I be grateful for today?
Here is one crucial question for you — What are you asking of yourself? If you are not sure, start with this question.
“Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, What are you doing for others?” — Martin Luther King, Jr
Book Recommendations
Here are two book recommendations that will guide you in knowing what to ask, how to ask and whom to ask to help you solve problems, discover your purpose and potential:
a) Questions Are The Answers: A Breakthrough Approach to Your Most Vexing Problems at Work and in Life — by Hal Gregersen
b) Man’s Search for Meaning — by Viktor E Frankl
Here are three quotes to help see the benefits of asking the right questions.
“I have found that almost everything that is going to come to me, that is going to help me leadership wise is based on a question.” — John Maxwell
“To solve any problem, here are three questions to ask yourself: First, what could I do? Second, what could I read? And third, who could I ask?” — Jim Rohn
“In the word question, there is a beautiful word — quest. I love that word. We are all partners in a quest. The essential questions have no answers. You are my question, and I am yours — and then there is dialogue. The moment we have answers, there is no dialogue. Questions unite people.” — Elie Wiesel
