YOUR QUESTIONS ARE PART OF THE ANSWER

In terms of business growth, outlook and profitability, 2019 will probably turn out to be as limp as 2018.

Any self-respecting and responsible person will be asking what should be done to prevent sinking into a stultifying malaise.

Well, before acting one should think, explore and question what we understand, expect and normally do.

Max Planck, the Nobel Prize-winning pioneer of quantum physics, said, “When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change”.

Sunnie Giles, the author of “The New Science of Radical Innovation” says “The questions you ask shape the direction for people to explore for answers, hence they become part of the answer”.

It has been said that “The question is more important than answer”. But too often we don’t pause to question – we just blunder forward in the same old way as before. She continues to write that we should “Allow for the possibility that we could be wrong”.

Giles refers to Palaeontologists Niles Eldridge and Stephen Jay Gould who pointed out that, “Theory dictates what one sees. The expectations of theory colour perception to such a degree that the new notions seldom arise from the facts collected under the influence of old pictures of the world”. She continues, “Radical innovation requires a radical departure from existing solutions. In the brave new world of VUCA (Vulnerability, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity), good questions can open new (horizons)”.

She exhorts leaders to “Help yourself and your people to throw away old, limiting perspectives and to ask questions that open possibilities in all directions”.

Attached is her article on asking “Questions that Catalyze Innovation”. I suggest you read it.

VJB