Natural curiosity: The secret way to help your business

Asking questions kickstarts our creativity and leads us towards fresh ideas. It works so well because the process identifies what gaps should be filled and what problems need to be solved.

The greatest minds in history tend to be expert interrogators. They ask questions that nobody else has asked and become fixated on solutions.

There’s something childlike about curiosity. Growing up, we often annoy the adults around us by constantly asking simple questions (“But why?”) until school teaches us a different way.

Education focuses on memorization and discipline, which means we inevitably lose the natural spark of curiosity that fuelled our learning. We stop challenging ideas and start to stagnate in the same old cycle.

There’s an important difference between actionable questions and the kind of deep, philosophical questions that have been unanswered for centuries. One can change your everyday reality; the other cannot.

Journalist Warren Berger calls the actionable type “beautiful questions”. Even if there’s no immediate answer, they have the potential to change our perspective just by the act of asking. This stimulates progress.

Everyone in business knows that the best ideas feel like breakthroughs. The problem? Too many employees are afraid of rocking the boat or looking silly. Accepting what you’re told and just getting on with things is the opposite of thinking outside the box.

Instead of brainstorming (which is answer-focused), try question storming for a change. Berger believes that all businesses should be constantly asking four beautiful questions: Why? Why not? What if? How?

For example: “What if a car windshield could blink?” led to the invention of windscreen wipers. “Could computers be used to link information instead of just computing numbers?” led to the worldwide web. “What if dots and dashes could sort the world?” led to the modern barcode.

Bottom line: Innovation starts with curiosity. It’s something we lose as we grow up, so the process must be re-learned. We can do this by constantly asking four things: Why? Why not? What if? How? These beautiful questions are catalysts for change that deliver better answers.