Inquisitive Problem-Solving

A good question is a halfway of problem-solving.

We are in a time of tremendous change, the dawn of digital age, Inquisitiveness is not just the raw intelligence to reflect humans' intellectual curiosity, it becomes the new skills need to be sharpened and focused on, to frame and co-solve common problems and co-create the better world.

Asking the right questions helps to validate how thoroughly and deeply your thinking is on a particular issue: There is a strategic value of understanding businesses and being able to ask open-ended questions that evoke responses to enlighten or illustrate specific issues or topics. The art of questioning is to ignite innovative thinking, the essential to questioning also stimulates the creative sides of our brains in order to find answers. The science of questioning is about asking the right question at the right time to the right person for the right information. It is also based on the art of listening, fact-finding, analysis, structured thinking, objective evaluation and comparison, the progressive pursuit of a better solution. The art in question is also much more about open communications, we all desire to seek and participate conversations in solving common problems and overcoming great challenges.

A good question is a halfway of problem-solving: Many times, you have to break down the status quo and break through the conventional wisdom, to keep informative and inquisitive, always challenge and ensure that the question itself is corrected before answering. Asking questions is a non-offending way of making the point not only understanding the point of view of another side. It can be used in multiple social interactions. The key point is to use the right questions to slow down the analysis and decision-making processes sufficiently to acquire all the necessary information for solving the right problem in the right way. The human imagination has proved itself appropriate for the task of providing sustainable, scientific, and engineering solutions to what we use, for what purpose, and how we go about obtaining what we require. We have a world with ever-increasing instantaneous communication and hyper-inter-connectivity, either the straight "WHAT" question to make emphasis or the logical "HOW" question to reach the detail, a good question is a halfway of problem-solving. More often, to deal with today’s ambiguity and complexity, framing a good question is more difficult than answering them technically.

The "5 WHYs," and open “WHY NOT” questions: The “5 WHYs” is an iterative question-asking technique used to explore the cause-and-effect relationships underlying a particular problem. In addition, the big “WHY” is always in the center of innovators’ question list. They not only ask deep “WHY”s to diagnose the root cause of problems but also ask the positive “WHY NOT” to spur creativity. The refusal to be bound by constraints and limitations and pursuit of possibilities rather than impossibilities seems to be a hallmark of great leadership achievements. They ask “What if we do things in a new way,” or, “How can I make things better for the whole?” The science of questions is also about fact-finding, analysis, structured thinking, objective evaluations and comparisons, the progressive pursuit of better solutions, it’s the human’s cognitive improvement.

Never stop asking questions and start asking them as early as possible at the journey of problem-solving. Whatever is said is said by an observer: so question what others say, question what you say, question what everybody seems to assume (or not) from what others say, question the hypothesis, and question the facts or the conventional wisdom too. The people with strong capabilities to solve tough problems are the ones who possess the right mind with positivity, critical thinking, creative thinking, and systems thinking. A true problem-solver enjoys understanding the complexity and guide people through it; finding common ground and initiative dialogues. Turn around the tough situations, and enjoy the challenges of complex problem-solving.

Posted in: Problem Solving,Talent Master