Greg McKeown:
Welcome back, everybody. I am your host, Greg McKeown, and this is the Greg McKeown Podcast, where we break through those barriers in our own mind, in our own lives, in our relationships, in leadership.
Today, I have Warren Berger, who is many things, but among them the author of A More Beautiful Question. He is a self-described questionologist. Now, he’s written other books as well, but this is the one that we’re here to talk about because he has now written an updated version, which is more than a trivial enterprise, especially the way that he’s done it. He’s added whole sections and developed more chapters. These principles and practices can relate to almost every area of life and some in particularly relevant ways.
I challenge you in your own life, as you’re listening or watching this conversation, to not consider whether better questions, more beautiful questions, might not produce a more beautiful outcome in your life. And with that, Warren, welcome to the podcast.
Warren Berger:
Thank you.
Greg McKeown:
For those that aren’t familiar with the book A More Beautiful Question, who said that originally? How did you come to be enamored with that idea, that language, and the practice behind it?
Warren Berger:
When I was originally thinking about this book 10 years ago, I had just finished working on a book with a famous designer named Bruce Mau. Bruce Mau is known for being this incredible thinker and problem solver, and he introduced me to the concept of stupid questions. His thing was that the people who are willing to ask the stupid questions, like, “Why are we doing things the way we’re doing them?” and “What if we tried something radically different?”
He said they will often get laughed at when they first ask those questions, but those are the people who often lead change and innovation. He pointed out that all of the best designers in the world were the people asking those kinds of stupid questions. So I was originally going to go with a book about stupid questions, and then someone pointed out, you know, that’s kind of negative.
The same person, a designer named Brian Collins, said, “Have you ever thought about beautiful questions?” There’s a great line from the poet E.E. Cummings, who said, “Always the beautiful answer. Who asks a more beautiful question?” When I saw it, I said, “Wow, A More Beautiful Question. That sounds like a really good book title.” So at that point, I had a title, and all I had to do was write a book to live up to the title.
Greg McKeown:
Trivial. To find a title that is powerful and interesting.
Warren Berger:
It’s huge. Huge.
Greg McKeown:
If I had the right title, I feel like it’s half the book. I might be wrong because I’m obsessive about titles.
Warren Berger:
One of the things I had to figure out was, okay, if I’m going to call this book A More Beautiful Question, I better figure out what I mean by “beautiful question.” How do I define that? In the initial book, I was very focused on innovation and change and the kinds of questions that would lead to that. I came up with a definition that was sort of like: a beautiful question is a big, ambitious question that’s also actionable.
So it’s not so ambitious like, “How are we going to find world peace?” but it’s ambitious and also actionable. It has the potential, if you answer it, to bring about real change. That became my working definition. Then I started to look for great examples of that, like innovations where someone started with a beautiful question. For example, the way we’re doing things with taxis isn’t good enough for serving people. “What if we came up with a different way that people could access taxis?” And we call it Uber. I went back through all these stories and innovations and found that very often there was a question at the root of the story.
That became the driving focus of the original book.
Greg McKeown:
Let’s go even more basic. You’re giving us a definition for a more beautiful question, but it’s like one step more granular. What is a question? I remember thinking about questions and coming to that question as if for the first time—and being quite stumped by it. It’s a request for information.
Warren Berger:
Yes.
Greg McKeown:
So, if that’s what a question is, whether you put a question mark on it or not, there is no innovation without the question. You were able to trace back these innovative stories and case studies to say, “Well, look, that’s the question that unlocks the possibility of a new business or a new way of operating or a new product.”
Warren Berger:
Absolutely. At the most basic level, it’s the tool by which we learn. Now, if we don’t learn, we can’t do anything. So, every innovation is about learning. Somebody encounters a problem, and they have to learn how to fix it. And they also have to learn—questioning allows you to come at a problem or challenge from different angles, depending on the question you use.
So, you might use a question to figure out, “Why does this problem exist in the first place?” Then, you use a different kind of question to say, “What have people tried to do before?” Or, “What could you do differently this time?” and “What tools could you bring to bear?” and “Why am I, maybe, particularly suited to take on this challenge or problem?”
There was a great definition I came upon from this group called the Right Question Institute that said questioning is the way we attack the unknown. It’s the way we surround things that are unknown so that we can begin to know more about them. The tool that lets us get understanding and learning is the question. Depending on which question we use, it illuminates different areas—and it illuminates more or less depending on how good the question is.
Greg McKeown:
It’s a really beautiful, profound way of thinking about questions—that it’s the art and science of dealing with the unknown.
Warren Berger:
And they say one of the problems with experts is that they get trapped because they get comfortable with what they already know. They stop asking questions. They are then frozen in that state of expertise that was perfectly fine in the year where they first developed it but gradually, over time, becomes less and less valid. Right? The expert has to keep questioning.
Greg McKeown:
All of us risk becoming prisoners of our own mind—the limits of whatever we currently understand. The expert has a particular risk because they have done work to learn. They can operate for a long time within that learning, still be applauded for it, maybe even write papers, and so on. Like, they could still do a certain number of things, certainly keep giving the same keynote, you know, traveling around the same slides—like it’s… And it’s quite comfortable to remain in what we know now.
Now, why should someone start asking questions? What would be the trigger for someone who isn’t asking questions to start asking questions?
Warren Berger:
I think it’s recognizing the value of it.
Greg McKeown:
So the first question…
Warren Berger:
Well, the problem is people don’t understand why they should ask questions. They think of it as just a form of speech, no more important than any other. Like, why does a question matter more than a statement? They think it’s just this natural thing everybody does. There’s nothing special about it. They don’t see a reason to pay attention to it or devote any special effort to it.
Which is part of the reason why, when I did the original book, I spent so much of the book with these case studies to say, “Hey, this is what can come of it,” right?
Greg McKeown:
They matter.
Warren Berger:
It matters. There’s a tangible payoff. Right. For the people who are practical—I’m not necessarily talking to philosophers who are going to ask questions anyway. That’s the way their mind works. I’m talking more to practical people who say, “I don’t have time for all these questions. I’m trying to get stuff done.” What I’m trying to say to those people is, no, that’s not really the case. The questions can propel you forward.
They are very productive, particularly if you’re asking good questions. So there’s a payoff, and there’s a reason to do it. And I think that can be the trigger that gets people thinking, okay, so questions are valuable. Maybe I should work on this as a skill, or maybe I should even make it part of my identity. You know, I often say to people it’s a great identity to present yourself as a questioner because it puts you in a good light. I think it’s really good for leaders, for example, to present themselves as these open, curious questioners.
Greg McKeown:
I want to give you an opportunity to say, “Okay, this is what I think the number one reason is,” or, “Here are the three reasons one should become a questionologist.”
Warren Berger:
Okay, so the three reasons to become a questionologist. First of all, it’s going to help you get more in touch with yourself, which is really important because a lot of questioning is about figuring out what’s in your own mind and what you believe about things. What makes sense to you? What you’re trying to achieve? How you’re doing it? Are you doing it the right way? What questioning can do is almost like a check on that. You clarify in your head what your goals are, your mission. You clarify what matters and what doesn’t. So it helps you to understand your own mind. That would be one thing.
Another would be it helps you solve problems. Right. And that’s where that innovation part comes in. I’m a big believer that you can’t really innovate and solve problems unless you start with questions and attacking the problem. As we discussed, with questions, you’re asking why, what if, and how. And you’re trying to get to the root of a problem. That makes you a better problem solver and innovator.
Number three, it’s a fantastic communication tool—a way to relate to people. It’s a way to connect with people. What we’re finding in the world right now is that everybody is making statements, and our opinions and statements are colliding with each other. We’re having some communication breakdown in our world right now. I think questioning—and of course, I’m biased, being a questionologist—is the way we get through some of that, by being curious about other people and asking them to share their views with you. It can be true with your spouse. It can be true in the workplace with the people who are working with you. If you’re a leader, it can be true about opening a dialogue with the people who work for you.
Questioning is such a powerful tool for doing that because it kind of is a way to… It’s just an invitation for people to share with you. When you ask questions of people, that’s a sign of respect because you’re saying, “I’m interested. I want to know what you have to say or think.” But you have to ask questions authentically. If you’re going to use it as a communication tool, the questions have to be backed up by curiosity and listening. They can’t just be empty questions.
Greg McKeown:
So, let me summarize what I heard. Questions can unlock innovation, unlock a relationship, unlock a team, unlock your own mind and the limitations within it.
Warren Berger:
That’s one of the most important things they do.
Greg McKeown:
What does it capture?
Warren Berger:
Well, I think it wouldn’t capture, maybe, just some of the basic conversational things it can do that… you know, maybe that’s not necessarily about unlocking, but it’s about engaging. It’s just about conversing. It doesn’t have to be so profound. It can just be about questioning or a great way to get some back and forth going. So there are more basic and simple things it does that maybe aren’t as deep as unlocking. But if you say unlocking, that’s 80% of it. And the most important part of what it does.
Greg McKeown:
Now, something else you said that I thought was interesting was this idea that for some people asking questions, they’re like, “Oh, that’s slowing me down.” And what that reveals for me is that for that person they are either themselves asking or watching other people asking questions that slow people down. Of course, that’s not the only kind of question you can ask. You could ask, “How can we execute this in a tenth of the time? What is making this slower than it needs to be? What is the essence of the problem we’re trying to solve?” There are different kinds of questions—accelerating or decelerating questions. How do you categorize the types of questions, both in the book, but also in your own mind? What’s the next level of categorization that you use?
Warren Berger:
I just categorize questions based on the situation they tend to be used in or the thing they bring to a challenge or a problem. For instance, really, one of my favorite types of questions is a constraint question. Some of these I kind of made up, borrowed from other people. One of the things I observed was that you can use questioning to put constraints on things or take constraints off things. And that’s a really powerful form of questioning. The one that people might be most familiar with is the classic question where you get asked, “What would you do if you only had 24 hours to live?” That’s a constraining question because you’re putting 24 hours on it. But you can also take the constraints off, and you can say, “What if we had an unlimited budget for this project?” Now, you’re removing the constraint.
What constraint questions do is they shift reality so that you can think differently about something. What-if questions in general, which is a type of question that I like to focus on, basically shift reality. So whenever you say, “What if the whole situation is different?” or “What if we look at this as if the world was in a different place?” or “What if we couldn’t fail?” That’s a classic what-if question. You’re removing a reality, removing constraints, and allowing your mind to think in this wide-open way. You have to return to reality eventually. So you may have to acknowledge that those constraints really are there, but meanwhile, you’ve been able to think in a more creative way without the constraints there. So, I tend to label all of these different types of questions.
A counterfeit question is a question where you’re not really seeking an answer. You’re kind of posing, or you’re criticizing. “What were you thinking when you did that?” It’s a criticism in the form of a question—a statement. And people do it all the time, right? It’s one of the big things going on in our media right now. You may have heard the phrase of people “just asking questions,” these sort of provocative podcasters and people who ask really controversial, almost inflammatory questions and then say, “Oh, listen, I’m just asking questions.” What they’re doing is using the question as a way to get this controversial idea out into the world, but they don’t want to take the possible blame of saying it as an opinion or a statement, so they frame it as a question.
And I think there are stupid questions. Right? That’s a type of question, too. And, you know, because people often ask, you know, when I get into this whole questionology, they say, “Well, do you think that there’s no such thing as a stupid question?” Oh, no, there is a stupid question.
I do think that one of the things, you know, we were talking about—the impatience that some people have with questions and saying, you know, it slows things down—they think that all the value is in answers. They think everything we’re going to get is going to come from the answers we find, and they’re divorcing that from the questions, not realizing that the answers come about because questions were asked in the first place. They’re not seeing the connection; they’re reacting to stupid questions. They’ve been in meetings where someone asked a question that they thought was kind of, you know, it wasn’t going anywhere; it wasn’t really helping. And so they get impatient, and they feel like, “I don’t want to deal with those questions.”
But if you want to tap into the questioning power in your organization, you almost have to deal with those kinds of questions and get to the good questions. If you open yourself up to lots of different questions.
Greg McKeown:
Yeah. If you frame, as you have with this book, a “more beautiful question,” then, of course, it implies that there is a less beautiful question. There could be really ugly questions, so to speak. If you want high-quality questions, you have to increase the quantity of questions you’re asking.
Warren Berger:
And there will be questions that seem naive when you first hear them, that when you dig into them, you’ll realize, “Oh, wait a minute, there’s something here.” His daughter asked—he was using a standard camera where you have to send the film out—she says, “Let me see the picture.” And he says, “No, no, no, that’s not the way cameras work. The film has to be developed; it’s going to take about a week.” And she asked, “Why do we have to wait for the picture?”
So, one could say that was a very naive question at the time, right? But that question got into his head. Edwin Land, the founder of Polaroid. And it became a driving mission question for him as he created the Polaroid instant camera.
Greg McKeown:
This reminds me a little of Elon Musk’s algorithm, which he developed, particularly when Tesla committed to delivering 5,000 cars—it could be a month, or it could have been for the year, I just can’t remember now. But it was a certain deadline they had to hit in iterations of failure. He realized there’s an order we have to think through to avoid making things worse in our attempt to make them better or making no difference.
So they would automate parts of the process that later they learned shouldn’t even be in the process. So his process begins with “challenge the requirements”—make the requirements less dumb on the premise that there’s all sorts of requirements. And I think the word “requirements,” of course, is a good word for solution. Here’s all these solutions. This is the way the world works. That’s the answer to the four-year-old daughter: “Well, that’s just how it all is. This is the answer; this is the solution.”
And a good question: “But why is that the requirement? Who said so?” Let’s drive it to reality, to what we actually know, not what we are all accepting. So it seems like one way to think about the difference between a great question, a powerful question, and a less powerful question is the degree to which it gets you to the heart of the matter of what is actually real, what we actually know, and what we need to now go and learn.
Warren Berger:
I love that. I think they only get you the first step, though. The question, “Why do we have to wait for the picture?” doesn’t get you very deep. What it does is it propels you to ask other questions that then start to get you… it’s almost like the five whys, right? You start out with a very basic why question, and then you keep asking them. You’re going to get deeper and deeper. That’s what a lot of great questions can do. It’s not that the question tells you that much in and of itself, but it’s a trigger.
And it’s interesting when you mentioned about requirements; Steve Jobs was asked at one point, “What is the most important thing you learned about running a company?” And he said one of the most important things he learned was to go around to every department of the company, look at what they’re doing, and ask, “Why are we doing it this way?” And it would cause people to say things like, “Well, that’s the way we’ve been doing it.” He would always challenge them to question that and say, “Even if we’ve been doing it for a few years, why does it make sense right now? Why does it make sense today?” On the how questions, right? “How are we going to meet the requirement?”
Greg McKeown:
Right.
Warren Berger:
Okay, we have to do this. “Why do we have to do it five times in a week? Why do we have to do this?” Framework—business people tend to be how people, right? We want to execute; we want to get it done. We are very practical. So, we focus on the most practical question, which is how. But we really should be asking why because we got to figure out the rationale. We got to figure out whether it makes sense or not. Once we figure that all out, then we can get to how.
I tend to go through why, what if, and how as a cycle of questioning. Because you want to start with the reason and the understanding. Then you want to get to the practical stuff: “How much is it going to cost?”
Greg McKeown:
Okay. I’m taken with this idea of why what if, how is the why question sort of always looking back? Because we’re saying, “Okay, we’re doing X, why are we doing X? It’s almost a historical question of inquiry in a way, because you’re going, well, this is the reality I have today. Let’s go back to try and understand it.”
Warren Berger:
What I would say, Greg, instead of looking back, use the word underlying. Why is about underlying. The underlying reasons for something could be your history, but underlying could also be the motives of people when they’re trying to do something, and they’re not able to do it. It’s the thing beneath the surface that originally caused this thing or is causing it right now. Underlying reasons, underlying motivations, underlying problems. You need to uncover the problem behind the problem.
Greg McKeown:
Yeah. That leads me to maybe a better term than past. It’s cause. I’m just trying to work out, when you think about that structure, what if the future. Right. That’s the possibility. Hey, we don’t have to carry on doing it this way. It could be done this way. We could think about it differently and so on. The what if is basically future, but certainly different. And then the how is, okay, well, if we did it differently now, what new how?
Warren Berger:
So a simple way to think about it is when I was working through this framework, I was looking at basic theories of creativity. I also looked at design thinking. All of these things have stages, right? And the stages can be boiled down often to three stages. The first stage is understanding. The second stage is imagining or envisioning. And the third stage is doing or building. So I match up those three questions, why, what if? And how, to those three stages.
Why is about understanding. Okay, I want to understand this problem or this situation. Why is it happening? Why should I care? What if is about envisioning or imagining? Okay, I understand the problem. Now, I need to start using my imagination to think of alternate realities or possibilities. And that’s where I’m asking, okay, what if we tried this? What if we tried that? How do we get started? How do we take the first steps?
I think it’s kind of cyclical. Understand, imagine, do. And then it’s always cycling all over again. Once you come up with the innovation, you oftentimes have to cycle through it again because there’s a problem with it. And the cycle starts all over again.
Greg McKeown:
No. So I really like this, but I just am trying to work out if there’s a bit more definition to that, you know, understand what? Because, you know, understand is itself immense. Right? So, let’s take the first extreme. It can’t be to understand everything, right? So that can’t be the more beautiful question. So we’re trying to understand
Warren Berger:
Root causes?
Greg McKeown:
Root causes would be, yeah, that’s an answer.
Warren Berger:
It’s multiple things you’re trying to understand at the same time.
Greg McKeown:
I’m trying to break those down into the main pieces.
Warren Berger:
I think one would be root causes. One would be rationale. You know, we’re trying to understand the rationale for this problem being worth thinking about and taking on. So, rationale is a big part of it, too. And you’re trying to understand even, “Is it the right problem? Are we focused on the right thing?” So all of that, to me, is kind of about figuring out reason, rationale, and underlying causes—sort of the gist.
I now understand the problem. I get why it happened, I get why it’s important, I get why it matters to people. I get why this might be a great problem for us to take on because we have certain capabilities, and it matches up nicely with this problem. All of that, to me, comes into the why. And once you’ve got your arms around that, you’ll know, “Okay, this is a problem that we can take on.”
We understand what’s missing; we understand all that stuff. Now, we can start to move forward. And now we’re ready to brainstorm.
Greg McKeown:
I’m still asking for a very particular thing, and not because your answer was wrong in my mind. It’s just there’s one more level of precision. Because what you described, how I heard it, was stage one in that ongoing process—the why step is to understand. And what I heard you say was understand the problem. And it’s a nontrivial thing to me to say, is that right? Because not everything we’re trying to understand is a problem. Or is it?
Warren Berger:
Yeah, I’m right now talking in the field of business innovation. Oftentimes in the field of innovation, it’s about problem finding and problem solving—identifying problems and clarifying what is the problem. I tend to zero in on that.
Greg McKeown:
So, would you describe the why step as understanding the problem? Problem finding.
Warren Berger:
Problem finding and problem clarifying.
Greg McKeown:
Problem finding and problem clarifying. And then what if—now we’re moving into problem-solving.
Warren Berger:
We’re moving into problem-solving, but only at that stage. At the very imaginative, creative, blue sky, you know, we’re not practical yet. And so I think of the how stage as now we’re putting on our practical hat, and now’s where the rubber meets the road. Right.
I think we could talk about the why questioning going beyond problems in lots of ways. When we get into critical thinking and questioning—questioning your own, the way you think about issues or making decisions.
Now, the why part might be less about problems. It’s not necessarily about understanding a problem. It could be about understanding a mindset or an attitude that you have. “Why do I tend to think the way I think about this certain issue?” Now, you’re trying to unlock or dig into underlying causes for why you might have certain biases or certain ways of thinking.
Greg McKeown:
I remember taking a course from somebody who’s an author, a screenwriter. He’s done some really famous shows. And one of the things that he said is when you’re trying to set up a story, you have to—you’re sort of playing with these two forces. It always has to include what does somebody want, and what’s in the way of getting there.
Warren Berger:
Right.
Greg McKeown:
And those two things create a tension.
Warren Berger:
Yeah.
Greg McKeown:
And it’s the combination that makes the rest of the story interesting. You don’t care until the tightrope is there. He didn’t want to write the rest of the story until he finds that tension. It’s not trivial to me because I don’t think the why is just about the problem. I think it has to be about the tension between somebody wanting something and something that’s keeping them from it. Right. Which we would describe as the problem.
And then they’ll say, well, you have problems or opportunities. And I’m always like, what do you mean? Is it a problem? Is it an opportunity? These are different things. But I think you’re trying to understand the tension. What is it that we’re saying we want—the thing that the obstacle is to what we want—and then we’re questioning all of it.
Warren Berger:
Yeah. Well, I love the tension part. I think that’s really interesting. When you’re asking why, you’re trying to ask, “Why is there tension?” or “What’s causing that tension?” Right. You’re trying to get at what is that tension? The obstacles, the things that are in the way, can feed into the next stage—the what-if stage. You can then ask what-if questions around those tensions and obstacles. So you identify, okay, we figured out one of the things getting in the way, one of the things causing this problem. People don’t like to do this. So then you can frame your what-if questions about, “What if we could take obstacle A out of this problem or find a way to deal with that obstacle?”
I just want to say the propulsive nature of this is so important. The idea that why questions can propel you towards what-if questions, which can then propel you towards how questions—that is so important. Because one of the things people are afraid of with questioning is paralysis. They’re afraid that if we start asking why questions, it’s going to be like a philosophy class, just going round and round—“Why? Why? Why? Why?”—and we’ll never get any answers.
And so one of the things that I say to people is, well, you have to approach questioning as something propulsive. You want it to be moving forward. So, if you find you’re stuck asking why questions forever, it’s time to move to a new stage. Start asking what-if questions. Start asking a different type of question because the goal is not to get trapped in a philosophical circle. The goal is to be having your questions move forward.
Greg McKeown:
And I think if you think about the why questions as just looking at the problem side of the tension, saying, “What are we doing?” That seems to be the tightrope to me.
Warren Berger:
Right, right.
Greg McKeown:
And underneath those three grand narrative questions, there are so many questions you can ask that will be more precise in whatever situation you’re in. I can’t escape the necessity for asking why questions around those three time horizons—past, present, and future. Maybe you add one more, which is, “Okay, what’s keeping us back from getting there? You know, what’s making it hard to achieve the result we are looking for in the future?”
They all have to be framed like that. And then we have to tug on them, just like the author. Right? We have to tug on them and go, “Is that true? Is the story we have of the past—like, is that really real? And the story that we’re telling about where we are now—is that real? And is the story we’re telling about the future really what we’re supposed to be trying to achieve? Is that the outcome?” Because underneath the answers to those questions are all of the stories.
And sure, stories could be accurate, but that’s where lots of the assumptions play.
Warren Berger:
Yeah, so you’re talking about questioning the questions because that’s really important. You have to keep going deeper. Right. Like, “What is our story? But is that really the story? What does that story mean? What does that story signify?” And you’re not going to get to it unless you’re willing to take the time and the effort to really ask not only the questions but the follow-up questions. Follow-up questions, to me, might be the most important type of question out there.
Greg McKeown:
Next question.
Warren Berger:
Yeah, that type of follow-up questioning is so important and critical for just digging deeper and encouraging other people to dig deeper—maybe the people you’re working with—asking them, “What else? How can we go deeper on that?”
Greg McKeown:
There’s a paper that introduced this metaphor in a published scenario about interpersonal dialogue and exchange. And they likened it to the onion. And this is the paper that talks about self-disclosure and the importance of, well, you share this thing with me—that something challenging has happened in your life—and then I reciprocate that by sharing something in my life. And backwards and forwards we are going, and the metaphor is the onion that you’re going layer by layer, closer to the core.
At the surface, you have what is safe and trivial. At the very center, you have what is vulnerable and extremely valuable. And so when you say deeper, it’s deeper with purpose and precision because you’re trying to get to the heart of it. You’re trying to get to where the ratio of truth to words is greater. The core assumptions, the really deep assumptions people want to protect being held onto. I think that is one of the reasons why people don’t want to do this because it is so vulnerable.
What happens if we get down there and discover that the whole initiative, the whole thing, is a waste of time? It takes courage to ask great questions. It takes a willingness to be unpopular because people, you know, it’s much more comfortable to stay stuck in your head and how you see it right now.
Warren Berger:
It also can be confrontational. So when we’re talking about interpersonal questioning, it’s tough because you do want to peel the onion. But as you do that, people are feeling peeled naked. How do you do that in a way that is acceptable to people and doesn’t cause them to be defensive?
Greg McKeown:
What’s your answer to that?
Warren Berger:
One of the first things you have to do is make it clear to those people that you’re coming from a place of curiosity and learning, as opposed to judgment.
Greg McKeown:
How might you actually say that? If we were working together on a project, what might you say to me before you start getting into all the questions?
Warren Berger:
I use this framework of a question sandwich. The question is in the middle of a sandwich where you lead with curiosity and end with rationale. The question itself is, “Why are you doing things the way you’re doing them?” If you ask that question by itself, it puts people on edge. They think, “Oh, he’s saying I’m a fool.” If you lead with curiosity, it can be as simple as saying, “I’ve been wondering about something,” or, “I’m curious about something.” You have to express curiosity in some way.
The best way you can think of to do it—the simplest way—is to say, “I’m curious,” or, “I’ve been wondering about something.” It’s just to express that idea of curiosity in some way. Then, the question. And the rationale is, “And the reason I ask is because I’ve been dealing with this issue myself, and we’ve been having problems with this or that.” You’re reinforcing that there’s a very good reason for this question.
“The reason I’m asking is we really need as an organization to deal with this question. We really need to figure this out. This is not a random question where I’m trying to get on your case about something. This is a question that is being asked with a purpose and with good reason. And also out of curiosity, I’m curious to know why you chose this approach.” If you can convey that to people, then it can take the confrontational edge out of questioning.
Otherwise, people are going to get defensive.
Greg McKeown:
What you just described had a few pieces to it, even more than the original sandwich description. That’s like step one. Step two was, “And because,” whatever the reason is—because I don’t know the answer to this question or because this is—
Warren Berger:
It cuts to an issue we’re dealing with.
Greg McKeown:
Then you said, which may be in the original design, but it seemed like it was an addition spontaneously here. So, to be explicit about what your intent is not, then you’re asking the question.
Warren Berger:
I would tend to separate. I would lead with curiosity: “I’m curious.” Then, ask the question. And then do rationale: “The reason I ask you that is because…” And that’s where you could put in, “I’m not…” there, too. “The reason I ask you that is because this is a really important issue for us, and we’re trying to deal with it.” Because you’ve used the curious thing to soften the ground a little bit, then get in there and ask the question.
Now do a little bit of reinforcement to make sure the person is not taking it the wrong way.
Greg McKeown:
So, the only thing we would be distinguishing between the normal sandwich system and what we’ve just discussed is the rationale. And be explicit about what it isn’t.
Warren Berger:
What you’re not doing. Yeah, clarifying the rationale.
Greg McKeown:
I push on it because the psychological impact of loss aversion is so much greater than potential gain. What someone’s really wondering about is, “Well, how can this hurt me? What is the loss here?”
Warren Berger:
Okay.
Greg McKeown:
And so that’s good. That’s one of the strongest single phenomena. The meta-study on that is so clear and strong—five times more important, the sense of loss aversion than possible gain psychologically.
Warren Berger:
Yeah. The other thing, by the way, is when you ask difficult questions of people, you have to give them time to answer. Because a lot of people, when faced with a challenging question, can’t always answer it off the cuff for real. So what you may have to do is, after you’ve done the whole question sandwich and invited them, if they are still having trouble with it, you may want to say, “Well, I’d like you to think about that, and maybe we can come back and discuss it later.”
Greg McKeown:
One of the sections you have is The Questioning Leader. And I think this speaks to that subject area. How might we create a culture of inquiry versus a culture of advocacy? My experience with this as a leader—more than even working with other leaders in coaching them—in my own leadership, I can hugely overestimate other people’s comfort level with questions. If it’s not the way that they’re operating if it’s not something they do every day.
I’m connecting two parts of your book—Why We Stop Asking Questions and Being a Questioning Leader. Why do people stop asking questions? You know, this is, I think, chapter two in the book, but early on in the book. Go ahead.
Warren Berger:
First of all, one of the amazing things—and we’re all pretty aware of it, I think, by now—is that kids are incredible questioners, right? Studies show a four-year-old girl is asking hundreds of questions a day, and a four-year-old boy is not far behind. Then something happens. As kids are going through school, the questions start to come down. It doesn’t mean they’re not wondering about questions in their mind, but the questions they’re willing to articulate are going way down.
So why is that happening? I think some of the main reasons are you become aware of peer pressure as you’re growing older. You associate asking questions with vulnerability and with not knowing. You are afraid that you will be made fun of for not knowing. You’re afraid you’ll ask the wrong question. So, all of this vulnerability. But then, in addition to that, we can point the finger a little bit at our school system—our education system—which is totally based on answers.
Greg McKeown:
If the whole system’s based on answers, you’re only rewarded for answers. Right. Now we’re moving on.
Warren Berger:
I would say those are the two main forces driving it. One is the social pressure, and the other is what we’re rewarded for. In our education system, we’re rewarded for knowing or memorizing the answers, which we’re realizing now—without really knowing maybe what to do about it—but we’re realizing what an antiquated system that is, right? Kids take it in, and they believe that the answers are what are going to make them look good.
With their peers and to get them credit in school. And so questions begin to fall away, especially for teenagers. The third factor is, as we know more, we ask less. We start to accept these mental models as reality and don’t question as much as we used to. When everything was open to question—everything was new, everything was fresh—by the time we’re teenagers, we’re asking less. When we’re adults in the workplace, we’re subject to those same pressures: peer pressure and the idea that questions aren’t valued. It has the same effect on us as adults in the workplace.
So, if you’re a leader looking to create a culture of inquiry, you have to reverse this trend that has been happening for decades in people’s lives. And it is not an easy thing to do. You have to start by putting a very strong message out there that we are a culture that totally values questions, that will try to encourage and maybe even reward questions.
Greg McKeown:
How would you reward questions?
Warren Berger:
It could be a matter of saying, “This person came up with one of the best questions this week, and we want to share it with the whole company,” and just sort of celebrating the questions that are asked—saying that we’re going to work on these questions. Being receptive to questions when they are offered as challenges. Employees may ask, “Well…” You know what happens a lot of times—either they get shut down right away because nobody wants to deal with that question or the problem, or even worse, sometimes they’re told, “Okay, you solve it. We’re going to put that on your plate. You raised that question. We’re going to put that on your plate.” Now, the person isn’t necessarily equipped or ready to deal with that question. They just wanted to put it out there. So we have ways—
Greg McKeown:
You’re punished with the responsibility.
Warren Berger:
Yeah, you’re punished. And so you should accept that question and say, “Okay, this is a valid question. We have to work on this as an organization.”
Greg McKeown:
Should mission statements be mission questions?
Warren Berger:
I’ve been trying to get companies to do it. I worked with Starbucks for a while on this, and they ended up staying with their mission statement. It’s interesting because if a company is trying to say, “We want to create a culture of inquiry where everybody is asking questions,” one of the most powerful ways you could demonstrate that would be by saying, “We’re going to take our mission statement and frame it as a question to show how much we believe in the power of questions.”
Greg McKeown:
What would that look like? Give me the question version.
Warren Berger:
All right, I’m going to go away from Starbucks because I don’t want to get too much into their specifics. But let’s do a hypothetical. A robotics company, right? And their mission statement is something like, “We make the world a better place through robotics.” Something like that. One of those very banal mission statements, which many of them are. So, “We make the world a better place through robotics.” Okay, so what if you change that into a mission question? You would simply say something like, “How might we make the world a better place through robotics?”
Now, does that matter that you changed it from a statement to a question? Well, I would argue that it does, and here’s why. Because when you say that as a statement—“We make the world a better place”—it just sounds like an advertising claim. It sounds like a boast. It doesn’t really sound real. By changing it into a question—“How might we do that?”—you add some humility to it. You turn it into a thing that has not been done already, but has to be done. It is by definition then a mission.
We’re trying to figure out how to do it, and we’re always trying to figure out how to do it. The third thing it does is it invites people to work on it. It’s open; it’s a question. So now it is an invitation to your people to say, “What do you think? How would we answer this question? What are some ways we could add to this question?” I see a mission question as an open challenge that you share with your people instead of a statement that you lay on them.
As you know, this has already been decided.
Greg McKeown:
So, let’s go with SpaceX, right? It has a mission statement that everybody knows inside and outside the company. Most mission statements are so general and so wordsmith that you don’t know what they mean anymore. That’s my take on it now. So, their mission—colonize Mars. Like, you can use various criteria for that. Like you’d know if you’d done it. It’s different than getting to Mars. It’s different than, “Hey, we’re going to do lots of space exploration,” some very general statement, and so on.
Warren Berger:
It could be as simple as, “How might we colonize Mars in a way that opens up new possibilities or improves lives for everyone on Earth?” You’re turning it into a mission question, and it’s an open question. You could choose to make it even more ambitious, encompassing more parts of the mission. The mission question could be simple, but it could also be, “How might we do X while also making sure we do Y and avoiding the problem of doing Z?”
All of that could be part of one multi-part question that is the mission and that addresses not only the goal but the possible obstacles and the challenges along the way—it could all be part of the question. I love clunky, multi-part, compound questions that incorporate the problem and the obstacles into the question.
Greg McKeown:
I mean, there’s two different things there. One is just hearing you describe multi-part and so on. That’s not the distinguishing feature, as far as I can see, between a mission statement and a mission question because a mission statement could also have multi-parts to it, as many do. So that’s not the distinguishing issue. The distinguishing issue of posing it as a question—“How can we colonize Mars in our lifetime?”—is an invitation. It’s an invitation. Now, it’s inherent in the term “colonize Mars.” The question is implicit and raises another question, which is: Does a mission question have to have a question mark at the end of it in order for it to be a question?
Warren Berger:
Don’t make it an implicit question. Instead of making it an implicit question, I would make it an explicit question. Just because questions are really good at inviting people, and we respond well to questions. If you just say, “To colonize Mars,” you’ve left off the interesting beginning part of the question, which is the how or why. I’m in favor of making it an explicit question because then it becomes an explicit invitation to people in your organization to think about, “Well, how are we going to do that?”
By not doing that, you suggest that Elon already has the answer. I would prefer to be explicit about saying, “No, we don’t have the answer. We are open to lots of ideas on this.”
Greg McKeown:
I don’t see any reason why framing it as a question—if, in the act of turning it into a question, you add so much complexity or ambiguity or too many objectives that you then muddy the goal—then okay, then that could make it worse. But simply taking a very clear mission statement and framing it slightly differently as a question, I just don’t see any downside. I can only really see upside.
Warren Berger:
Yeah, I don’t think there’s a downside. The upsides are engagement and humility. The SpaceX one isn’t bad as mission statements go, but there are a lot of mission statements that are very static. They feel like we’ve already done this, and we’re declaring, “This is who we are; we are the best at this.” And so if you do that, there’s no mission there. If you’re saying you’ve done it already, there’s no mission.
By making it an open question, you’re reminding people, “This is a mission. We’re actually not there yet.” That takes some humility, too, because it’s an admission that we’re not there yet.
Greg McKeown:
No, I agree. It adds humility, but it also takes pressure off, too. I think there’s something about that that’s very appealing because you’re saying, “Look, how can we colonize Mars?” Because that’s what we’re talking about in our lifetime. There’s pressure in it, but it sort of allows for—it takes off the pressure for needing to know the answer already. “Hey, that’s the mission. But we’re not saying we know how to do it, that we’ve done it.”
That’s why you’re all here, to figure this out.
Warren Berger:
But of course, now we get into the whole thing of confidence. Whether we’re talking about the mission statement or the style of a leader, it’s all about do you have the confidence to do that? Do you have the confidence to say, “No, our mission statement isn’t already answered,” or, “No, as the leader, I don’t have all the answers.” This takes a certain kind of confidence. In some organizations, it’s not there yet.
In some leaders, it’s not there yet. To me, there’s an old model they’re still operating by, which is that we’re going to put on this front that we figured it out. “See, our mission statement says we figured it out.” And that’s why you can trust that you can follow whatever I have to say. That old model is still hanging in there. And that’s why some companies and some leaders would have trouble with the questioning model, because it’s asking them to be vulnerable. It’s asking them to be confident enough to admit that they don’t know and still be confident that people will follow them anyway.
Greg McKeown:
Well, and then there’s basically no mission statements that are actually mission questions, right? Like, that isn’t the norm in the industry for whatever reasons.
Now, I mean, you said that you were trying to encourage Starbucks to do this, and I get that you don’t want to share details about that, but what can you say, generally speaking, about why they chose not to do it in the end?
Warren Berger:
Well, what they chose to do instead was to use it in different mission questions in different parts of the company. But I don’t think they felt, externally, with what they wanted to go out there to the world, “This is who we are. This is what we’re about.” I mean, there’s a logic to that, but I almost think it’s more important the way I’ve been talking about it as an invitation. If we talk about the external value of a mission statement, I’m not sure the question is going to make that big a difference.
I think internally, in terms of rallying your people and what you want to say to them, that’s where the question is really powerful.
Greg McKeown:
Well, it depends because I’m with you on the basic logic there. Internally, it makes sense because you are asking everybody to think for a living and help you understand and solve problems holding us back from that mission. So that makes sense. But the question left unanswered for me is, what relationship do you want with your customers? And I suppose it has to include, in this instance, the stock market.
What relationship do you want to have with them? Do you believe that those people can help you fulfill your mission? Is there downside to it? You want people in the stock market to go, “Why are they asking that question?” So maybe that’s the reason you wouldn’t do it.
Warren Berger:
One of the things I’ve noticed is that questions have become really popular in commercials, with companies asking the consumer a question like, “What do you really want to do with your life?” or, “Who do you really want to be?” Or they’re just framing all kinds of different questions in ads now, which wasn’t the case some years ago. So it’s really gotten to be a thing—asking consumers a lot of questions.
Greg McKeown:
But it’s a good segue to the final section of your book, which is questioning for life. And the final question I want to have you respond to is, how will you find your beautiful question? Implying here that we’re now beyond mission questions for a corporation or for a team, but for life. You know, could you have a mission question for your life?
Warren Berger:
Yeah, I think maybe I won’t put it in quite as grand a term as saying you like the question for your life because that sounds like too much pressure. But it could be just the question that you’re going to pursue this year, the question that is going to become a driving thing for you in the days ahead. I think we can frame a question for ourselves just as a company could frame a mission question. We can frame a question about, “How might I, in the next year, find a way to tap into my creativity more?” Or, “How might I become a bigger part of my community?” You can look around at what’s going on in your life or that you care about right now. You can think of things that resonate with you and then build your question off of that. It could be as simple as a habit you’re trying to change. One of the things I talk about is, don’t do a New Year’s resolution. Do a New Year’s question.
Questions are more engaging. They’re more inviting. If you ask yourself, “How might I get myself to drink more water in the coming year?” it can be more effective than declaring, “I’m going to drink more water.” And there actually have been a couple of studies on this that have shown, yeah, it does. When people are trying to change a behavior, it can be more effective when they ask themselves a question as opposed to making a statement.
It gives your mind a puzzle to work on. You know, you ask yourself a question like, “How might I drink more water?” Well, then, when you’re in the shower, that question has kind of been percolating in your brain, and you’ll suddenly say, “Hey, what if I did this?” It’s like your brain works on questions even when you’re not thinking about it. A question can get into your subconscious, and then you’re going to get ideas. It’s actually an effective way to change behaviors—to ask yourself questions and mull them over time.
But then also, it can be a mission. It can be a driving purpose that you’re going to do. You can share questions with other people. If you’re working on a question, “How might I do X or Y?” you can share that with other people much easier than you can share a statement. If you share a statement, “I’m going to do X,” why does someone need to hear that? But if you share it as, “Gee, I’m wondering how I can do a better job,” well, you’ll get ideas from people. They’ll tell you stuff.
Greg McKeown:
People will just jump in and love that they’ve been invited to.
Warren Berger:
They’ve been invited.
Greg McKeown:
That brings us full circle back to this idea about how you love multi-part questions. Because then you’re giving precise instructions. If you’re using GPT, if you give it a very precise question, “I want this, but without that, into this amount of time, in this number of words,”
Warren Berger:
You’re giving yourself prompts.
Greg McKeown:
Yes, exactly. How effective is your prompt creation for your own mind so that it can now actually solve the problem that you want to solve?
Well, this has been a pleasure. This is the original questionologist here now with the fully revamped, updated version of what was already a marvelous book with a marvelous title and a marvelous intent—A More Beautiful Question. Give us a final word.
Warren Berger:
Think about finding your own beautiful question to pursue. If you aim to become a questionologist and want to learn more, I’ve created a storehouse of information about questioning on my website. Go to amorebeautifulquestion.com. There’s all kinds of stuff. There’s even a fun section which has a hundred songs that have a question for a title. People seem to love that. So yeah, but A More Beautiful Question site is a great place to learn more on this subject.
Greg McKeown:
Warren Berger, thank you for being on the podcast.
Warren Berger:
Greg, it was a pleasure.
Greg McKeown:
Thank you to everybody listening or watching. What is one thing that stood out to you? What is a new insight that you have that you can share with somebody else now that this conversation is coming to a close? And what is something that you can do immediately to implement what you’ve been learning about? If you don’t do anything else, I would encourage you to read A More Beautiful Question. Just increase the number of questions you’re asking in your life.
Thank you for listening.
