Hal Gregersen

Questions are places in your mind where answers fit. If you haven’t asked the question, the answer has nowhere to go

Computers are useless. They can only give you answers

All questions are the frame into which the answers fall. And . . . by changing the frame, you dramatically change the range of possible solutions

Seelig suggests that one way to reframe things is to think of someone quite different from yourself and try to adopt the perspective they would take on the situation.

What people at X have learned to recognize, however, is that the human tendency is to start digging in and making progress on whatever part of the effort is easiest.

So, just calling out that tendency and advising against it can help. The comical example Xers use is that, if the vision was to get a monkey to sit on top of a pole reciting Shakespeare, the typical team would go straight to work building that pole with its nicely balanced platform at the top. It’s the part of the problem they already know how to approach, and solving it feels and looks like momentum-building progress. But everyone knows the hard part is going to be teaching the monkey—and if that proves impossible, any time spent on other parts of the solution will turn out to have been wasted.

What are we sure is true?

You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers.

You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions.

—NAGUIB MAHFOUZ

One day, when a classmate made a brilliant comment
about a case study, he realized it came from a very different angle than his own analysis.

He made a note to himself: What question did they ask of the case that led to such a great insight?