We ask a lot of questions. But which questions do we choose to answer? Which questions do we delve into? Which questions become the bases of our lifetime quests?
Both words, ‘Questions’ and ‘quests,’ have a similar origin: quaerere, to ask, seek.
What we seek depends on what we ask.
And the first things we should ask are:
- Have we asked questions relevant to what we seek?
- Have we asked questions relevant to what our audience, customers, clients, superiors, subordinates, and peers are seeking?
How we proceed in our quests count on the answers to these two (2) questions.
We have ‘Aha!’ moments every day. The ‘Ahas’ are insights to our observations or experiences. These insights lead us to answers to questions we have been thinking about.
Then again, some may not. We sometimes have insights which we have no questions to match. We end up looking for the questions these insights answer.
Nevertheless, we try to cultivate some of our insights into reality. We like to think some insights are inspirations toward new designs or inventions, which we could reap rewards from. We build products and offer services which we advertise as innovative and which we count on to boost our wealth and esteem.
Many inventions from insights, however, end up as failures because we did not connect them to problems relevant to our priorities.
But we don’t accept failure at once. As one insight fails, we look for another. We try again, only to fail once more to connect the insight to a problem that’s related to our quests. We don’t realise that it’s futile to work with solutions which don’t address issues that are of interest to us. It’s like putting the cart before the horse; the solution either goes nowhere or remains motionless, no matter how much we push it.
Sometimes, however, we get lucky; an insight we make into reality somehow prospers. We find a connection which we or our audience didn’t see at first but realised was there all along.
An example is Velcro®, invented by Swiss engineer, George de Mestral. Mr. Mestral invented Velcro’s® multiple hook & loop fasteners after wondering how cockleburs got caught on his pants while he was on a hike. He introduced the product, and it became immensely popular. Most people at the time didn’t realise they needed Velcro®, until they saw the benefit of a fastener that could easily stick & unstick things like pockets together. Velcro® became a solution to fastening things together where buttons & clasps would be more cumbersome or difficult to use. Velcro® was fortunate to succeed even though it didn’t have an obvious problem to solve when it made its debut.
The example of Velcro®, however, should not be a reason to pursue insights without first asking questions. As much as we seek ‘Aha!’ insights, we should also ask ‘Aha!’ questions. Velcro® motivated Mr. Mestral and its users to ask what it can be used for. They experienced their ‘Ahas!’ when they discovered the questions Velcro® answered, as in how to easily stick and unstick things where a button, clasp, or glue wouldn’t be feasible (e.g. inside pockets of bags, roll-up straps)
Would we create & innovate better if we first asked the questions before finding the answers?
The following is an example where this might be the case:
Mosquitoes infect thousands of people with deadly diseases (e.g., dengue, zika, encephalitis, malaria). Epidemics of mosquito-borne diseases cost communities millions of dollars in health care annually, not to mention they sicken & kill many people. Communities and governments have conducted numerous programs to rid their environs of mosquitoes, which consisted mostly of spraying pesticides, laying traps, and cleaning sewers & waterways.
Since 2016, the World Mosquito Program had been initiating a drive to infect mosquitoes with Wolbachia, a bacteria that inhibits the dengue virus. It was found that dengue illnesses were 77% lower in Wolbachia-treated communities than in others. The bacteria also showed promise in inhibiting other mosquito-borne viruses.
The WMP figured out that the problem with mosquito-borne diseases wasn’t the mosquitoes; it was the pathogens. They directed their efforts towards on how to defeat the pathogens, not the mosquito populations. The organisation, as a result, came up with Wolbachia, which targeted the virus behind dengue and discovered its efficacy can potentially extend to a wide range of pathogens. The WMP is on a long-term campaign to introduce Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes in communities around the world.
We welcome insights like Velcro® and find the questions where we can apply them to. But we should also be asking questions so that we can formulate answers which hit what we’re targeting. These include questions such as the World Mosquito Program’s asking how to eliminate the pathogens and not the carriers, the mosquitoes.
By our nature, we don’t ask too many questions as much as we come up with too many answers. Chalk it up to peer pressure or the daily constant rush that comes with our work ethics or cultures. Whenever we face a problem or a question, we try to answer them immediately. We don’t like to leave things hanging. We don’t like to have too many things on our plate. We don’t like unsolved mysteries. We brainstorm ideas so we’d have options and then we choose which looks best as a solution so that we can move on.
We see this mindset in many organisations. A manager raises a problem; the boss calls a meeting. The problem dominates the meeting’s discussion, the attendees throw ideas on the table, and the boss proposes, decides, & approves a solution. The boss assigns persons to draft action plans and approves resources for the solution. The meeting adjourns. A few months later, another (possibly similar) problem emerges, and the process repeats itself: another meeting, another discussion, another solution, another hit & miss set of action plans.
We strive to find answers, despite not asking enough questions, more specifically, the right questions, the ones which would lead to answers that matter to our goals and our priorities. Instead, because we work on so many ideas as answers, we often don’t clarify what we are truly seeking. We don’t find the best answers because we didn’t bother to ask the right questions.
We pursue ideas and insights rather than ask questions because we believe that the latter will follow as soon as we innovate and invent via the former. We don’t like asking too many questions because we don’t want to be anxious to answer them all. Dwelling on questions makes us uncomfortable and insecure as we fear not finding the answers.
We, however, can look at asking questions as an exploration, a journey of discovery. The more questions we ask, the more informed we become as we gather and analyse data. When we ask, we seek to understand, to appreciate the scale and scope of what lies behind the questions. The more we seek to know, the more things become clearer, the more we can focus on root causes, the more we can relate to what we’re asking to what are important for us. Asking questions and not being afraid to ask lead us to more ‘Aha!’ moments, even if these lead to more questions than answers.
Asking questions opens doors which lead us to more doors. We can either worry about all the doors to open or we can delight with the discoveries we will find from opening them.
“When one door closes, another door opens; but we often look so long and regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the ones which open for us.” –Alexander Graham Bell
We need to ask the right questions if we are to find the right answers, the ones that will determine how we progress in our quests.
This is my 200th essay. It is, therefore, fitting that I ask:
Have I asked as many questions as I’ve offered answers in the two hundred (200) essays I’ve published?
I submit that I did not. I confess I offered more answers and insights that not necessarily had questions to match.
We all have roles to play, causes to champion, and jobs to do. In my case, on top of my responsibilities, I have more essays to write. And in so doing, I should discover more questions to ask, and see where they lead, hopefully to answers which not only make sense, but also will help us.
Ellery's Essays 