Berger - The book of beautiful questions : the powerful questions that will help you decide, create, connect, and lead

Praise for The Book of Beautiful Questions

Warren Berger raises questioning to an art form. The Book of Beautiful Questions is a vital read for anyone who wants to excel at creativity, leadership, decision-making and interpersonal skills. Berger offers a symphony of questions that will inspire you to become your own maestro of inquiry. Frank Sesno, former CNN anchor and author of Ask More

Being an effective leader is not so much about having all the answers as asking the right questions. In The Book of Beautiful Questions , Warren Berger shows why questioning is critical to successand provides hundreds of questions that can help you be a better thinker, partner, problem-solver, and leader. Marshall Goldsmith, New York Times bestselling author of Triggers and What Got You Here Wont Get You There

The Book of Beautiful Questions gives us the power to re-imagine our lives. For those who seek to make better decisions and lead more effectively, its a transformational resource youll go back to again and again. Dorie Clark, author of Entrepreneurial You and Stand Out

Praise for A More Beautiful Question

A fascinating look at the power of questioning to ignite changein our companies, schools, careers, and in our daily lives. HuffPost

One closes Bergers book newly conscious of the significance of smart questions. The New York Times Book Review

Profound and eye-opening. The Daily Beast

Warren Berger helps you understand the power of questions to change the world. Guy Kawasaki, former chief evangelist at Apple

This potential game-changer will help readers identify where opportunities lie and how to seize them. Publishers Weekly

Demonstrates just how far an inquisitive mind can take you. Bloomberg Businessweek

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

A More Beautiful Question: The Power of Inquiry to Spark Breakthrough Ideas

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Contents

I am a questionologist.

You may be asking yourself : Is that really a thing? I asked myself that very question a few years ago. Then I did some research, which turned up hundreds of different types of ologists, ranging from the acarologist (who studies ticks and mites) to the zoologist. But searching among the Qs, I found no entry for questionologist. And this led me to inquire, Why not? Isnt the study of questions as worthy of classification as the study of ticks and mites?

My questioning then advanced from the Why not? to the What if? stageas in, What if I just declared myself a questionologist? I did so in, among other places, the pages of the New York Times . And to my surprise, no one questioned it.

I have been using the term ever since, as I visit companies (including many Fortune 500 businesses), government agencies, such as NASA, and schools from grade-school level through university. I have been invited to various gatherings of farmers, accountants, artists, scientists, soldiers, political operatives, Hollywood agents, Danish pharmaceutical executives, and Australian school teachers. The interest in questioning crosses all lines, it seems.

And it should. When we are confronted with almost any demanding situation, in work or in life, simply taking the time and effort to ask questions can help guide us to better decisions and a more productive course of action. But the questions must be the right onesthe ones that cut to the heart of a complex challenge or that enable us to see an old problem in a new light.

The Book of Beautiful Questions contains many such questionsmore than two hundred of them, covering everyday situations that range from getting out of a career rut to strengthening personal relationships. This book is about asking thoughtful questions at the right time in order to make the best choices when it matters most. It is aimed at thinkers, creators, problem solvers, and decision makers.

While there are many answer books availablethe ones declaring, Here is a four-step solution to your problem, and you can remember it via this four-letter acronymthe philosophy behind this book is different. I am suggesting that we must figure out our own solutions and answers to the complex, individualized challenges we face, in work and in our personal lives. And that we have at our disposal a natural tool to help us think and hack our way to more successful outcomes. That tool is the humble question.

I first began to appreciate the value of questions years ago, when I worked as a newspaper reporter. For me (and for journalists in general), a good, pointed question can serve as a spade for digging and unearthing bits of the truth of a story. Through the years, I tended to think of a question primarily as something you ask others in order to extract information from them. Im sure that attorneys, pollsters, psychiatrists, and other professional questioners think of questioning the same way.

But my work as a journalist also brought me into contact with inventors, entrepreneurs, business leaders, artists, and scientists, who often were the subjects of my writing. I found that many of these people tended to use the questioning tool in a different waytheir questions were often directed inward. They might be trying to solve a problem or create something original, and in doing so, were likely to begin with questions that they asked themselves: Why does this problem or situation exist? What are the underlying forces, the larger issues at play? What might be an interesting new way to come at this challenge?

This type of questioning helped lead these creative thinkers to original ideas and effective solutions. And this observation formed the basis of my previous book A More Beautiful Question , which made the case that questioning is a starting point of innovation. In that book, I showed that inventions from the instant camera to the cell phone, and startup businesses such as Netflix and Airbnb, could be traced to a beautiful questionone that shifted the current thinking, opened up a new possibility, and ultimately led to a breakthrough.

After the book came out, as I conducted press interviews, gave speeches, and engaged with audiences of readers, I found that while many agreed with the premise of the book and its Ask more questions message, there also seemed to be a hunger for something more targeted and specific. People wanted to know which questions they should be asking with regard to a particular problem they might be facing or a goal they were pursuing.

When I spoke to business leaders, for example, they tended to be most interested in questions that could help in running a company, whereas those at creative gatherings wanted to know how to ask questions that could spark ideas. Likewise with people seeking to improve personal relationships or with those grappling with difficult decisions about whether to accept a job or pursue a new passionall were seeking the questions that might help them make better choices or achieve the best results in a specific situation.