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Chapter Fourteen

ACTION 7
Asking Questions
That Spark Energy

People who Glow are adept at asking questions that spark energy, which requires courage and focus.

When you are able to engage with your own passion and beliefs, you become a source of energy for yourself and others. This energy is radiated to others as you Glow and ignites Hot Spots of innovation in your work community.

Look back at your igniting latent energy profile in Figure 13.1. It will help you understand where you are now with regard to asking the big, bold questions that generate energy. Also recall how Ratan Tata reached inside of himself and into his personal history and beliefs to find a question that was meaningful both to him and to everyone around him. His question “Why can’t we create the one-lakh car?” was audacious, but it was not complex. In fact, it was a question that even a child could ask.

Think about how many times you have not asked a question because you thought it was too dumb or too simple. As Ratan Tata found, even the simplest of questions can have a profound impact. You can imagine that at the time some commentators probably thought that Tata—then in his early seventies—had lost his mind, that his proposal was simply the foolish ramblings of an older man. Yet because Tata was prepared to ask this question over and over and never deviate from it, people began to take him seriously.

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In many ways this was a perfect igniting question because it was not too small, too obvious, or too inconsequential. This was a big, important, and meaningful question and had the potential to resonate with a diverse group of people. It’s vital that igniting questions have multiple perspectives and can engage the interests of all sorts of people.

Igniting questions have always been marvelous creators of energy and innovation. There are times in the history of the world when whole communities have raised such questions. For example, the rise of romanticism in eighteenth-century Europe revitalized the then moribund Continent and paved the way for a dazzling burst of creativity in literature, the arts, the sciences, and philosophy. During this time, thinkers from Rousseau to Byron asked big, broad, igniting questions. What helped in this age of Enlightenment was that not only was it legitimate to ask big questions, but there was a whole infrastructure that had arisen to provide a forum for conversation. In salons and coffee houses in Vienna and Berlin, in Paris and Amsterdam, people talked, and many of the most profound contributions of that period arose from their conversations.

But how often in our lives of pragmatism do we simply focus on the day-to-day reality of living, eschewing broad “meaning of life” questions as irrelevant or a waste of time?

Reflect on how much your own focus on day-to-day work and solving immediate problems has resulted in your delegitimized deep, overarching questions. Do you feel that sometimes you have a preference for dealing with specifics and immediacies, perhaps in the belief that taking care of the parts will take care of the whole?

It seems to me that if you really want to Glow, the viselike grip of relentless pragmatism needs to be softened by the invigorating spirit of romanticism. Big, broad questions must be legitimized again as a driver of the constant endeavor not only to execute for today but also to renew for tomorrow.

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As you ref lected on Ratan Tata’s story, you may have thought, “Well, that’s fine for him. He is the head of an enormous company with extraordinary wealth, vast resources, and a history of philanthropy. What about me and my meager resources?” That’s a legitimate reaction to the Tata story; he is indeed a man of immense resources. But you don’t need immense resources to ignite latent energy by asking bold questions. In the story that follows, you will see how Johanna, with very few resources, went on to build an innovative and exciting job around having the courage to ask audacious questions.

The Story of a Creative Agency

I met Johanna early in her career before she went on to become the founder of a successful recruitment and selection business specializing in creative talent. Johanna was determined to succeed—she really wanted to be someone who radiated energy and Glowed. Using some of the techniques we will discuss later in this chapter, Johanna learnt to ask the big, audacious questions and from this draw out an inspiring vision. Here are some of the questions she asked at the very beginning that inspired her to Glow:

Johanna asked these questions of pretty much everyone she met and listened carefully to the conversations that ensued. She kept asking these questions even as she began to grow the business. Over time she developed a vision for the future of her business. Here is her initial vision:

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This is a great vision—it resonates with Johanna’s personal beliefs, it is capable of generating meaning for her and her colleagues, and it has a sense of possibilities. These questions and the vision that Johanna created became the focal point for an energized Hot Spot in which Johanna and her staff Glowed. As the community grew, the vision and questions became the rallying point for igniting latent energy—just as Ratan Tata’s vision had ignited the development of the Nano car. In Johanna’s business, whatever her staff worked on, they always knew that their unique approach was to support and manage the careers of talented creative people.

Whether you realize it or not, you have big, igniting questions within your reach and inspiring visions in your head. The challenge is to form and access these questions and visions—and then to communicate them in a way that others find compelling and motivating.

To understand this point, let’s take a closer look at what Johanna did. Like many of us, Johanna was not brought up to ask audacious questions. She grew up believing that the big questions were not her concern—either she didn’t know enough or she should already know the answers or she should wait for someone else to ask them. From kindergarten onward, she was encouraged, as most children are, to rein in her natural talent to ask big questions. So to dare to ask the big, audacious questions as an adult, she had to jettison a lifetime of habits and replace them with new ones.

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How much like Johanna are you? Are there times when you feel it is not your place to ask big questions? By steering away from big questions, you are significantly reducing the possibility of Glowing in Hot Spots.

So what are you going to do? Johanna was determined to create energy and excitement in her life. She knew instinctively that she would have to be inventive about the world. This is what Johanna did: She became a skilled hunter of information treasures. She created time and space for conversations. She cultivated her “third place”—a place beyond work and home. And she developed new rules. Together these four broad actions enabled her to ask the questions that became important to her personal development and the development of her business.

Hunting for Information Treasures

The questions Johanna asked were pretty tough, and to get to them, she had to broaden her thinking and conversations significantly. She did this in three ways. First, she made a habit every day to expose herself to an ever wider variety of information and stimuli. For example, she joined a pottery class and a yoga retreat so that she could generate independent and insightful thoughts about creativity. Next, she began to read more widely and made sure she did not limit herself to topics that were already familiar to her. By learning how others saw these issues, she was in a better position to widen her base of questions. For example, she began to read Marketing Weekly and one of the arts magazines. She also began to read the Economist to get a better understanding of current business issues. Finally, Johanna began to build stronger connections with experts in fields very different from her own. For example, she made the acquaintance of one of the professors at the Royal College of Art and made a point of going to its graduation celebrations, where she spent time talking with the graduates to get a sense of their career aspirations (and perhaps give them some pointers). She also made it a habit to keep in touch with people who knew more than she did. So she joined an entrepreneurship network and met a couple of established entrepreneurs, whom she asked to be her mentors.

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If you want to ask the big, audacious questions, you must, as Johanna did, search for information treasures. What will help you come up with the sparking questions? Here are three actions you can take now to make sure you find those nuggets.

Actions to take now to find information treasures

Action 7.1 Opening up to new experiences. Johanna widened her experiences by joining a couple of classes that she probably would not have done in the past and with people who are different from her and are likely to have the creative perspective that she is keen to develop. Take another look at the possible avenues in Action 5, jumping out of the boundaries that constrain you, and Action 6, finding and moving to boundaryless places, to see what you can do to broaden your experience (see Chapters Eleven and Twelve). Remember, though, that Johanna had some insight into the sorts of places and people who were most likely to yield information treasures; she knew that creative situations and creative people could be the stimulus for a sparky question. So as you think about broadening your experiences, keep in mind a sense of the broad themes that you believe your questions should be addressing.

Action 7.2 Engaging in focused reading. Books, blogs, and Web sites all are great hunting grounds for the information treasures that could really trigger a question. Again, think about the broad themes you are interested in (Johanna’s were creative people and entrepreneurial acumen, among others), and research where you can learn more about them. Identify the two sources of information that you believe will broaden your knowledge most, and commit to reading these sources on a regular basis.

Action 7.3 Connecting with experts. Johanna took her creative values and ideas forward by deliberately finding occasions to meet with creative experts. That’s why she started to hang out at the Royal College of Art and with the entrepreneurial network. She figured that both these communities would be great sources of information treasures. Glance back at Figure 10.2 in Chapter Ten and in particular look at Quadrant 3. As you review your communities, ask yourself whether any of them are allowing you to connect with people who are experts in the areas you are interested in developing. If not, identify two communities that have experts in them, and work out a plan for connecting with these communities.

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The risk, of course, is that by broadening your thinking and asking more incisive questions, your constant questioning will lead to a highly politicized environment of second-guessing and point-scoring. The antidote to that risk is a relentless focus on what it is you and your colleagues are working on—in other words, a focus on purpose—to challenge each other vigorously but always in an appropriate way.

Creating Time and Space for Reflection

As I watched Johanna over the years, I could see that lack of time would be a real pitfall for her. She knew that she needed to broaden her knowledge, but at the same time, the minutiae of her day-to-day life often seemed to overwhelm her. Do you ever feel overwhelmed by the minutiae of your life? I know for myself that lack of time and appropriate space is one of the greatest barriers to deep conversations and times of reflection that could encourage me to ask the big questions.

Johanna recognized that this would be a problem and thought hard about her conversations. She realized that too many of them seemed to be brief exchanges in the corridor—dehydrated talk, as it was dubbed in Chapter Six. She acknowledged that constant interruptions and ringing phones gave her little time for real thought and conversation. She knew that if she wanted to have great conversations, she would need to be more alert and attentive, more relaxed and nonjudgmental, and fresher and able to think clearly. The way she was living her life was just not providing this for her. So she took two steps to create more time and space: she put time aside—her “golden hour”—and she thought hard about where and with whom she was spending her time.

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She also realized that to have great conversations and to give herself time to reflect, she would have to change the locales in which she spent her time. Without an office in the early days, she was spending too much time on her own at home, working on her business ideas. So she joined a business club that attracted creative professionals, which served as a forum where she could meet like-minded people. Once a week, in the relaxed atmosphere of the club, she had the opportunity to strike up meaningful conversations with interesting people.

Take a look at the two actions that follow to decide whether these would help you clear away some of the dehydrated talk from your world and find a more engaging and stimulating forum for conversation.

Actions to take now to create space and time for reflection

Action 7.4 Setting aside a “golden hour.” Looking back at some of the earlier actions in this book, you will see that taking time out of your business schedule is a recurring theme. In Action 2, mastering the art of great conversation, the emphasis was on putting time aside in your schedule to engage in conversation with others. In Action 5, jumping out of the boundaries that constrain you, there are a whole set of actions for allowing serendipity into your life: scheduling “golden moments,” taking time out, and arranging minisabbaticals. Here my suggestion is the “golden hour,” time you set aside every week specifically to devote to thinking and talking in pursuit of your big questions.

Action 7.5 Finding new places. The challenge here is to find a forum that is a place of relaxed conversation rather than another frenzied group. So take time to think about the themes you are interested in and then locate one forum that has a group of people who may also want to engage in serious conversation. In a sense, you need to find the modern equivalent of the eighteenth-century Viennese coffee house. Take time out every week, if possible, to spend with this group. And if one doesn’t exist, consider forming one yourself. Circle back to the ideas regarding communities of practice in Action 5 (Chapter Eleven) to consider how you could best do this.

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Cultivating Your “Third Place”

Johanna realized that no matter how much she tried to change her routines at work, it was always going to be hard to find space to reflect and think. If she was to create the vision and igniting questions capable of sparking a Hot Spot, she would have to make some radical changes. She began to think about a “third place,” a place separate from work and home.

A “third place” has been crucial to my own ability to ask igniting questions. Think about your own life. So much of it is bounded by your roles and responsibilities at work and your duties at home. In my case, I know that being a professor at London Business School means I have to behave in particular ways, and at home, as a mother of teenage boys, I also have a whole host of obligations. The problem with these roles and responsibilities is that as enjoyable as they are, they leave me little time to reflect and mull over what I need to do in my own life apart from teaching and parenting. Everyone needs is a “third place” —a haven from work and home.

Johanna’s “third place” was the yoga retreat she went on twice a year. Her daily half hour of yoga in the peace of her bedroom also provided a “third place” that gave her peace of mind and the space and time to think.

My own “third place” is my little Spanish apartment on the Mediterranean. It has its special history, its artifacts (simple furniture, just one iPod stocked with music I can write to), and a certain symbolism (a place of calm and isolation) that encourages me to think about the important issues that could lead to the big igniting questions. Each of us needs a “third place,” unique and self-selected; without it, we lose our capacity to reflect and question. Note that the “third place” does not have to be a physical space, and even if it is, it can be a place shared with others where you experience moments of tranquility and calm in which you can catch your breath and reflect. Should you be doing more to create a “third place” that will allow you to discover those igniting questions that will encourage you to Glow? The actions that follow will help you discover if you need to do more to find and cultivate your “third place.”

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Actions to take now to cultivate your “third place”

Action 7.6 Selecting and developing your “third place.” Think about what could serve as your “third place.” Here are some of the places people have told me about over the years:

“It’s a cabin in the country where I can think and reflect.”

“It’s the café I go to in the evening for an hour or two.”

“I find peace in the local tapas bar.”

“I think and reflect whenever I’m on an airplane.”

“My ‘third place’ is at the hairdresser’s.”

“Once a week, I take a long walk in the country.”

“It’s when I am jogging in the morning.”

“It’s the peace I feel at the local church.”

“I take a one-week vacation twice a year.”

“I look forward to my walk along the beach every morning.”

Next, think about whether you want to extend or invest more in your “third place.” Have you put sufficient energy and thought into your “third place”? If the answer is no, review the list of people’s “third places” and see if they trigger some ideas of your own. Then decide whether you should focus on developing your existing “third place” or start from scratch and focus on a new one.

If you have a “third place” but have let it become overgrown or neglected, then now is the time to clear away the debris. If you have never allowed yourself the pleasure of a “third place,” now is the time to give yourself permission to adopt one.

Developing New Rules

A “third place” can be a wonderful source of inspiration outside of work, but what about on the job? If your work life is frenetic and stressful, you may have to create within your work a space for these big igniting questions to emerge. Making room for this space that will mean developing some new rules about the way you work.

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Ask yourself, “What simple rules could break the frenetic pace of my work life?” Johanna asked herself this question and came up with two new rules: “Ditch the meetings” and “Drop the negative office gossip.” She realized she was going to too many (often unproductive) meetings, so she decided to go only to meetings where she felt she could make a real difference.

Johanna also realized that getting too involved in negative office gossip was distracting her from really thinking. She realized that she worked with two people who were real “dampeners,” and every time she spoke with them, she walked away feeling negative. So her second rule was to identify the small group of negative and energy-quenching colleagues and avoid them as much as possible.

Actions to take now to develop new rules

Action 7.7 Identifying your time wasters. Over the next month or two, make a quick note of the occasions when you feel you are in a situation where you are adding very little value. For Johanna, these were times when she seemed to be in endless meetings. Take a long, hard look at this list, and see which items on it you can ditch. In our discussion of Action 9, crafting meaningful and exciting work, in Chapter Sixteen, you will have another opportunity to think about how best to reframe your work. At the same time as you are making a note of your time-wasting activities, also make note of your time-wasting times with other people, times when you are engaged in dehydrated talk. Identify the people who are preventing you from having high-quality conversations and, as Johanna did, drop the negative office gossip.

So now you have become a skilled hunter of information treasures, you have created time and space for conversations, have cultivated a “third place,” and have developed some new rules. Before you leave this action, let’s flex your muscle with an exercise in asking igniting questions.

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An Exercise in Asking Igniting Questions

Begin by making a list of what you believe to be the inspiring, meaningful themes and topics that really excite you right now.

To get your creative juices flowing, here are some big themes and questions that have in the past been the source of flourishing Hot Spots and wonderful opportunities to Glow:

• What does it mean to be a force for good?
• Are brands good or bad for the world?
• What can the Internet do for people all over the world?
• What does “work” mean, and what defines a great place to work?
• How can we make a one-lakh car?
• How can we build a $100 computer?
• What role can banks play in rural communities?
• What role can the major food companies of the world play in alleviating world poverty?
• How can we encourage all the people in the world to share their knowledge?

OK, these are big questions, perhaps far outside the scope of the themes and questions you are prepared to explore. But remember that each of these questions has sparked a Hot Spot and each was asked by somebody who Glows. So taking these themes as a cue, list the questions that are important to you right now. The scope or scale may be different from those I’ve listed, but the intensity will be just as sharp. Here are some questions that are on my own mind right now:

• What is going to be important to baby boomers like me over the next decade of our lives?
• Why is it so hard to work flexibly in companies and achieve a work-life balance?
• What would it take to create a community of people who are excited by Hot Spots?
• Why don’t companies allow people to share jobs so that each can work a couple of days rather than a whole week?

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Write your own list of questions right now. One way of checking them out is to ask colleagues and friends what they think of them. I like to get a group together and ask each member to prepare a question that is then presented to the group. The other group members give immediate feedback on how the question feels to them: waving their hands if it’s a Hot Spot question, shrugging if it is boring, and shivering if it is a Big Freeze question. It’s a great exercise with immediate feedback, and people quickly become better and better at asking igniting questions. So make sure that you hone your questioning skills by trying out ideas in your group—you may be surprised by the results!

Key Points in Chapter Fourteen
ACTION 7
Asking Questions That Spark Energy

Questions can be wonderful igniters of latent energy—particularly when they are big, important, consequential, and meaningful. Sadly, too often pragmatism means we focus on the day-to-day reality of living rather than the life-enhancing questions that permit us to Glow.

Becoming a Skilled Hunter of Information Treasures
This will help you broaden your awareness.

Action 7.1 Opening up to new experiences

Action 7.2 Engaging in focused reading

Action 7.3 Connecting with experts

Creating Time and Space for Conversation
This can help you avoid dehydrated talk and instead engage in the types of creative dialogue from which igniting questions can emerge.

Action 7.4 Setting aside a “golden hour”

Action 7.5 Finding new places

Cultivating Your “Third Place”
This is the place beyond home and work roles and responsibilities where you can reflect and think about the issues that are important to you and bring to the surface the questions that are in your mind.

Action 7.6 Selecting and developing your “third place”

Developing New Rules
These are the simple rules that could break the frenetic pace of your working life and give you more time to reflect on the big questions.

Action 7.7 Identifying your time wasters