Asking Beautiful Questions: A Guide to Billion-Dollar Breakthroughs
Experts often get things wrong because expertise cements their perspective. Here are 12 concepts to ask beautiful questions and unlock billion-dollar breakthroughs.
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Michael Girdley
I share 25 years of direct business knowledge and life advice. $100M (and counting) HoldCo owner. Fireworks, software, school + 9 others.
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Beautiful questions lead to billion-dollar breakthroughs:
— Michael Girdley (@girdley) June 13, 2023
- Uber: why do I have to wait for a crappy taxi?
- Amazon AWS: why is our IT a cost center, not a profit center?
- FedEx: what if letters could be delivered overnight?
Here are 12 concepts to ask beautiful questions: -
* Challenger Questions
— Michael Girdley (@girdley) June 13, 2023
Experts often get things wrong because expertise cements their perspective.
A famous study on forecasting found that experts perform on par with “dart-throwing chimps.”
Knowing less about a topic lets you question assumptions more easily.
Do this with… -
* Role Play
— Michael Girdley (@girdley) June 13, 2023
Ask questions like you’re someone else.
What would Jack Welch ask? Neil Patrick Harris? Elmo? Elmo on drugs?
It’s a forced way to gain new perspectives.
As Peter Drucker did, an excellent way to be “ignorant and ask good questions,” as Peter Drucker did. -
* WWH
— Michael Girdley (@girdley) June 13, 2023
Most questioners get stuck in the details and limit themselves to what seems possible.
The “Why, What If, How” framework helps you break through to action.
Ask:
Why? (are we doing it this way?)
What if? (we could do things differently?)
How? (would we make it happen?) -
* Vuja De Lens
— Michael Girdley (@girdley) June 13, 2023
Deja Vu is seeing something new, but it’s somehow familiar.
Vuja De is looking at something familiar in a new way.
Step back and pretend you’ve never seen them before.
Use that to generate new perspectives and new questions.
(This is very George Carlin.) -
* 5 Whys Technique
— Michael Girdley (@girdley) June 13, 2023
Toyota invented this.
Ask why questions five times in succession of any problem.
Gets to the bottom of the issue. -
* The Sticky Question
— Michael Girdley (@girdley) June 13, 2023
We all have questions that we just can’t shake.
If you just can’t seem to let it go,
That’s one to keep probing.
Your subconscious has flagged it as important.
Come back to it from new angles and perspectives. -
* Question Storming
— Michael Girdley (@girdley) June 13, 2023
Imagine brainstorming.
But instead of creating ideas, you’re asking more questions.
Try generating 50 questions on a problem with a team before shifting to ideas.
It forces everyone to see new perspectives.
New perspectives get you breakthroughs. -
* School beats questioning out of you
— Michael Girdley (@girdley) June 13, 2023
We learn that answers are more valuable than questions.
Good in school.
Bad in life.
Real problems aren’t multiple choice with right/wrong answers.
They involve exploration and questioning.
We have to overcome the way school “broke” us. -
* Killer Questions
— Michael Girdley (@girdley) June 13, 2023
Key questions you should have in your inventory:
What if our company didn’t exist?
What if you couldn’t fail?
Why am I the lucky buyer?
How would a child picture this?
Your quiver of arrows.
When you hear a great question, add it to your repertoire. -
* Question Assumptions First
— Michael Girdley (@girdley) June 13, 2023
Most analysis fails in the assumptions.
Data is concrete. Logic is easy.
But bad assumptions will lead you wrong.
As a boss/leader, you want to probe assumptions first and foremost. -
* There are Bad Questions
— Michael Girdley (@girdley) June 13, 2023
They say, “There are no bad questions.”
That’s wrong.
Bad questions are where the asker didn’t think critically in preparing it.
Notice how those are the ones that piss you off?
As a leader, you want to encourage good questioning as an org. -
I was inspired to spend a week researching world-class questioning by @brentbeshore. (Thanks, BB!)
— Michael Girdley (@girdley) June 13, 2023
I learned these by reading two books. pic.twitter.com/yXgIC7uB1V -
What do you think? Reply below.
— Michael Girdley (@girdley) June 13, 2023
If you enjoyed this, give me a like/comment/retweet here: https://t.co/7DxwPrdT7K -
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— Michael Girdley (@girdley) June 13, 2023
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