(?)^∞

“You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions.” Our brains enjoy questions. Questions fuel our creativity and aid in critical thinking. One of the proven ways to approach a problem is by asking questions. The best part of questioning is that our brains instinctively start searching for answers. Many a times, unknowingly, we are thinking about the answers to our questions in the background. All of us learn by asking questions. Brilliant thinkers never stop asking questions because they know that this is the best way to gain deeper insights.

“I think, at a child’s birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift would be curiosity.” The fundamental difference between kids and us is that they incessantly ask questions. They have the urge to ask more because they are curious. What propels them is their curiosity. Kids asks innumerable no of questions when they are around 2 or 3.Admit it; most of us would be irritated by this behaviour, especially when your answer is followed by another why. The most common reply would be “Because I said so, that’s why?” .What we fail to understand is that these questions shape their perspective and more importantly their behaviour. My friend’s kid once asked “Why is that man homeless, daddy”. My friend started off by saying “Pappu, nice to know you noticed him. May be he lost his job or there is none to take care of him. In any case, we should treat him respectfully. We should offer help whenever we can. Ok sweetie?”  She immediately stopped by and gave that man her bagel. So, by answering a simple question he prematurely shaped her thoughts to respect homeless people. His kid learnt a valuable lesson not by answering questions rather by asking one. 

Our education system is flawed. Kids are measured based on their grades and not on their ability to ask questions. How many teachers enjoy being grilled with questions? In fact kids with a lesser urge to ask questions are deemed to be obedient and treated with highest regard. In many schools stopping to encourage and mull over questions which are not directly related to the syllabus is considered a waste of time. The single most important reason which cremates curiosity is our coveted grading system. Kids flock towards an ‘A+’ because it’s a winning formula. Fetch an ‘A+’, we will gift you a cycle. Secure an ‘A+’, your name will appear on the notice board. If only teachers encouraged the kids to ask questions, valued their questions more, the grades will be a natural by-product.

Curiosity in many ways is its own reward because every question unravels the problem at hand and persuades you to ask more. Eventually it’s the pathway to unknotting the puzzle that you enjoy more than the actual result.

A classic example would be my mom. She has been recently introduced to the world of whatsapp. Believe me, until few months ago she was ignorant about the chatting app nonetheless she is an expert now .Guess why? Its plain simple – Curiosity. Since the day I introduced her to whatsapp she would collate all her questions and ask her questions at the end of day. Be it sending snaps ,voice texting or sharing links, she does it all because she constantly bombards me with questions. Her curiosity is never satiated until she has an answer. And now she is famous for her good morning-afternoon-evening-night messages. Yes am a victim too ;).

Let me ask you a question. What is Newton’s first law? Relax and think. Am sure most of us will not have an answer for it. Can you guess the reason? Not many of us questioned our teachers about the importance of learning Newton’s first law of motion. In the recent times I was wondering, how the ‘International space station’(ISS) orbited earth? Do you know ISS moves at an alarming speed of 8km/sec to overcome the gravitational pull of earth. If the speed is less than 8kms/sec, the ISS would fall through earth’s atmosphere. The orbital speed is achieved with the help of thrusters in the ISS. Remember, the thrusters are fired once to attain the orbital velocity of 8km/sec and later Newton’s first law of motion ensures that the ISS moves constantly.

Newton's first law of motion - A body remains at rest or in motion with a constant velocity unless acted upon by an external force

Hence unless an external force acts upon ISS it moves with a constant velocity of 8kms/sec. But how does this velocity ensure it orbits the earth? Every time ISS tries to move away from earth the gravitational force of earth pulls it inward thereby leading to orbital motion.Hang on, did we not just discuss that the velocity is weakened when an external force acts on a body? Wouldn’t the gravitational force reduce the orbital velocity? The external force acting on a body should be an opposing force to the direction of motion and not perpendicular to it. In our case earth’s gravitational pull is perpendicular to the direction of motion hence will not impede the orbital velocity.Therfore the thrusters are not fired every day to retain the orbital velocity rather once every month.If we had questioned during our childhood days in a manner we just did, the likelihood of forgetting ‘Newton’s laws’ is very unlikely. Such is the power of questioning.

One of the revered inventions in the last twenty years that has been grossly underrated is the ‘Saw Stop’. Sawstop is a table saw manufacturer which uses an automatic breaking system to stop the blade in milliseconds the moment it comes in contact with the operator’s hand or body part. Annually 4000 hand or finger amputations were reported in the US. In a year US had to spend 2 billion dollars in treating the amputated fingers. Shocking but true. The inventor Steve Gass reportedly came up with the idea of Saw Stop after he meticulously raised questions about the existing design. Gas came up with the following questions before his design was in place. How quickly should the blade be stopped? How will the blade differentiate between wood and flesh? The questions are simple but it definitely gave birth to an outstanding solution. A small amount of current is passed through the blade and is closely monitored. If a change in current is detected (Finger conducts electricity whereas wood does not) the breaking system is immediately activated and the saw stops in about 1/100th of a second. Apparently the operator loses some blood nonetheless his finger is not amputated. Notice the fact that his invention was born because he questioned the operation of the saw. His curiosity gifted him the solution. A question mark for the design led to a full stop for the amputations.

You may now think questions are required only for powerful innovations. If I were to say yes, I would be proved otherwise. In one of my earlier companies, I had the most irksome business user. Every change in the application was severely criticized by him. Needless to say the changes were always approved by his team before implementation. Oftentimes my rapport with him was tainted beyond repair. Mostly the conversations would proceed like

Hareesh  : Hey Dan, whats’up with the latest escalation?

Dan          : I thought you would have figured it out from my email

Hareesh  : Oh yes, It’s quite obvious, isn’t it?

Dan          : Why don’t you take your manager’s help to decrypt it?

Hareesh  : Unfortunately he has better things to do, Dan.

It went on endlessly and we never had a smooth release. I started questioning myself. Why is he cold tempered always? Why is he disapproving the change despite his manager’s approval? Is he the same with everyone or am I the only exception? It slowly dawned upon me that the emails were always addressed to his team and not to him. He yearned for recognition.Moreover, since he always rubbed me the wrong way I was never nice to him. I reminded myself, ’A drop of honey attracts more flies than a gallon of gall’. From then on, every email was addressed to him. I painstakingly went through every change with him separately, acknowledged his suggestions publicly. More importantly, I was extremely nice to him irrespective of his demeanour. Slowly the issues started disappearing and after almost a month every change of mine grabbed his approval without much insistence. I could have escalated the issue or I could have moved to a different team or even ignored him completely however I decided to question myself. Framing the right questions did the trick.

“‘We run this company on questions, not answers.” - Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google. Most of the fiction readers would agree, Sherlock Holmes almost always started his investigation by asking a lot of questions. Didn’t Isaac Newton formulate the Universal Law of Gravitation after asking the famous question “Why does an apple fall from a tree?” .It is very evident that problems become diluted after asking the right question. We may not necessarily be contemplative nevertheless we should ask questions to understand the problems better. Lazy people avoid questions and are very determined to cling on to their beliefs and assumptions and end up appearing foolish. Few others hesitate to ask questions because they fear they might exhibit their ignorance. If not now we will have to ask later. Asking questions is a sign of strength and not a sign of weakness and uncertainty.

Let’s approach the world differently by asking “Why” and “Why not?” – questions which effortlessly slid off our tongues when we were young. Remember, right questions stimulate and inspire and help us to teach as well as to learn.