Valuing Questions

Many people have noted that asking the right questions is often a more critical skill than coming up with the right answers. For example, if back in the 1990s Kodak was asking "How do we build our market share in the film business?" then that question wouldn't have been nearly as useful as "What is digital photography going to do to this industry?"

However, the value of questions goes beyond that. There are questions with no firm answers like "What is the right balance between rewarding the team and rewarding the individuals on the team?" The value of the question is that it keeps this polarity or predicament clear in our mind so that we continue to manage it.

Peter Block probably goes further than even this in valuing questions for their own sake. He likes the question "How valuable an experience do you plan for this to be?" Here it is not so much about the answer or even keeping an important predicament in mind, it's about changing the relationship between presenter and participant. It is a kind of speech act that has force rather than just conveying information. It puts the onus of creating value on the participant not just the presenter.

So there we have 3 different ways questions can be of more importance than answers, perhaps you can think of more.