Are we Asking the Right Questions?

Did you know that simple statements, narratives and declarations are driven by left brain dominance? Wait, but when you ask questions you switch dominance to your right brain and learn and remember up to 43% more than just listening?

Neuroscientific research indicates students and executives in the top 20% (the Vital Few on the fast track) ask three basic questions: Why, How and Which, and search for those answers. The Trivial 80% of students and executives track the easy path of least resistance and discover irrelevant answers.

Your right brain adds feelings, intuition and pattern recognition (association with long term memories), to the logic and reason driven by your left brain. Now you get the best of both hemispheres working to provide the best solutions to your problems.

Three Qs

There are three questions that lead to smart answers, and promote your personal growth and success in school and career. They provide you with the competitive advantage.

Why? How? and Which?

Why questions require examining cause and effect, using trial and error and understanding stimulus/response. Why queries refuse to accept the status quo and your comfort zone for an answer.

You must examine variables, relationships and possibilities to see the Big Picture when responding to a Why question. It makes you smarter. Students and adults stop asking Why questions in school and office because of embarrassment, sarcasm, and fear of rejection. Seeking answers to Why questions puts you on the fast-track.

How questions, lead to problem solving and synthesis (complex whole, combining elements). It is used by creative and inventive folks for self discovery and discovering new applications. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs make their teams crazy asking How questions. It works equally well for students and competitive executives.

Which questions, force decision-making. They bring your volition (choice) to the table and require reasoned thinking based on specific criteria and evidentiary proof. Is the defendant guilty or innocent of the murder charged? Do I stay and work harder for promotion or find a better fit at another company?

Open Ended Questions

Most people ask narrow questions, mostly requiring a yes or no response. Wrong. Use it or lose it, is important in honing your skills; less is more, means being concise, using the power of synthesis (combining the essences into a single entity). Summarize.

Google: Semblance and Sensory Adaptation to discover how the brain saves information; see: Filling the Tool Box (Student Questioning) by Jamieson A. McKenzie, Ed.D. See: Vilfredo Pareto, the 80/20 principle continues to rule.

It not important or possible to know everything; just the important things. When you ask yourself and others broad (open ended) questions, you activate your prefrontal cortex (executive function) for learning and improved memory.

a) What can I discover and take away from this horribly boring lecture? b) Why are some people enjoying this movie while I am suffering ennui? c) How can this apparent waste of my time be a gift of knowledge in disguise?

Open ended questions become a mental habit in searching for the hidden truth, moving two tons of dirt to find the Tiffany diamond. It gives the user a competitive advantage (strategy) in understanding her/himself and other folks.

Quotes

1. It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question.

Decouvertes

2. Answers to your problems are subtle and often indirect. They may occur

in a word or sentence you read for pleasure in a novel; a story on the local

economy in the newspaper; a line of dialogue on a TV show. Pay Attention.

To your brain, nothing is irrelevant in your search for solutions.

G. Seneci

3. Unless commitment is made, there are only promises and hopes, but no plans.

Peter F. Drucker

4. A student or executive without strong questioning skills, is just a rider on

on the subway, not the conductor of her/his own future. If you do not have a

specific destination, any train will get you there.

David Leitner

Knowledge Economy

Students and executives today require electronic searching skills to stay ahead of the learning curve. No one can afford to leave it to a research assistant because abilities do not stand alone, they require effort (persistence and determination).

A powerful, consistent, expectant effort often creates the necessary abilities for

success. Internet 2.0 is doubling the information database within the next 18

months. Do you own the skills to discern the relevant from the trivial answers?

Contrarian

Is it corny to say a search for the right answer often feels like wandering in the

desert? Can you think about the unthinkable, stuff society has ruled off limits

and taboo? The Contrarian does just that. What appears irrelevant to the masses

(the Trival Many) is often the successful answer for the Contrarian (the Vital

Few).

I saw two kids wearing wheelie shoes waiting for the elevator with their father.

They were having a party floating around the hallway. It made me smile and

believing in my intuition, checked it out. The manufacturer was Heelys in Texas,

and by coincidence they were going public (IPO) the following day on NASDAQ.

The result was a 52% profit in 72 hours. Did I ask the right question or what?

An example of the unthinkable is asking a question about the safety of our

schools. How can we protect our school kids from lunatics and terrorists?

Unthinkable? See: Beslan, Russia, Middle School #1, September, ’04; 338 dead

at the hands of Chechen terrorists.

Endwords

The Info Glut, Info Glitz, Info Glitter and Info Garbage is not just spam in

your email. Fifty percent of the articles I read are irrelevant to my needs; I just

cannot figure out which fifty percent until I waste half my time.

It is our job to distill the information we receive from our inquiries and search for

original insights to solve our problems. How to turn Info Glut into Knowledge.

Two thoughts: The task is not so much to see what no one has yet seen;

but to think what nobody has yet thought, about that which everybody sees.

Edwin Schrodinger, physicist

There aint no answer, there aint going to be any answer. There never has been

an answer, and that is the answer.

Gertrude Stein

Speedlearning100 offers you the skills to read and remember three books, articles

and reports in the time others can hardy finish one. Will that give you the

competitive advantage and move you to the fast track?

See ya,
copyright © 2007
H. Bernard Wechsler
www.speedlearning.org