Why questions matter

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At Scoutbase we are all about asking questions. Good questions. The right ones. But why is it that we believe that this is valuable, and how did we come up with that?

Solving problems is often praised and highly valued. Maybe because this at first glance seems more vigorous and resourceful compared to “just talking”.

Figuratively speaking, it is more interesting to erect the house itself than to talk about mixing ratios in concrete. But there can obviously be issues with a house that was not properly planned.

Similarly, if we do not properly understand the problem we are trying to solve we might not create solutions which are actually sustainable. Such an understanding often does not come by itself, it requires effort. “Laws” and principles have been formulated around this dilemma and the issues that not knowing sufficiently before starting to solve problems might create, for example, Grudin’s Law states that:

When those who benefit are not those who do the work, then the technology is likely to fail or, at least be subverted.

So, while solving problems may come across as fantastic for the immediate “looking good index”, it may be costly.

It could even be downright dangerous not to put the solutions in the fridge for a while until the problem is very well understood.

Scoutbase was founded by experienced, professional, question-askers! Design research and accident investigation lie at the heart of what Scoutbase is. The common denominator between these fields is a curiosity to learn and understand what works and what does not work for people during their daily chores. What can help them do better, and what did not work out for them that eventually resulted in an accident? Both, with the aim and purpose of creating a future that is slightly better than the present – A future where people have the best of chances for succeeding in whatever it is that they are doing.

For me, and for my colleagues at Scoutbase, this is inherent, and it is an obvious logic that the only way to satisfy our curiosity is by asking good questions. I will unfold this a bit more for you.

Questions are the best way of going from what we know to what we don’t know, as explained by David Stork in his TED talk on the topic of asking good questions. He tells us that questions are the source or the effect of our curiosity, and he provides the audience with an interesting anecdote from back in time at legendary Bell Labs:

The best performing employees at Bell Labs were studied with the aim to find out what made them stand out; Was this e.g. better education or was it something different? The common denominator showed to be nothing like that. Rather, it was a mutual lunch time companion called Harry Nyquist; an engineering legend within the development of digital communication. Nyquist did not give them any specific ideas, but he drew them out, got them thinking. More than anything Harry asked the employees good questions.

I believe that curiosity has been, and still is, the biggest driver for exploration and innovation, which lies at the heart of human evolution. Acknowledging that there is a big bad unknown out there may be the best motivation for continued exploration. Thus, asking a good question is sometimes more important than finding a good answer. At least to begin with.

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With safety, it is no different, the world is ever-changing, and so are the challenges we face in our efforts to be safe and effective at work. What we thought we knew yesterday is even more doubtful today, and for us to think the unthinkable we need to ask questions. Good questions. We need to learn, understand and improve continuously to succeed.

The great complexity scholar Paul Cilliers taught us that we need to foster our imaginations. In his 2005 paper Complexity, Deconstruction and Relativism he writes:

”Imagining the future will involve risk, but the nature of this risk will be a function of the quality of our imagination. It is important that we start imagining better futures, and for that we need better imaginations”.

Literally questioning practices, assumptions and conditions in current work systems can help fuel our imagination, to understand how we are able to work towards a better future for our own little corner of the world.

This is what Scoutbase enables us to do, no more and no less. Simply put it is a platform for satisfying curiosity by allowing organizations to ask the interesting questions they need the answers for in order to ensure evolution.

But do not underestimate the power of the apparent simplicity in asking questions and getting answers – Of knowing what is going on. As Jason Fried puts it:

“The question gets you the answer. The follow-up question gets you gold.”

At Scoutbase, we love to answer questions as much as we like asking them. So please do not hesitate to get in touch to satisfy your curiosity 🙂

Mads Ragnvald Nielsen, Co-founder at www.scoutbase.com, [email protected]

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Why questions matter was originally published in Scoutbase — Realtime Leading Safety Indicators on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.