Asking Questions to Develop your Curiosity

Wednesday 24th February 2010 | 7 comments

Whenever I run a workshop or give a presentation on creative thinking, I talk about the value of curiosity - it's one of the 4 cornerstones in my 4 cornerstones model.

It's all very well to tell people to 'Be Curious' but unless you offer some practical tips, it's about as useful as saying 'Be Happy' (and just as irritating).

So, how to develop your curiosity muscle? One of the best ways is to get into the habit of asking lots of questions. This tip comes with an impeccable pedigree - Leonardo da Vinci apparently made lists of questions and things he was curious about in his journal, and then proceeded to answer them...

What follows here is a list of questions I use with people whose project has got stuck, fallen into a heap or just lacks its original sparkle. You can run through them systematically or just pick one at random (or even come up with your own list).

Here are my questions:

  1. What is missing?
  2. What is niggling in the back of your mind? Do you have a hunch about what needs to happen?
  3. What are you prepared to do to make this work? What are you prepared to give up?
  4. If you could wave a magic wand, how would your project change?
  5. What is working well in your project? What is not?
  6. What is in the way of your momentum here?
  7. What if you broke all the rules?
  8. How would a fish solve your problem? How would your worst enemy do this? What would His Holiness the Dalai Lama do here?
  9. What assumptions are you making?
  10. What are the implications of your idea? How far can you take it?
  11. What if there was an answer, what would it look like?
  12. What if you worked backwards from the finished product or solution, reverse engineered it?
  13. How are you judging this idea?
  14. How can you champion your idea?
  15. Do you need to protect your idea? How?
  16. How can you make a prototype of your idea / act it out / make an ad for it?
  17. What can you drop or postpone to give you more time for this project?
  18. What if you were really courageous, really sure this idea would work - what would you do differently?
  19. Are you pushing your comfort zone here? If not, why not?
  20. What are you telling yourself about this? How can you change the negative talk?
  21. What if you knew nothing about this project...where would you start?

What are your questions?

Tags: tips, curiosity, questions

Comments

  1. Good questions!

    Q. 12: Why didn't I think of this?!

    P. :)

    Posted by Paul Hassing | Wednesday 24th February 2010 @ 9:51am

  2. Thanks Paul, glad you liked them. I find them really useful to surprise me out of my habitual thinking patterns - it amazes me how easily we (I) slip into easy solutions and quick fixes, when with just a bit more time, a few more questions, we could have something really fresh and clever...

    Posted by Joanna Maxwell | Wednesday 24th February 2010 @ 10:53am

  3. really good list...really good

    Posted by Astrid | Wednesday 24th February 2010 @ 2:46pm

  4. Thanks Astrid, it works for me!

    Posted by Joanna Maxwell | Wednesday 24th February 2010 @ 2:47pm

  5. Thanks. I love your cornerstone model and agree fully of the value of curiosity and questions. @TweetRightBrain

    Posted by Denny McCorkle | Thursday 25th February 2010 @ 5:50pm

  6. Thanks for the comment, Denny. Glad you like the model...

    Posted by Joanna Maxwell | Thursday 25th February 2010 @ 5:55pm

  7. Children are a perfect example of people who have that curiousity muscle working. My daughter is forever asking what, why, how, etc. Great list of questions Joanna - thanks for sharing them. I will make a note of them and whenever I am stuck then I can come back to them.

    Posted by Michelle Sweeney | Saturday 27th February 2010 @ 12:30am

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