by Lee Fried, on 25 Sep 2006 07:00 am
The Journey

Quote of the Week

Popularity: 16%

I am a big fan of Peter Block and chose this quote from his book The answer to how is yes, because it describes one of the greatest challenges I face as a consultant when I am trying to explain to leaders that my job is not to provide them with answers, but to instead challenge them to think in new ways. People are always asking how questions with the expectation that there will be a simple answer in return. But as well all know, if problems were simple to solve they would have already been solved in the first place. In effect, how questions gloss over the “real problems” and make it easy to stay within the confines of our current thinking. The right questions should always start with why!

“To commit to the course of acting on what maters, we postpone the how questions and precede them with others that lead us to more questions that perhaps lead us to more questions. So much for answers. In fact the most useful questions are ones that entail paradox, questions that recognize that every answer creates its own set of problems.” –Block

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