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keerthanachelladurai · 2 years ago

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Asking Better Questions for Problem Solving, Innovation and Effective Leadership with Hal Gregersen

Soundcloud link: https://soundcloud.com/bridging-the-gaps/asking-better-questions-for-problem-solving-innovation-and-effective-leadership-hal-gregersen?si=c7e0efa918d94d839f70558e8cdb66ed&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

The first question in the podcast was about how the guest Hal Gregersen got into research in the field of leadership, the interesting answer for that was his parents as his mother has a keen observation of the surroundings. The discussion starts on asking the right questions which led to the guest getting into grad school and got the Ph.D. in leadership. The interesting statement by Hal that I personally agree was you can lead transformation and change unless you ask right questions. Host led the discussion about evolution of leadership landscape over the years and currently about digital transformation leadership, our guest gave an exemplary example on how Mary Parker operated in men’s working world and how she become the exception women in her field, how she led a group of people on discussing meeting years back to get solutions for the right questions. This happened hundred years ago, today in the digital world with so many things happening with machine learning, deep learning we are in the path of change.

Quoted by the guest “leaders create a psychological space where inquiry leads to insight, insight – we learnt something we didn’t know before, and leads to positive impact”. In a nutshell, questions -> insight -> knowledge.

Discussion went on about catalytic questions, which are the ultimate answers. It reframes the fundamentally off assumption but generated the energy to make it work. The discussion then went on about how to build amental model, if and only if we have the courage to ask more question and the criticism doesn’t affect you. My view in this is, some are embarrassed to ask questions thinking that they may look silly or thinks about what other people will think about them, because of that they lose some great opportunities, when one dare to ask question, he rise above and beyond.

Good questions are recursive, asking series of whys leads to modify and create better systems keeping in mind what we started in the beginning in the sense without deviating from the use case. Discussion then went on about how sustainable creativity is not possible without any vision for industries, we can create a better innovative world by being creative.

Things that I learned:

Asking better questions keeps the system (both humans and machines) without underfitting or overfitting but keeps it neutralized. Going on the right path and recognizing the patterns are more important than changing the course of track which might lead to not having the right answers.

Mind map of questions – knowing the relationship of questions. History of asking questions and maintaining ledger-type notes on questions that you think of, wanting to ask, curious enough to know the answers at the end of the day take a step back and analyze the questions. Our guest calls this question audits. And I think this will help everyone on the path of the betterment of one’s knowledge. Ask gazillions of questions whenever you’re stuck.

About the Guest: Hal Gregersen (https://halgregersen.com/)

Storyteller, researcher, questioner, photographer and explorer. Author of Questions are the answers and other exceptional books is a senior lecturer in leadership and innovation at MIT's Sloan School of Management, a former executive director of the MIT Leadership Center, a fellow at Innosight, and a co-founder of the Innovator’s DNA consulting group. He has been Ranked one of the world’s 20 most influential management thinkers by Thinkers50, and the winner of the 2017 Distinguished Achievement Award for leadership. Hal’s publications can be found here (https://mitsloan.mit.edu/faculty/directory/hal-gregersen). He has also authored n number of articles in Forbes (https://www.forbes.com/sites/halgregersen/?sh=1ccccde740de) about leadership and innovative growth.

#askingbetterquestions #halgregersen #bridgingthegaps

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