All I remember from my Instrumentation & Process Control class during my college days is a non technical fact, which my somewhat philosophical (and rebellious) professor (Red ?) mentioned in one of the starting lectures. It is something which you would have heard quite often and not paid much attention to, what he said was that it is more important to ask right questions than to give right answers. The hypothesis which has been not yet been proved scientifically in the realms of psychology (did someone say pseudo-science) is that once the right questions have been identified anyone can proceed to find the answers.
Unfocused questions can do exactly that – take you away from what you want and towards what you don’t want. Ever heard of “The Secret”? It basically says that if you want something you should focus on that, rather than focus on what you don’t want. And the book (yes there is actually a whole book on “The Secret”, dint know myself until I saw the documentary called yet again “The Secret”) goes on and on , on how the universe tries to unify you with what you are thinking about. So in case you were craving for the new Play Station, bingo it is all yours!!!, however in case you DID NOT want the Xbox, tough time you will have to manage with it – at least that’s what ‘The secret” is all about.
If you do think logically it is true to an extent, that since your focus and your efforts are directed towards a target you will be at peace with yourself and spend more time towards achieving them. On the other hand if you are focusing on making something happen by not letting its alternatives materialize – it would probably take much more efforts and you would always be worried about achieving/getting your actual goal. On similar lines it is difficult to make someone avoid thinking about cows, by instructing them to “Don’t think about cows?" So my friends ask the right questions and answers will emerge from the mist.
PS. I am thankful to a refresher course in “asking questions” by Megatron >-)
Some links to help you write your thesis on asking questions:
1. The Secret (the book) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_%28book%29 , and The Secret (the film) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_%282006_film%29
2. Tata’s Nano to Airtel to ICICI – all owe to right questions being asked, interesting read http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_34/b3948440.htm
3. You should judge a man's wisdom by his questions and not by his answers. http://workingsmarter.typepad.com/my_weblog/2009/08/asking-the-right-questions.html
4. ***RECOMMENDED READ*** This one from blogs of Harvard Business Review: When faced with an employee's problem, you can respond in a much more value-adding way: by asking the right questions, help her find the best solution herself. We aren't talking about asking just any questions but, rather, employing questions that inspire people to think in new ways, expand their range of vision, and enable them to contribute more to the organization.
5. A blog with readymade good questions =) which you can either use in your daily life or maybe use for practice http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2006/02/asking-the-right-questions/
