I read a lot. I have not always been a reader and I don’t read particularly fast. Anymore, I find that taking in information, as much as I can, the best quality that I can, is critical to being relevant in the 21st century. Besides, being informed gives meaning to my life, helps me make meaning of my life.

I recommend that everyone be informed, and I am not the most sympathetic person when it comes to excuses. The most common excuse people offer, and I hear it a lot, is I don’t have time. I am married to a dyslexic man and have a dyslexic son who both read more than most people despite the effort it takes. They don’t complain about the time it takes. Not to be flippant and in all sincerity, we all make time for the things we value. I would much rather hear someone say, I don’t value reading/learning/taking in information, or I don’t make time. Then, we would have something to talk about that began with honesty.

I just finished Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson. This book is a balanced portrait of Einstein the man and Einstein the theorist. It was refreshing to see Einstein’s humanity in the many struggles of his personal relationships and his disdain for the rhythms of daily life. It is humbling to see how his mind worked, especially in that it didn’t work well for everything. Einstein struggled with basic math and was not a talented teacher. He lacked empathy and compassion and had few close relationships that were not bound by physics. It is inspiring to realize that Einstein’s great discoveries were primarily made possible because of his conscious unwillingness to accept and conform to conventional thinking.

The most inspiring message for me from the book is the importance of developing and sustaining a compulsive sense of curiosity and marvel, a creative spirit, and a great independence of thought. Einstein believed that freedom was the basis for all of his thought work. “The development of science and of the creative activities of the spirit,” he said, “requires a freedom that consists in the independence of thought from the restrictions of authoritarian and social prejudice.” This nurturing of creativity and independence is what Einstein believed was the fundamental role of government and of education.

Asking in our educational systems how we instill the values of creativity and of independence of thought and of a driving, seeking curiosity instead of requiring allegiance to conventional doctrine is an important new question. We need to create a collective celebrated regard for thinking and problem solving instead of valuing and rewarding inert knowledge. Like President Eisenhower declared of Einstein, we need to become a society that highly values “thoughtful wonderers.”

Einstein Archives Online — Be curious!

“Reason can answer questions, but imagination has to ask them.”
– Dr. Ralph Gerard

Dr. Ralph Gerard was devoted to scientific inquiry his whole life. Gerard had a mighty mind and terrific energy that he used to continually ask and answer questions of scientific inquiry. Gerard epitomized creativity. He used his imagination to envision new questions. And, new questions always lead to new answers.

I recently facilitated a visioning session for the American Choral Directors Association in Oklahoma City. Their leaders from all fifty states gathered to discuss the future. I led them through a day-long imaginative process not to find answers, but to discover new questions to ask. It takes courage and creativity to discover what the new questions that will guide your thinking should be. The leaders of ACDA showed tremendous imagination and courage and enthusiasm.

I always start this process by helping groups develop their external awareness, within their industry and within the culture at large. Organizations must be internally focused with budgets, projections, and personnel issues, but it is imperative that they are also externally aware. This process requires you to hold the vision and the strategic tactics and details in your minds and your decision-making all at the same time. It is a new demand upon our well-worn skill sets, but this synthesizing skill, or as I described it to the choral directors, the skill of symphony, is one that can be cultivated.

Once you have the right questions, the answers come. Using our well-practiced skills of logic and pragmatic reasoning, the answers come more easily than you think initially once the right questions are excavated.

We might reinvigorate our lives by learning to ask new questions. Asking large questions seeds the ground with new possibilities. While at first glance this may seem to be un-strategic work, I suggest that inviting senior leaders in any setting to reflect on the deeper questions that animate them, and that animate our organizations, is some of the most important work they can do. This is because it forces them to think about their choices, many of which are often made unconsciously, out of habit, and out of fear. Choices sown with these energies inevitably collapse. Think of inquiry of this sort as the ultimate act of efficiency: dealing with problems far upstream, before they surface and require expensive rework and change.

– William Isaacs, Dialogue and the Art of Thinking Together

I recently picked Isaacs’ book off my shelf to consult a diagram that I knew was in there. The book fell open to the passage above which was circled boldly by me a few years ago when I read it. Wow! How great for me to re-read this beautifully written passage that confirms the importance of holding the tension of resistance steady with every leader that tells me, “We just don’t have time. This is a lovely idea but we just do not have time to indulge in those sorts of thinking activities.”

No time is the first reaction of most leaders to whom I recommend deep, systematized organizational reflection. I am always amazed at how rushing to do more of the same feels better and more productive than thinking divergently, from whole to parts, questioning original assumptions in order to do better, more effective work. I think we as leaders get sidetracked from our purpose by feelings of comfort and efficiency. We lose our sense of intention in order to get items complete. The result is our work becomes rote and develops a diminishing relationship to the declared purpose.

How sad that we exchange comfort for the invigorating work of developing depth and meaning.

“You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions.”
- Naguib Mahfouz

I have a friend who is in the throes of considering where to celebrate his 50th birthday. High on the consideration list is Cairo. Wow! What a great place to celebrate fifty years of his journey so far - a place of great wisdom, mystery, and historical impact. Of course, if it is indeed Cairo, I know just what I shall give him.

One of my favorite writers is Naguib Mahfouz. Mahfouz, born in Cairo in 1911, spent his life until 1972 as a civil servant in the Egyptian government bureaucracy. His appointments included Director of Censorship in the Bureau of Art, Director of the Foundation for the Support of the Cinema, and consultant on Cultural Affairs to the Ministry of Culture. Concurrent with his government work, Mahfouz was writing. He published his first novel in 1939 and published ten more before 1952. His retirement in 1972 saw a great burst in Mahfouz’s creative output. Before his death in 2006, Mahfouz published about thirty novels, more than a hundred short stories, and more than two hundred articles. Many of his novels have been made into films. Naguib Mahfouz was award the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1988.

Mahfouz’s Cairo Trilogy (Palace Walk, Palace of Desire, Sugar Street) is a great piece of work. I read the three novels straight through one summer and was mesmerized. Even now I can transport myself to the courtyard of the family house. The sights and smells of Egypt, a foreign land to me, became burned into my mind. Mahfouz writes about the political and the mundane in such combination that a shared sense of journey across continents, a shared humanity, emerges. The other becomes familiar through the motions and meanderings of daily life. This trilogy will make a great gift for my friend if he travels to Cairo.

To be a clever man or a wise man, a question of old. Mahfouz’s answer in the above quote speaks to me. I believe that cleverness is about power and ego, while wisdom is more about seeking solutions that solve root causes. A clever man shows, sometimes spouts, his knowledge. A clever man relishes in center stage. A wise man, however, is still learning, still searching, and still open, regardless of age or position. Wisdoms questions, without fear. Questioning, a wise man knows, leads to a fuller, more expansive outcome.

“Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.”
- Anais Nin

Anais Nin is best known for publishing her journals which span more than 60 years. Nin’s journals intimately chronicle her emotional life, her physical life, her spiritual life, and her intellectual life from age 11 until her death at age 77. The journals are fascinating because you can trace on the page the development of Anais Nin as a multi-dimensional being. Born of artistic, worldly parents, Nin’s perspective from the beginning was non-traditional, open, rather unencumbered, thus it seems natural that she delves deeply into the world of psychoanalysis and erotica, what a wonderful combination!

The inspiration Anais Nin offers any one of us is this: the power of an open perspective and the power of questioning the conventional. Page after page of her journals is full of these two aims. Her whole life was full of these two aims, and this worldview led her to some interesting places, interesting situations, and interesting people. To remember that she was writing so openly and graphically about her relationships, as unconventional as they were, back in the society of the 1950s and 1960s is incredible.

We could jokingly say Anais Nin got around. But, I would say it non-jokingly - Anais Nin got around, met and worked at getting to know deeply interesting and interested people. I love her quote above that speaks to how we can activate the innate worlds of intelligence, motivation, and passion in one another. To connect our internal bodies of knowledge and intuition is the power and purpose of collaboration, and I love being able to think of Anais Nin, radical that she was, as a collaborator, one who melded what she had with others in hopes of creating something bigger, better, more.

“The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance - it is the illusion of
knowledge.”
- Daniel J. Boorstin

Daniel J. Boorstin was a very learned man who did a lot of things in his ninety years. To me this is what is intriguing about him, or anyone - doing a lot of things that have common threads running throughout. Boorstin was a learner and did not shy away from things he had not done before. He was an American historian, professor, attorney, and prolific writer. Boorstin wrote more than 20 books, including a trilogy on the American experience and one on world intellectual history. In 1974 he won a Pulitzer prize in history. Boorstin also served as director of the National Museum of History and Technology of the Smithsonian and as Librarian of Congress.

There is a lot to be inspired by Boorstin and his life of perpetual learning but this bit is my favorite. When President Gerald Ford nominated Boorstin to be Librarian of Congress in 1974, the nomination was supported by the Authors League of America but opposed by the American Library Association because Boorstin “was not a library administrator”. I love that because I get that all the time. Basically, the ALA said “we can’t trust him because he is not one of us”. One of us myopia - it’s a disease. Of course, the nomination was approved by the Senate without debate.

The ALA back in 1974 when faced with a new leader from outside their ranks suffered from the illusion of knowledge. They assumed that to administrate a library you have to have risen from the ranks. Their illusion of knowledge created a trust barrier. The alternative analytical approach in this situation would have been to look at Boorstin’s success in other areas and have deduced that the temperament, qualities, and skills that made him successful in those arenas were transferable to their playing field.

I think the illusion of knowledge occurs because we become complacent and comfortable with the status quo. We stop learning. We become lackadaisical in our work. Lackadaisical means we are without interest, vigor, or determination. We become listless and lethargic. Ignorance develops because literally knowledge passes us by when we stop reaching. Our knowledge becomes irrelevant, a mere illusion of knowledge. And, the result is that we analyze situations and make decisions with old knowledge such that new discovery is off limits to us. A leader who is lackadaisical risks steering his organization severely off course.

One of my favorite questions to ponder comes from Ram Charan, one of the great business thinkers of our time . It sounds like an innocent, throw-away question on one level, as if the questioner just wants you to assert your self-confidence, to re-sell the expertise that got you where you are. But, I think it is really a profound question because of the reflective work one most do to give this question an honest answer.

The question is: Would they hire you for your job today?

Here’s how I parse this question. First, they — you must really understand to whom you are accountable. When you are at the top leading an organization, sometimes to whom you are accountable is not an ever-present consideration. Instead, you dwell more often in the mental space that says I am the boss and everyone answers to me. But, even the Boss answers to someone, be it the board or the shareholders or the customers or the marketplace. We all act differently when we are closely attuned to exactly what others expect of us. Being beholden to the people that hire you and their expectations is a great beacon.

The second big part of this question is your job today. So often, once we get a job and start doing it, we lose touch with how the goals of the job are constantly changing because the target moves. Once we learn the routine and the job speak, we do it and keep doing it, and we take our eye off the big picture, which is the relationship of your job to the whole. We focus on the day-to-day when the needs of the future (the target) are being re-defined as each day passes. In doing our job, we can become protectors of the status quo instead of dynamic responders to the needs of the economic environment in which we work.

The third component of this question is you — or, do I have what it takes to do the job at hand? If you are out of touch with what the job at hand is, then you don’t really ever ask the part about you. Thus, another elusive layer to this question. But, suppose you are able to render a frank and honest assessment of the job at hand, what power in asking yourself do I have what it takes to deliver! And, if you ask this of yourself all the time, what motivation to keep current, to grab every opportunity to learn and refine your skills, to risk your mettle on that reach project or assignment — because it makes you the most competitively and comparatively qualified for the job! If you do not ask yourself this question often, what risks are you inviting?

Can you give a thoughtful, honest answer to this question, whether it is yes or no?

Questioning is powerful. It is subversive, bold, and not always welcome. In years of working with business leaders, I have found the simple question why? to be an effective tool to fetter out assumptions and beliefs that need to be challenged, re-considered, dispelled, or retired. I am amazed by the number of times when asked why he/she did something in a certain way, I am told the person before me did it this way or it’s just the way it is done around here, or simply, I don’t know, I never thought about it. For me, this is a huge red flag because it tells that the person-in-charge has not thought for himself and does not really take ownership of what is being done. That person-in-charge is a disengaged, not-reflective conduit, more of a manager than a leader.

A leader is reflective. A leader is hyper-aware of what she is doing and how she came to make the decision that she made. A leader is aware of all of the perspectives that he has considered in reaching a plan. A leader uses the power of questioning to reach full, expansive decisions that are as void as possible of faulty assumptions and myopic thinking. A good leader uses the power of questioning to push himself and his team to new heights. A good leader welcomes being questioned because it creates space for reflecting, re-grouping, and re-committing oneself to a course of action.

Notice the questions being asked around you, of you, out of your earshot. Do they question authority? Do they question outcomes? Do they question assumptions and priorities? Do they question process? Notice what questions are there but not voiced. Notice who questions after the decision is rendered. Notice who never questions. Notice who is defensive upon being questioned, and who welcomes a question. Notice how elucidating noticing is. Why does your group behave like this? What is lost due to lack of questioning? What would be possible if everyone valued questioning?

Sir Ken Robinson spoke at the TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) Conference in February of 2006. The TED Conference is dedicated to new ideas and thinking that can change the world. You can view his talks and hundred of others at Ted.com. I enjoy watching Sir Ken’s Ted talk when I need to be reminded of the importance of enduring the hard process of change. I find listening to him reminds me of the goal, the purpose, the reason it all matters: our kids’ futures.

Below is my synopsis of his talk. Read, re-read, and re-read it again. To me, it’s logical; it’s emotional; it’s a call to action. I ask myself what is my part, what can I do?

• There is enormous capacity and potential in human creativity, especially for those who make it to adulthood with creativity.
• Kids have innate and enormous capacity for creativity.
• We have no infallible, certain idea of what the future will bring.
• Education is meant to take us into this unknown future.
• All kids have unique talent and we squander it.
• Creativity is an important literacy — we don’t think of it that way. Why not?
• Kids are not frightened of being wrong at the beginning of school.
• If we are not prepared to be wrong, then we will never have anything original to contribute.
• By adulthood, most are afraid of being wrong.
• This is how we raise kids and run our companies.
• We are educating people out of their creative capacity.
• There is hierarchy of education: Math and language. Humanities. Art………first art/music then drama/dance.
• Education focuses on left-brain skills.
• These skills were most valuable in the Industrial Age.
• We are no longer in the Industrial Age.
• The education system places importance on academic ability.
• It is designed to get into college and then get a job in the industrial company.
• There is evidence of a tremendous shift in education now, as the traditional degrees are now worthless.
• MFA is the new MBA because of how it trains one to think.
• We need to re-think how we understand intelligence.
• Intelligence is diverse.
• Intelligence is dynamic creativity (generate original ideas that at worth something).
• Intelligence is distinct for each individual.
• We need to question the fundamental principles of education.
• Our job is to help kids make something of their future.