OFFICE FOR INTERNATIONAL STUDY PROGRAMS

HCMC UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY

Lecture #:

QUESTIONING

LEARNING OUTCOMES

L.O.2 - Relate the questioning skills to personal growth and

development

L.O.3 - Behave depending on the questioning skills

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 MAIN CONTENTS

1. Overview
2. Introduction
3. Contents
4. Summary
5. Practice
6. Homework

1. Overview of

Behavioral skills

Courage to innovative
Cognitive skill to synthesize
Questioning novel inputs

Challenging the
status quo Observing
Innovative
Associational business/daily-life
thinking ideas
Taking risks
Networking

Experimenting

Figure 1.1 The ideas (adapted)

Source: Dyer et al. (2011)
 2. Introduction
Definition
Questioning is posing queries that challenge common wisdom, generating inquiry
that provokes new insights, connections, possibilities, and directions (Dyer et al.,
2011).

2. Introduction
Motivation

Innovators ask lots of questions to better understand what is and what might be

Great products, companies, even industries, often begin with a question

Asking clients lots of questions is key to generating powerful solutions to problems

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 2. Introduction
Application

Figure 3.1 Comparison of

questioning skills for different
types of innovators and
noninnovators
Source: Dyer et al. (2011)

3. Contents of the questioning skills

Skill overview

Tips for developing questioning skills

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 3. Contents of the questioning skills

Innovators inquire deeply for answers about what is happening right here and right

WHAT: Every single company and organization on the planet knows WHAT they do.

WHATs to identify new growth opportunities.

Examples

3. Contents of the questioning skills

Ask causal questions to gain insights into why things are the way they are.

Examples

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 3. Contents of the questioning skills

Innovators persistently leverage why and why-not questions to acquire critical insights.

Examples

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3. Contents of the questioning skills

eliminate constraints
Great questions also eliminate the constraints that we can unnecessarily impose on
our thinking due to a focus on resource allocations, decisions, or technology
limitations.
Questions that artificially impose constraints can trigger unexpected insight by
forcing people to think around the constraint.
Asking questions that place constraints on solutions forces out-of-the-box thinking
because it ignites new associations.
Examples

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 3. Contents of the questioning skills
Tips for developing questioning skills
Tip #1: Engage in QuestionStorming
Tip #2: Cultivate question thinking
Tip #3: Track your Q/A ratio
Tip #4: Keep a question-centered notebook

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4. Summary
Recap (theory)

Tips for developing questioning skills

Examples

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 5. Practice
Simulation game
As an individual or team, identify a personal, work unit, or organizational problem or
challenge to solve.
Practice
Write down at least 20 questions about that problem or challenge.
Reformulate the top-three challenges into the top-three questions.
Rules
Generate only one question at a time.
Have one person write the questions down.
No one can ask a new question until the last one is completely written down.
Prod each other to ask a full range of what is, what caused, why and why not, and what
if questions during the exercise.

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6. Homework
Requirement
Discuss and present group ideas to apply the questioning skills for assignment 1.
Deadline: 1 week

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 REFERENCES

Dyer, J., Gregersen, H., & Christensen, C. M. (2011). Innovator's DNA: Mastering the
Five Skills of Disruptive Innovators. Harvard Business Press. [main reference]

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OFFICE FOR INTERNATIONAL STUDY PROGRAMS

HCMC UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY

HAPPY LEARNING