The Art of Asking: Annotated Bibliography
Victoria L. Wellman-Teeple
Department of Education, Michigan State University
MAET Overseas Summer
July 22, 2022
Berger, W. (2016). A more beautiful question: The power of inquiry to spark breakthrough ideas. Bloomsbury.
Chapter 3
"[Paul] BENNET IS A longtime creative director at the innovation firm IDEO. A native of the United Kingdom who grew up in Singapore, he originally headed up IDEO's London office, then helped open branches in Asia."
"'I [Paul Bennett] position myself relentlessly as an idiot at IDEO,' Bennett observes. 'And that's not a negative, it's a positive. Because being comfortable with not knowing-- that's the first part of being able to question.'"
The book goes on to explain Bennett's reasoning and methods for fearlessly asking a range of questions that may make him seem uninformed and naïve. A quick Google Search of "Paul Bennett IDEO" show images, videos, and a full bio available publicly which indicate he is a British [white] man who spent some of his formative years in Singapore. Bennett champions being unafraid to ask stupid questions, no matter the setting. When in meetings he does not shy away from asking any kind of 'ridiculous' questions.
The book brings up a term to describe something that I might call the inverse of déjà vu, it's a feeling that what you're seeing/hearing/experiencing is a complete novelty.
"If you've ever experienced this, it feels a bit like déjà vu in reverse. With déjà vu, you go somewhere you've never before been yet it seems oddly familiar,; conversely, when you look at something familiar and suddenly see it fresh, this is a case of vuja de, to use a quirky term favored by Stanford University professor and author Bob Sutton."
"As with beginner's in mind, Sutton's vuja de idea has resonated in various corners of the innovation sector, having been picked up by, among others, IDEO, whose general manager, Tom Kelley, has written that vuja de provides the ability to "see what's always been there but has gone unnoticed."
"But years before IDEO or even Sutton talked about vuja de, the term was mentioned, albeit briefly, in a stand-up comedy routine by the American comedian George Carlin. ... as [Carlin] explained, [vuja de] was "the strange feeling that, somehow, none of this has ever happened before."
Chapter 5
"I asked Novogratz about the speech and the questioning theme. 'It's been a hallmark of my life to run up against walls and realize there are no easy, clear answers.' she said. 'And it took me time to learn that the best I could do was get smarter at asking better questions. So I wanted them to learn that sooner, rather than later."