At the recent Stonyfield Entrepreuneurship Institute, a boot camp for community-minded entrepreneurs, small business leaders, such as Vermont Cookie Love and Breakwind Farm (specializing in baked beans, no joke) presented a ten-minute overview of their business and asked for input on a key question or two. A panel of experienced advisers provided advice and feedback. What was interesting was that, upon discussion with the panel and audience, it often emerged that a different question was more important to answer than the one they presented. For example, a business leader’s question was: “should we change our packaging?” and after discussion it became clear that the more important question was “how can expand our manufacturing?”

Part of what caused the shift in the question was the input of people who had been down the road of growing a small food company and could help the business leader recognize which question was most timely. When one is in the thick of juggling many priorities it can be hard to take this overall perspective. And there is a skill in being able to ask the right questions.

Researchers are starting to research how we ask questions. Dan Rothstein and Luz Santana, have created the Right Question Institute, a Cambridge non-profit that is “taking a close look at how questions work, what our brains are doing when they put a question together, and how questions could drive learning, child development, innovation, business strategy, and creativity.”

As it becomes ever more imperative to be able to respond to change, innovate, and adopt new ideas, learning to craft the right question is critical. The Globe article quotes Phil McKinney, a consultant and former Hewlett-Packard chief technology officer:  “crafting good questions is precisely what allows people to make imaginative leaps. The challenge is that, as adults, we lose our curiosity over time. We get into ruts, we become experts in our fields or endeavors.”

In our work with Strategic Questioning, we have seen repeatedly how bringing diverse perspectives together and practicing asking open questions can lead to smarter strategy, innovative ideas, and new insights on our past experience. In a short time, people can learn to ask more powerful questions.