Ask More: The Power of Questions to Open Doors, Uncover Solutions, and Spark Change pdfdrive com

CHAPTER 7
IMAGINE THIS
Creativity Questions
C
REATIVITY QUESTIONS INVITE US
to pull out the paintbrush, throw away the coloring
book and think differently. They prompt our imaginations. They ask us to get out of
the way, break rules of convention, and exceed the bounds of the possible. They
encourage us to rally to greatness or peer into the future, to see a new world. They
invite us to daydream.
?
What would it be like to ride around like a millionaire?
What a great question. It asks us to envision wealth and comfort replacing
the common chore of getting from one place to another. It prods us to imagine
how special we’d feel if a deferential driver did the navigating and if
convenience replaced stress. No wasted time finding a parking space or hailing a
cab. No digging through your pockets for money. (Millionaires don’t carry
money, anyway.) You stretch out in the back seat, comfortable and relaxed,
managing the empire. Absolute efficiency. Pampered success.
It is the question that animated a couple of techie dreamers in a late-night
brainstorming session. Travis Kalanick and Garrett Camp were “jamming on
ideas, rapping on what’s next.” Camp came up with a Big Idea: a solution to the
horrible taxi service in San Francisco. Camp was stuck on creating a car service
that was so efficient people would feel like they were riding like millionaires. In
the summer of 2010, the pair launched a tiny company. They called it Uber.
Within four years, Uber reported that riders were taking more than one
million trips a day in more than fifty countries. Five years after it started, the
company was valued at as much as $50 billion. It inspired the “sharing
economy,” as companies like Airbnb, Snapgoods, and Task-Rabbit remade the

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way people travel, work, buy, and do business around the world. So now we
know. If people are given an opportunity to ride around like a millionaire, they’ll
do it, millions of times over.
Questions that drive creative thinking are out-there questions. They are big
and bold. They ask people to transport themselves to a different time and place
and state of mind. They open the door to aspiration and disruption. They
challenge the status quo. They reframe issues around visionary, maybe even
revolutionary, ideas.
You find inspiration in these fun questions because they invite fresh and
original thinking. But you may also feel uneasy when they challenge
conventional wisdom and the world you know. Whether you’re trying to invent
the next big thing, make a crazy video to sell cars, or write the next inspiring
chapter in your life, this line of questioning can help you hatch ambitious new
ideas and bring people along for the ride to collaborate and create alongside you.
Creativity questions ask you to pretend as they connect you to an imagined
reality, where horizons are brighter and where limitations are lifted. They are
questions that suggest everything is possible.
That’s what it’s like to ride around like a millionaire.
Creativity questions may not hand you the next $50 billion business, but they
will help you put together the best brainstorming session you’ve ever imagined.
They will help you reset the dial and think about new ways to get the kids to be
on time or eat their broccoli. They will help you bring divergent viewpoints
together and think about new ways to address a problem in the community or in
the country. Creative questions can become a collaborative quest for answers.
What’s the magic wand idea?
We’ve arrived. What are we doing?
There are no obstacles. Now what?
Creative questioning asks people to close their eyes and imagine. It
welcomes crazy ideas, shrugs off the obvious, and seeks alternatives. Creative
questioning asks fellow travelers to: