Reviews
Press for A More Beautiful Question
A More Beautiful Question is featured on the following “Best Books” and “Recommended” lists
-
- The 50 Top Project Management Books for Summer Reading 2018 || Capterra
- The 13 Best Books on Critical Thinking To Read in 2018 || UpJourney.com
- 76 Best Business Books for Entrepreneurs, Professionals, and Creatives to Read in 2017 || Rrob.com
- 21 Books to Read If You Want to Boost Your Career || Mashable, summer 2016
- Essential Books for Education Leaders || Teaching Excellence
- 39 Books to Help You Make Decisions in Life || Shane Parrish, TIME.com
- Winner 2015 Audie Awards for Best Business Audiobook
- 25 Amazing Business Books from 2014 || Entrepreneur.com
- 10 Mind-Altering Business Books from 2014 || HuffPostBooks
- 13 Must Read Business Books in 2014 || Adam M. Grant, The Atlantic’s Quartz.com, and LinkedIn Influencer blog
- 20 Best Business Books to Read This Summer || Business Insider
- 5 Must Reads for Creative Leaders || Tim Brown, CEO, IDEO; LinkedIn Influencer blog
- Recommended Summer Reading for Creative Leaders || Forbes.com
- Top 5 Thought Leader Books || TrackingWonder.com
- Best Books for Creative Leaders to Read || HelloBeautiful.com
Bylined Articles, Interviews, and Reviews
Click on article titles to read more. • Jump to Broadcast Media.
The Power of “Why” and “What if?” || New York Times Preoccupations column, June 16, 2016
Warren Berger: Improve Your Life by Improving Your Questions || FarnamStreet.com
Interview by Shane Parrish of FarnamStreet.com: “In this episode, we discuss the importance of asking the right questions, why they’re critical to your success, and how you might be one great question away from a major breakthrough.”
Using the Power of Questions to Think Deeper, Act Faster, and Create Better || Convene Magazine (Sept. 2014 cover story)
“We can only innovate if we learn how to form and tackle what Berger calls “big, beautiful questions.” Just what is a beautiful question? And how can it transform business — and the meetings industry in particular? Here’s what Berger told Convene.”
Chasing Beautiful Questions || Spirit Magazine (April 2014 cover story)
“What if you found that creative genius does not lie in knowing all the answers? Van Phillips asked three questions that changed the world. You can ask them too.”
Find Your Passion with These 8 Thought-Provoking Questions || Fast Company
“Warren Berger collected the provocative questions top designers, tech innovators, and entrepreneurs ask themselves to spark creativity.”
5 Common Questions a Leader Should Never Ask || HBR Blog Network
“Questions can be great for engaging and motivating people , but they can just as easily be used to confront or blame, and can shift the mood from positive to negative.”
Want to Win in Business? Ask a Better Question || Wired UK magazine, June 2014 issue
Business-article excerpt taken from A More Beautiful Question. Check out the funny/weird illustrations by Zohar Lazar.
How to Capture Attention and Establish Trajectory || Dan Rockwell at LeadershipFreak.com
“I don’t need another book about questions. I’m the most curious question-asker I know. Leaders hire me to ask questions. I’m an expert. But, Warren’s email wouldn’t go away… Warren and I finally connected. I hate to admit it, but, he’s as passionate about questions as I am. Worse yet, he’s thought about questions in ways that hadn’t occurred to me.”
5 Ways to Help Your Students Become Better Questioners || Edutopia
“How to encourage questioning: Make it safe, make it cool, make it fun, make it rewarding, make it stick. Here’s how…”
Forget the Mission Statement. Ask the Mission Question || The Management Blog by BloombergBusinessweek
“Thinking of a company mission as a shared endeavor—an ongoing attempt to answer a bold question through collaborative inquiry—seems vastly preferable to having to live up to a dictum handed down from on high.”
5 Questions That Can Change Your Life || PsychologyToday.com
“The right question makes all the difference. What’s your tennis ball?”
Question Everything: How asking questions opens doors to opportunities and inspiration || Success Magazine
“I learned that asking challenging questions—of others, and particularly, of oneself—can actually fuel greater success in business and in life. “How?” you ask? Great question, and here is a five-part answer.”
Want a Big Idea? Ask Better Questions || Inc Magazine interview by Leigh Buchanan
“When it comes to innovation and leadership, questions can be more powerful than statements. 4 Questions for Warren Berger” (Read/download the 1-page PDF.)
Powerful Questions to Inspire Positive Change || PsychCentral.com
“To discover good answers, we have to ask good questions. We can ask the above questions regularly to help us create a fulfilling life, whatever ‘fulfilling’ means to you.”
Igniting Change with Beautiful Questions || Womenetics.com
“Creating a workplace that values and encourages great questions, says Berger, ‘requires a special kind of leader, one who is both humble and confident – which is a rare mix.’”
Q&A by Larry Ferlazzo || Education Week
“Here’s what I would say to any student: Knowing the answers will help you in school, but knowing how to question will help you in life. That ability to question—and do it well—enables you to tackle challenges and solve problems, which will help you succeed in your career and as a person.”
Why Ask Questions? || Govloop.com
“Questioning is an essential skill that many of us forget to practice. Listen to the on-demand version of Berger’s keynote at GovLoop’s State and Local Innovators Virtual Summit, Why Ask Questions?, by clicking here.”
Ask This Small Question to Make Big Changes || Fast Company
“One question could help you make simple, but meaningful, improvements in your work and life.”
Better Questions in the Classroom || Q&A with USC Rossier School of Education
“As we grow older and are expected to know things, we start questioning our questions before we even have a chance to ask them. How can teachers encourage better questions from students in the classroom?”
Tackle Any Problem with These Three Questions || Fast Company {The third in a 3-part Fast Company series; see other links below}
“Whatever challenge you’ve staked out—an entrepreneurial venture, a potential innovation, perhaps a social problem crying out for a fresh approach—asking the right questions, at the right time, can help you begin to tackle that problem and can even guide you toward a solution.”
Become a Company that Questions Everything || HarvardBusinessReview.org
“How can a company create an environment where people are more inclined to question? And is it possible to encourage the “right kind” of questions — the ones most likely to lead to productive results? Based on studying a number of companies that have done seem to be doing a good job at creating a culture of inquiry, here are four key observations…”
Phrase your mission statement like a question to motivate people: Warren Berger || The Economic Times
“‘Asking questions is seen as ineffective and slowing things down. The perception is that questions get in the way of doing something. But if done right, it can be a productive and not a negative force,’ says Berger. There is an art and science to asking great questions, which can spark innovation.”
How to Improve Your Sales by Asking Better Questions || John Cousineau at Salesforce.com
“In his book A Beautiful Question, Warren Berger makes the case that questions create the ‘lightbulb effect’ needed to innovate in anything.”
Thinker in Residence: Warren Berger || 800CEORead.com
“From start to finish, A More Beautiful Question is challenging and provocative because it attempts (and succeeds) at doing the very thing it advocates for: it asks questions. Lots and lots of questions. ”
The Power of Asking the Right Questions || Amex OPENForum Q&A with Matthew E. May
“Through a number of well-researched stories, Berger demonstrates that the most creative, successful people in the world tend to be expert questioners. They’ve mastered the art of inquiry, raising questions no one else is asking—and finding the answers everyone else is seeking.”
How to Promote Questioning Skills in Your Workplace || Interview by Skilledup.com/Robert McGuire
“If the skills gap extends to the ability to pose good questions, then how can businesses close that gap? What can organizational leaders do to promote questioning skills in their workplace and how can they recruit based on this skill? Interview with Warren Berger.”
How to change your life with the right questions || Profile by The Journal News
“It’s not easy asking questions of a man who has mastered the art of inquiry. But Warren Berger, author of “A More Beautiful Question: The Power of Inquiry to Spark Breakthrough Ideas,” is more than happy to field questions on a topic that has grown close to his heart: how the right sorts of questions have the power to change lives.”
100 Great Questions Every Entrepreneur Should Ask || Inc. magazine (April 2014)
“Paul Graham, Jim Collins, Tony Hsieh, and other business leaders share the questions you should be asking if you want to improve your company.”
If All You Demand of Your Employees is Answers, You Can Say Goodbye to Innovation || Microsoft for Work
“Berger’s research examines the state of today’s workplace and provides actionable advice on how to create a culture of inquiry that could transform and elevate your business.
Scared of Failing? Ask Yourself These 6 Fear-Killing Questions || Fast Company blog
“Warren Berger, author of A MORE BEAUTIFUL QUESTION, collected the provocative questions that top designers, tech innovators, and entrepreneurs ask themselves to spark creativity.”
The Worst Mistake America’s CEOs Make || The Fiscal Times
“Too many business leaders stink at asking important questions – and as a result, their companies don’t seize market opportunities, push out new products, handle P.R. nightmares effectively or any number of other essential business actions. This absence of critical questioning risks compromising their bottom line, their brand or both.”
Big Idea: Why It’s Imperative to Teach Students How to Question as the Ultimate Survival Skill || MindShift KQED/NPR
“Are our schools doing a good job of preparing students for a world where questioning is a survival skill?”
Can You See the Opportunity Right in Front of You? || Harvard Business Review
“To truly innovate, release your inner George Carlin.”
Warren Berger Tells How to Ask a ‘Beautiful Question’ || Interview on Daily Beast
“A fair amount of the book is focused on the need to ask deeper, better questions in business—which really resonated with me…. But Berger also writes about how questioning can help us solve problems and work through difficult challenges in our daily lives. In today’s fast-paced world, a lot of us are rushing around and doing things without taking the time to ask the critical Why and What If questions that can guide us in better directions.”
How to Cultivate the Art of Asking Good Questions || The Wall Street Journal Speakeasy blog
“Everyone knows about the mobile messaging app that sold for $19 billion. But have you heard about another amazing app—the one that helps you figure out what to do whenever you’re faced with a problem or a challenge?”
Warren Berger: How Asking Questions Can Make You A Better Entrepreneur || Forbes.com interview with Dan Schawbel
“Berger talks about how questioning can lead to new innovations, what the process of questioning is, why they fear the challenge of trying to get to the hard answers and shares his best advice to you.”
The Brilliance of Asking Incredibly Naive Questions || Fortune.com profile
“Most workplace conversations discourage real dialogue — the kind you get when people feel free to challenge plans, ideas, even one another.
Warren Berger – A More Beautiful Question || Sam McNerney at 250 Words
“Berger discusses how our innate urge to ask questions atrophies over time, “vuja de,” and some of the books that inspired him to write A More Beautiful Question.”
Warren Berger On Innovation Through Asking ‘A More Beautiful Question’ [Author Interview] || KevinKauzlaric.com
“Do you lack creativity? The science behind questioning can get you on track to successfully creating new ideas, solutions, or products.”
What Socrates, a Better Foot, and the DNA of Music Have in Common || SteigmanCommunications.com
“Warren Berger wants us all to be more like Socrates. In A More Beautiful Question, Berger writes eloquently about the importance of inquiry in the business world.”
Broadcast Media
VIDEO: Big Think: Questions Are the New Answers
VIDEOS: American Management Association “3 QUESTIONS” video series (1.5 minutes each)
1. Warren Berger on Why Some Leaders Fear Questions
2. Warren Berger on Becoming Dependent on Google
3. Warren Berger on Asking the Right Question
PODCAST: Article & podcast interview by Box of Crayons’ Michael Bungay Stanier
PODCAST: Interview by innovation author/professor David Burkus
PODCAST: LeadStar Leadership Conversation Series
PODCAST: The Entrepreneur’s Library
PODCAST: “The Innovation Engine” podcast: Innovation & The Power of Inquiry, with Warren Berger
PODCAST: Great conversation with Kelly Carlin on her “Waking from the American Dream” podcast
PODCAST: Drucker on the Dial host Phalana Tiller talks with Warren Berger and Luz Santana, co-founder of the Right Question Institute, about the art of asking questions and the power of inquiry.
PODCAST: American Management Association podcast: Warren Berger on Asking More Questions
RADIO: Larry Mantle of Southern California Public Radio’s AirTalk (SCPR.org) interviews Warren Berger
RADIO: Joe Donahue of WAMC Northeast Public Radio discusses the importance of questioning with Warren Berger (10 min. audio)
RADIO: Interesting conversation on how questioning works on Tom Park’s Pathways show, Portland, OR, KBOO radio
Other articles by Warren on innovation and questioning
appearing in Fast Company, Harvard Business Review, The Atlantic, and more
- Before You Abandon Those Resolutions, Read This
- Forget the Mission Statement. What’s Your Mission Question?
- The Five Bold Questions Every Company Should Ask Itself
- The Secret Phrase Top Innovators Use
- What Zen Taught Silicon Valley (And Steve Jobs) About Innovation
- What we can learn from Kanye West’s Twitter rant
- The Creator Of TED Aims To Reinvent Conferences Once Again
- Big Innovations Question the Status Quo. How Do You Ask the Right Questions?
- To Innovate, You Need the Courage to Step Backward
- The Four Phases of Design Thinking
Reviews for A MORE BEAUTIFUL QUESTION
“One closes Berger’s book newly conscious of the significance of smart questions” || The New York Times
“Is there a relationship between innovation and the ability to ask ambitious questions? The journalist and innovation expert Berger argues there is, and in this breezy management book he seeks to improve our capacity to question…. One closes Berger’s book newly conscious of the significance of smart questions.”
“If you could map the DNA of successful entrepreneurs, it might reveal a double helix of question marks.” || Bloomberg BusinessWeek review
“One of the most powerful business tools is not a spreadsheet. It’s neither Big Data nor innovation. It’s the simple question, right there on the tip of your tongue. A More Beautiful Question demonstrates just how far an inquisitive mind can take you.”
“An absorbing treatise that calls for more curiosity.” || Publishers Weekly
“This potential game-changer will help readers identify where opportunities lie and how to seize them.”
“A crisply written overview of how our impatient culture and top-down learning paradigms suppress our natural ability to ask imaginative questions.” || Audiofile Magazine
“With its nuanced critique of how public and private institutions discourage curiosity, this audiobook should be required listening for anyone responsible for igniting change and promoting personal engagement.” Winner 2015 Audie Award for Best Business Audiobook.
“Beyond the potential banality of yet another business book and into the things that matter.” || Robert Blinn, Core 77
“By weaving his narrative from the beginning of life… to the modern world of business, (Berger) serendipitously delves into the most important question of all: How to live.”
“A delightfully different way of observing something that seems simple and routine” || The Free Press Journal, Mumbai, India
“With an attractive style of writing, the author balances precision with conciseness and informality, in a manner that threads the ideas throughout the text…. He provides specific examples to show how the habit of questioning leads to exciting outcomes.”
Hard Questions Spark Breakthrough Business Thinking || Martin Zwilling, Forbes
“I recommend Berger’s book as a practical system of inquiry that can guide you through the process of innovative questioning, helping you find imaginative, powerful answers and building the culture of continuous innovation.”
“The significance of the questioning mind” || Kirkus Reviews “Berger makes great use of both historical and contemporary examples of educators, innovators and business moguls who, by taking time to ask pointed questions of themselves and their respective industries, have both broadened their understandings of challenging situations and expanded the range of positive possibilities.”
“Change usually starts with a question. Inquiry has toppled monarchs and empires throughout history.” || The Economic Times
“This book reminds us that questions drive so many successful innovations and startup companies. The cell phone, the Internet, digital music players— all these technological and business model breakthroughs, from Polaroid to Apple, Netflix and Airbnb, began when someone asked simple questions.”
Innovation Begins with 3 Questions || Strategy + Business
“The book is an engaging read and well supported by the research and experiences of a veritable who’s who of academic and corporate experts. But as essential as asking the right questions is to the innovation process, it is certainly not all there is to successful innovation. Questions need to lead to answers, and answers to action.”
Asking a More Beautiful Question || Leading Blog from LeadershipNow.com
“Berger shows how the most powerful force for igniting change is the question. Example after example demonstrate how often off-beat “why” questions were at the foundation of many innovations.”
A More Beautiful Question: The Power of Inquiry to Spark Breakthrough Ideas || Phil Simon on Huffington Post
“AMBQ emphasizes the importance of not just mechanically taking the next step in business and in life. To this end, the book reminded me of Wait: The Art and Science of Delay by Frank Partnoy, another excellent text.”
“This thought-provoking book offers important insights” || Booklist
“Berger emphasizes the power of inquiry as he challenges us to see things with a fresh eye. He concentrates on game-changing questions, those that can result in actions that lead to real results.”
13 Must Read Business Books in 2014 || Adam M. Grant on The Atlantic’s Quartz.com, and LinkedIn
“Berger poses many fascinating questions, including this one: What if companies had mission questions rather than mission statements? This is a book everyone ought to read—without question.”
Recommended Summer Reading For Creative Leaders From The First Half Of 2014 || David Slocum on Forbes.com
“Journalist Berger (who wrote the excellent Glimmeron design thinking) describes the importance of generating a culture of inquiry and learning. The result is potentially paradigm-shifting: rather than assuming great leaders, creatives, innovators, and entrepreneurs possess the distinctive ability to provide clear answers, the book proposes that asking the right questions might be a more fundamental skill.”
Thought leaders on
A MORE BEAUTIFUL QUESTION
and Warren Berger
“We know that the art of asking questions is at the heart of discovery in science, philosophy, medicine—so why don’t we extend that power to all areas of our lives? The questions Warren Berger raises in this book are thoughtful, provocative, odd, serious, and silly, but in every case they are indeed the kind of ‘beautiful questions’ that can help us identify the right problems and generate creative solutions.”
—DANIEL PINK, New York Times bestselling author of Drive and To Sell is Human
“Most people believe that great leaders, innovators, entrepreneurs, and activists are distinguished by their ability to give compelling answers. This profound book shatters that assumption, showing that the more vital skill is asking the right questions…. Berger poses many fascinating questions, including this one: What if companies had mission questions rather than mission statements? This is a book everyone ought to read—without question.”
—ADAM GRANT, New York Times bestselling author of Give and Take, in “13 Must-Read Business Books in 2014”
“In the old economy, it was all about having the answers. But in today’s dynamic, lean economy, it’s more about asking the right questions. A More Beautiful Question is about figuring out how to ask, and answer, the questions that can lead to new opportunities and growth.”
—ERIC RIES, New York Times bestselling author of The Lean Startup
“Innovation specialist Berger takes on some big questions in this absorbing treatise that calls for more curiosity in our corporate development and daily lives…. Quirky sidebars on topics ranging from George Carlin to hard-boiled eggs add to the book’s inquisitive spirit…. This potential game-changer will help readers identify where opportunities lie and how to seize them.”
—PUBLISHERS WEEKLY (read full review)
“Berger makes great use of both historical and contemporary examples of educators, innovators and business moguls who, by taking time to ask pointed questions of themselves and their respective industries, have both broadened their understandings of challenging situations and expanded the range of positive possibilities…. A practical testament to the significance of the questioning mind.”
—KIRKUS REVIEWS (read full review)
“In this wise book, Warren Berger shows us how crucial it is to question every aspect of our lives, from business to school to our choice of toothpaste. My question: Why wouldn’t you read this book?”
—A.J. JACOBS, New York Times bestselling author and Esquire columnist
“The genesis of many great startups is the simple question, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if…?’ Berger helps you understand the power of questions to change the world. Real men ask questions, they don’t spout out answers.”
—GUY KAWASAKI, author of APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur, and former chief evangelist at Apple
“Mastering the art of asking questions is essential to creativity and innovation. A More Beautiful Question should be standard reading for all aspiring design thinkers as well an inspiration to those searching for a life of curiosity and meaning.”
—TIM BROWN, Chief Executive, IDEO and author of Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations
“In an age of instant information, it’s easier than ever to find answers, but also easy to forget how important it is to ask the right kinds of questions. In this deeply thought-provoking book, Warren Berger shows how learning the art of good questioning—and resisting the urge to race too quickly toward conclusions—is the path to a far more fruitful and creative way of engaging with the world, at work and in life as a whole.”
—OLIVER BURKEMAN, columnist at The Guardian and bestselling author of The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking
“Warren Berger’s book is a cure for a disease in large enterprises. A More Beautiful Question provides a framework to help leaders ask the most important questions—which is one of the most fundamental characteristics of a great leader—while sharing inspiring stories to show the incredible power of this concept.”
—JIM STENGEL, former Global Marketing Officer at Procter & Gamble and author of Grow: How Ideals Power Growth and Profit at the World’s Greatest Companies
“A More Beautiful Question is a tour de force on how asking questions shapes the life and work of creative leaders. I founded The 4-24 Project because questions are the lifeblood of innovation, and thus, our future. Berger’s engaging collection of narratives will undoubtedly propel this question mission forward, inspiring readers from all walks of life to challenge the status quo by asking more of the world.”
—HAL GREGERSEN, co-author, The Innovator’s DNA and founder of The 4-24 Project
“Why has a book like this never been written before? Here is a persuasive case for the simple and yet extraordinary power of a question. Fascinating, engaging stories give life to a strong argument about how much can be accomplished, in every domain of our lives, ‘just’ by asking questions. Innovators, entrepreneurs, citizens, parents, teachers, idealists and realists—all of us have much to gain by reading A More Beautiful Question.”
—DAN ROTHSTEIN and LUZ SANTANA, co-directors, THE RIGHT QUESTION INSTITUTE; co-authors, Make Just One Change: Teach Students to Ask Their Own Questions
“Questions have literally moved mountains, powered rockets, and instantly developed images. Berger focuses on what he calls ‘Beautiful Questions’… that can lead to game-changing answers and results. These are questions that, once raised, tend to get people thinking in a different way.”
—THE ATLANTIC
“The desire to ask bigger and better questions is on the rise… Warren Berger has been tracking a movement toward questioning that is running very strong in Silicon Valley, but also seems to be spreading throughout the business, nonprofit and education sectors.”
—FORBES.com