The wisdom of questions | Ryoichi Oka Penna | TEDxLaçador

Ryo uses a question-based methodology always asking about how things could be. He provokes us asking, "How would Google be if instead of offering answers, it offered questions?" For him, answers generate comfort but questions make us act. He believes the way Brazilians interact through networks, communities and organizations, apart from being at the basis of our national identity, can be the key to change.

Ryo was the president of Brasil Junior and founder of Global Forum for Junior Companies. He became involved with a bill regarding junior companies in the Senate and has represented the country in the G20 Young Entrepreneurs' Alliance. Currently in charge of leadership formation programmes at Fundação Estudar, he has the opportunity to get to know about youngsters' dreams and helps them to be protagonists of their own lives.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

How would Google be

if, instead of offering answers,

it offered questions?

The first time this question
came to my mind

was when I received an invitation

to teach what I thought
would be a leadership course

to youngsters from the Amazon
riverside communities.

From the point of view of someone coming
from an economically privileged region,

I thought I'd have a lot
to teach these youngsters.

But what happened was
exactly the opposite.

When we started to collect
more information

about their lifestyles

in a riverside community
in the midst of the Amazon,

I realized that nothing,
absolutely nothing,

that I knew about leadership
would be useful for them,

at least in the way I was used
to dealing with the term.

Just to give one example,

many of them traveled four days
by boat to attend this meeting;

and, to make it worse,
seven days to return,

because the way back
is countercurrent to the Jurua river.

What we did then was
to reverse the process:

instead of class, questions;

instead of teaching,
learn with the participants.

What we did was to adapt
a methodology based on questions.

In three questions, in fact;
the first one was,

what's good here, in your community?

Let's appreciate what we already have,

so then, yes, we could ask
the second question,

what's the dream you have
for your communities?

And end asking,

and now, what are you going to do
to make these dreams come true?

We ended up doing
two activities with them.

In the first, we handed them
cardboard paper

and asked them to draw
how their communities would be like

when their dreams had come true.

We thought it would be something
like an urban center or similar.

But what's most interesting
is that, in all cardboards,

one color predominated: green.

Instead of buildings, the community
exactly as it is, with one addition;

like, for example, a school,

or an information technology laboratory,

or a health center,

so they wouldn't need to travel
three or four hours by boat

to study, to learn or to treat
some health problem.

The best part for me, though,

was when we did a round
of interviews, like a talk show,

and called an 11-year-old girl,

and one of the questions we asked her was,

"What do you want to be when you grow up?"

She answered, very seriously,
"I want to be a lawyer."

And we said, "Wow, a lawyer, superb. Why?"

And, in a very unique way,
she turned and said,

"Once I heard lawyers
make a lot of money."

But, she continued, "But that's not
why I want to be a lawyer.

I want to be a lawyer
to defend my forest."

The way she answered moved us

and made us think about many things,

because it's likely few people

are so connected with their
environment the way she was with hers.

I have never seen my town the way
she saw her forest, for instance.

But maybe not everyone is so connected

with their communities,
with the people around them.

And maybe not everyone
is so connected with their own selves,

to the point of having enough awareness

to understand their purpose
in the middle of it all.

The problem, though, is not so visible.

Sometimes, our lack in questioning
things and asking questions

puts us in automatic mode

and we end up used to the way things are,

instead of exploring the beauty
of how things could be.

Now, the fact that we don't ask
many questions,

sometimes it can look like laziness,

lack of motivation, energy,
or something like that,

but, honestly, I think
this is truly resignation.

It's resignation to believe
it can be better,

and that now, in this moment,
there are new truths floating among us.

One of my favorite films
explores this very well.

It's called "Twelve Angry Men."

To make a brief summary,
12 men are part of a popular jury

and they need to decide the fate

of an 18-year-old boy,
charged with killing his own father.

Out of the 12, 11 are sure,
positive, that he's guilty

and want to condemn him
to the electric chair and go home.

Except that, of the 12,
one of them still has doubts

and he asks questions
that provoke others to think,

and change a history that could culminate
in the death of an innocent young man.

The issue is, to manage
to ask the right questions -

and, many times,
the environment is quite sterile

for receiving the right questions -

some previous steps
are interesting to be taken.

The first one is that people should
be able to create vulnerability

in a certain group,

so we can have empathy
with their mental model;

because, when we have empathy
with a mental model of a certain group,

we are sure we can undo
the certainties we have

so as to open room to real doubts;

to be able to ask the right questions.

But do we do this right?

When, for example, a curious kid asks,

"Why? Why? Why?" and we answer,
without any patience, "Because I said so,"

what incentive are we giving that kid
to make them good "question makers"

and to actually want to question
what is happening?

What ends up happening, with all of this,

is that we start to get incentive
to stop asking questions.

And when I stop asking questions,
I start to keep myself to my world,

to my individualism;

and I also forget to ask
who are the people around me.

So, what we can do
is to keep on asking questions,

making the effort to ask.

And what's most interesting

is that they don't necessarily
need to be verbalized.

When we are aware
of the meaning of our action,

our action is our question.

For example, a good urban project
can actually be a question,

"What can I do to make sure
people interact more and better

in public spaces?"

An innovative school can be a question,

"What can I do to make sure human beings
are formed like human beings?"

Or, even better, how can a nutcase ask,

"What's the problem
in hugging a stranger?"

We're already doing this
here today, as a matter of fact.

(Laughter)

The interesting thing is
when we start to ask questions,

when I start to ask something about you
and to put myself in your shoes,

I start to understand
your perspective of the world.

Even better, I start
to understand your world.

One interesting thing I heard once was:

we don't see the world the way it is;

the world is the way we see it.

And when we can understand better

other people's views,

this starts to happen
much more effectively.

Much more than benevolent,
this makes us more intelligent,

to solve complex problems,

that have cause and effect
apart from each other.

And we make them closer
with our own approach.

To manage to do this,
three steps are interesting.

First, we need to connect,
and to connect is very simple.

It's to become vulnerable,
to manage to say, "I don't know."

It's to want to know, "Who are you?"

It's to be able to ask,
"Why?" or "What for?"

Because when we manage to do this,
to create an atmosphere of questioning,

the doubts that arise
come with great humbleness.

Because when we ask the right questions,
in fact, what we are doing

is to consider the hypothesis
of us being wrong

or that we may not have
all the information.

Because, when I admit that I'm wrong
or that I lack information,

then, in this case I might have enough
awareness to provoke an action

myself or of the whole community.

Viktor Frankl once said, "You can take
everything away from a person.

Except the last type of freedom,

which is the freedom to choose,
the freedom of our own attitude,

the freedom to build one's own way,
regardless of circumstances."

And the process
to make question asking easier,

is, in reality, a process of freedom

because when we ask the right question,

we are, in fact, opening space for choice.

Because I only choose something
when I question something.

It's a true fact that we, as a species,

have always been moved by questions
that enabled us to survive and evolve.

This is not new.

The big question is that, maybe,
we're in an imbalance

for having too many answers,

because answers are more and more
accessible and in greater quantity

and they usually come from outside;

and questions are more and more scarce,

because they demand some energy level
we aren't used to anymore,

especially because they come from inside.

It is this imbalance that worries us.

That's why I urge us all
to keep on asking;

keep on asking because, in a given moment,

something is going to happen.

Miguel Cavalcanti said
something very nice,

"When we have all the answers,
it's time we changed the questions."

But, above all, asking good questions

makes us excellent leaders,

capable of seeing the world
with other eyes.

I keep thinking that maybe we don't need

more data, more information,
or even more knowledge.

We just need new eyes

that allow us to see what no one has seen

and ask what no one has asked.

The answers are what exactly, after all?

A picture of the present.

But, if the present is always changing,

what are they for?

Maybe it is this:

the answers are disposable,

the questions are reusable.

(Applause)

Answers generate comfort.

Questions generate awareness and action.

At the same time, it's a dilemma,
we've got to admit it.

Do I question, or do I move forward?

Because moving forward is important,
it gives us a sense of accomplishment;

moving forward allows us to do something.

But when we embrace
the freedom to ask a question,

we are actually embracing
the freedom of choice;

and freedom of choice provokes
an incredible movement

of taking us away from the victim position
to the protagonist position.

and, if that seems interesting
for an individual,

imagine how powerful
this is for an organization

or for the community as a whole.

This power goes way beyond
our comprehension.

This is much more than rational,
much more than Cartesian.

So, the big question is
how to know exactly

what is the right moment to question,

as this might give us knowledge

to understand if the moment
to ask is right

or if it is the moment to move forward.

That's why I'd like to finish with a fable

that starts exactly with a question

between a bird and a squirrel.

One day a bird approached
a squirrel and said, "Squirrel,

you, with all your wisdom,
tell me one thing,

how much does a snow flake weigh?"

The squirrel answered,
"Nothing more than nothing."

The bird replied, "Are you serious?

So sit down, I want to tell you a thing
that happened to me yesterday."

And the bird said,

"I was on top of a branch
when it started to snow.

I'm a bird, I wasn't doing
anything at all,

(Laughter)

so I decided to count how many snow flakes
would fall on that branch.

And I counted,

2 million, 999 thousand, 999 snow flakes.

As each snow flake weighs nothing more
than nothing, nothing happened."

But then the bird said,
"Snow flake 3 million fell.

And, when snow flake 3 million fell,

the branch broke and fell on the ground."

The squirrel said, "So?"

And the bird said, "So, I kept thinking,

what if the entire world
has made its movement,

and it's only waiting for my move

so a great movement can take shape?"

(Applause)

And he continued,

"What if the only thing missing is my move

so I can, in fact, see the world
the way I want it?"

That girl in the Amazon was a snow flake,
even without knowing it.

Exactly like each one of us here.

And, as I finish here, hoping that
we'll keep on asking and questioning,

I'll finish with one question:

what if only you are missing?

Thank you.

(Applause)