The wisdom of questions | Ryoichi Oka Penna | TEDxLaçador
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0:09 - 0:12How would Google be
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0:12 - 0:15if, instead of offering answers,
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0:15 - 0:17it offered questions?
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0:18 - 0:20The first time this question
came to my mind -
0:20 - 0:22was when I received an invitation
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0:22 - 0:26to teach what I thought
would be a leadership course -
0:26 - 0:29to youngsters from the Amazon
riverside communities. -
0:30 - 0:34From the point of view of someone coming
from an economically privileged region, -
0:34 - 0:37I thought I'd have a lot
to teach these youngsters. -
0:38 - 0:40But what happened was
exactly the opposite. -
0:41 - 0:43When we started to collect
more information -
0:43 - 0:45about their lifestyles
-
0:45 - 0:50in a riverside community
in the midst of the Amazon, -
0:51 - 0:54I realized that nothing,
absolutely nothing, -
0:54 - 0:58that I knew about leadership
would be useful for them, -
0:58 - 1:01at least in the way I was used
to dealing with the term. -
1:02 - 1:03Just to give one example,
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1:03 - 1:09many of them traveled four days
by boat to attend this meeting; -
1:10 - 1:13and, to make it worse,
seven days to return, -
1:13 - 1:15because the way back
is countercurrent to the Jurua river. -
1:17 - 1:19What we did then was
to reverse the process: -
1:19 - 1:22instead of class, questions;
-
1:22 - 1:26instead of teaching,
learn with the participants. -
1:27 - 1:31What we did was to adapt
a methodology based on questions. -
1:31 - 1:35In three questions, in fact;
the first one was, -
1:35 - 1:39what's good here, in your community?
-
1:39 - 1:41Let's appreciate what we already have,
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1:41 - 1:43so then, yes, we could ask
the second question, -
1:43 - 1:47what's the dream you have
for your communities? -
1:48 - 1:50And end asking,
-
1:50 - 1:54and now, what are you going to do
to make these dreams come true? -
1:55 - 1:58We ended up doing
two activities with them. -
1:58 - 2:01In the first, we handed them
cardboard paper -
2:01 - 2:04and asked them to draw
how their communities would be like -
2:04 - 2:07when their dreams had come true.
-
2:08 - 2:12We thought it would be something
like an urban center or similar. -
2:12 - 2:14But what's most interesting
is that, in all cardboards, -
2:14 - 2:17one color predominated: green.
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2:17 - 2:23Instead of buildings, the community
exactly as it is, with one addition; -
2:24 - 2:26like, for example, a school,
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2:26 - 2:29or an information technology laboratory,
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2:29 - 2:31or a health center,
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2:31 - 2:35so they wouldn't need to travel
three or four hours by boat -
2:35 - 2:39to study, to learn or to treat
some health problem. -
2:40 - 2:41The best part for me, though,
-
2:41 - 2:44was when we did a round
of interviews, like a talk show, -
2:44 - 2:48and called an 11-year-old girl,
-
2:48 - 2:50and one of the questions we asked her was,
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2:50 - 2:53"What do you want to be when you grow up?"
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2:54 - 2:57She answered, very seriously,
"I want to be a lawyer." -
2:57 - 3:01And we said, "Wow, a lawyer, superb. Why?"
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3:01 - 3:05And, in a very unique way,
she turned and said, -
3:06 - 3:09"Once I heard lawyers
make a lot of money." -
3:11 - 3:14But, she continued, "But that's not
why I want to be a lawyer. -
3:14 - 3:17I want to be a lawyer
to defend my forest." -
3:20 - 3:23The way she answered moved us
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3:23 - 3:25and made us think about many things,
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3:25 - 3:28because it's likely few people
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3:28 - 3:32are so connected with their
environment the way she was with hers. -
3:32 - 3:37I have never seen my town the way
she saw her forest, for instance. -
3:38 - 3:41But maybe not everyone is so connected
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3:41 - 3:43with their communities,
with the people around them. -
3:44 - 3:47And maybe not everyone
is so connected with their own selves, -
3:48 - 3:50to the point of having enough awareness
-
3:50 - 3:53to understand their purpose
in the middle of it all. -
3:56 - 3:58The problem, though, is not so visible.
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3:59 - 4:03Sometimes, our lack in questioning
things and asking questions -
4:03 - 4:06puts us in automatic mode
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4:06 - 4:09and we end up used to the way things are,
-
4:09 - 4:14instead of exploring the beauty
of how things could be. -
4:15 - 4:17Now, the fact that we don't ask
many questions, -
4:17 - 4:20sometimes it can look like laziness,
-
4:20 - 4:23lack of motivation, energy,
or something like that, -
4:23 - 4:27but, honestly, I think
this is truly resignation. -
4:27 - 4:30It's resignation to believe
it can be better, -
4:30 - 4:36and that now, in this moment,
there are new truths floating among us. -
4:37 - 4:40One of my favorite films
explores this very well. -
4:40 - 4:42It's called "Twelve Angry Men."
-
4:43 - 4:47To make a brief summary,
12 men are part of a popular jury -
4:47 - 4:49and they need to decide the fate
-
4:49 - 4:52of an 18-year-old boy,
charged with killing his own father. -
4:52 - 4:57Out of the 12, 11 are sure,
positive, that he's guilty -
4:57 - 5:00and want to condemn him
to the electric chair and go home. -
5:00 - 5:03Except that, of the 12,
one of them still has doubts -
5:03 - 5:06and he asks questions
that provoke others to think, -
5:06 - 5:12and change a history that could culminate
in the death of an innocent young man. -
5:14 - 5:17The issue is, to manage
to ask the right questions - -
5:17 - 5:20and, many times,
the environment is quite sterile -
5:20 - 5:23for receiving the right questions -
-
5:23 - 5:26some previous steps
are interesting to be taken. -
5:26 - 5:30The first one is that people should
be able to create vulnerability -
5:30 - 5:32in a certain group,
-
5:32 - 5:34so we can have empathy
with their mental model; -
5:34 - 5:38because, when we have empathy
with a mental model of a certain group, -
5:38 - 5:42we are sure we can undo
the certainties we have -
5:42 - 5:45so as to open room to real doubts;
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5:45 - 5:47to be able to ask the right questions.
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5:50 - 5:51But do we do this right?
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5:51 - 5:54When, for example, a curious kid asks,
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5:54 - 5:58"Why? Why? Why?" and we answer,
without any patience, "Because I said so," -
5:58 - 6:02what incentive are we giving that kid
to make them good "question makers" -
6:02 - 6:05and to actually want to question
what is happening? -
6:07 - 6:10What ends up happening, with all of this,
-
6:10 - 6:15is that we start to get incentive
to stop asking questions. -
6:15 - 6:18And when I stop asking questions,
I start to keep myself to my world, -
6:18 - 6:21to my individualism;
-
6:21 - 6:25and I also forget to ask
who are the people around me. -
6:26 - 6:29So, what we can do
is to keep on asking questions, -
6:29 - 6:31making the effort to ask.
-
6:33 - 6:35And what's most interesting
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6:35 - 6:38is that they don't necessarily
need to be verbalized. -
6:38 - 6:42When we are aware
of the meaning of our action, -
6:42 - 6:44our action is our question.
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6:45 - 6:49For example, a good urban project
can actually be a question, -
6:49 - 6:53"What can I do to make sure
people interact more and better -
6:53 - 6:54in public spaces?"
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6:55 - 6:57An innovative school can be a question,
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6:57 - 7:02"What can I do to make sure human beings
are formed like human beings?" -
7:03 - 7:06Or, even better, how can a nutcase ask,
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7:06 - 7:08"What's the problem
in hugging a stranger?" -
7:09 - 7:11We're already doing this
here today, as a matter of fact. -
7:11 - 7:12(Laughter)
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7:15 - 7:18The interesting thing is
when we start to ask questions, -
7:18 - 7:22when I start to ask something about you
and to put myself in your shoes, -
7:22 - 7:25I start to understand
your perspective of the world. -
7:25 - 7:28Even better, I start
to understand your world. -
7:29 - 7:33One interesting thing I heard once was:
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7:33 - 7:36we don't see the world the way it is;
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7:36 - 7:38the world is the way we see it.
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7:39 - 7:42And when we can understand better
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7:43 - 7:45other people's views,
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7:45 - 7:48this starts to happen
much more effectively. -
7:48 - 7:53Much more than benevolent,
this makes us more intelligent, -
7:54 - 7:56to solve complex problems,
-
7:56 - 7:59that have cause and effect
apart from each other. -
7:59 - 8:02And we make them closer
with our own approach. -
8:04 - 8:08To manage to do this,
three steps are interesting. -
8:09 - 8:13First, we need to connect,
and to connect is very simple. -
8:14 - 8:18It's to become vulnerable,
to manage to say, "I don't know." -
8:19 - 8:21It's to want to know, "Who are you?"
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8:22 - 8:26It's to be able to ask,
"Why?" or "What for?" -
8:26 - 8:31Because when we manage to do this,
to create an atmosphere of questioning, -
8:31 - 8:37the doubts that arise
come with great humbleness. -
8:37 - 8:40Because when we ask the right questions,
in fact, what we are doing -
8:40 - 8:43is to consider the hypothesis
of us being wrong -
8:43 - 8:45or that we may not have
all the information. -
8:45 - 8:50Because, when I admit that I'm wrong
or that I lack information, -
8:50 - 8:54then, in this case I might have enough
awareness to provoke an action -
8:54 - 8:57myself or of the whole community.
-
8:59 - 9:04Viktor Frankl once said, "You can take
everything away from a person. -
9:04 - 9:07Except the last type of freedom,
-
9:07 - 9:10which is the freedom to choose,
the freedom of our own attitude, -
9:10 - 9:15the freedom to build one's own way,
regardless of circumstances." -
9:15 - 9:19And the process
to make question asking easier, -
9:19 - 9:22is, in reality, a process of freedom
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9:22 - 9:27because when we ask the right question,
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9:27 - 9:30we are, in fact, opening space for choice.
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9:30 - 9:34Because I only choose something
when I question something. -
9:37 - 9:41It's a true fact that we, as a species,
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9:41 - 9:45have always been moved by questions
that enabled us to survive and evolve. -
9:45 - 9:47This is not new.
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9:48 - 9:51The big question is that, maybe,
we're in an imbalance -
9:52 - 9:54for having too many answers,
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9:54 - 9:58because answers are more and more
accessible and in greater quantity -
9:58 - 10:01and they usually come from outside;
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10:02 - 10:04and questions are more and more scarce,
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10:05 - 10:10because they demand some energy level
we aren't used to anymore, -
10:10 - 10:12especially because they come from inside.
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10:13 - 10:16It is this imbalance that worries us.
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10:16 - 10:19That's why I urge us all
to keep on asking; -
10:19 - 10:23keep on asking because, in a given moment,
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10:23 - 10:25something is going to happen.
-
10:25 - 10:27Miguel Cavalcanti said
something very nice, -
10:27 - 10:31"When we have all the answers,
it's time we changed the questions." -
10:34 - 10:37But, above all, asking good questions
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10:37 - 10:40makes us excellent leaders,
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10:40 - 10:43capable of seeing the world
with other eyes. -
10:44 - 10:46I keep thinking that maybe we don't need
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10:46 - 10:50more data, more information,
or even more knowledge. -
10:52 - 10:54We just need new eyes
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10:54 - 10:58that allow us to see what no one has seen
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10:58 - 11:01and ask what no one has asked.
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11:03 - 11:06The answers are what exactly, after all?
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11:06 - 11:07A picture of the present.
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11:08 - 11:11But, if the present is always changing,
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11:11 - 11:13what are they for?
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11:14 - 11:15Maybe it is this:
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11:16 - 11:18the answers are disposable,
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11:18 - 11:21the questions are reusable.
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11:22 - 11:25(Applause)
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11:29 - 11:31Answers generate comfort.
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11:32 - 11:36Questions generate awareness and action.
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11:38 - 11:41At the same time, it's a dilemma,
we've got to admit it. -
11:41 - 11:44Do I question, or do I move forward?
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11:44 - 11:47Because moving forward is important,
it gives us a sense of accomplishment; -
11:47 - 11:50moving forward allows us to do something.
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11:50 - 11:53But when we embrace
the freedom to ask a question, -
11:53 - 11:55we are actually embracing
the freedom of choice; -
11:55 - 11:58and freedom of choice provokes
an incredible movement -
11:58 - 12:02of taking us away from the victim position
to the protagonist position. -
12:04 - 12:06and, if that seems interesting
for an individual, -
12:06 - 12:09imagine how powerful
this is for an organization -
12:09 - 12:11or for the community as a whole.
-
12:11 - 12:13This power goes way beyond
our comprehension. -
12:13 - 12:16This is much more than rational,
much more than Cartesian. -
12:19 - 12:23So, the big question is
how to know exactly -
12:23 - 12:25what is the right moment to question,
-
12:25 - 12:29as this might give us knowledge
-
12:29 - 12:31to understand if the moment
to ask is right -
12:31 - 12:34or if it is the moment to move forward.
-
12:34 - 12:37That's why I'd like to finish with a fable
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12:37 - 12:40that starts exactly with a question
-
12:40 - 12:42between a bird and a squirrel.
-
12:42 - 12:46One day a bird approached
a squirrel and said, "Squirrel, -
12:46 - 12:48you, with all your wisdom,
tell me one thing, -
12:48 - 12:51how much does a snow flake weigh?"
-
12:52 - 12:56The squirrel answered,
"Nothing more than nothing." -
12:56 - 12:58The bird replied, "Are you serious?
-
12:58 - 13:02So sit down, I want to tell you a thing
that happened to me yesterday." -
13:02 - 13:04And the bird said,
-
13:04 - 13:07"I was on top of a branch
when it started to snow. -
13:09 - 13:11I'm a bird, I wasn't doing
anything at all, -
13:11 - 13:12(Laughter)
-
13:12 - 13:15so I decided to count how many snow flakes
would fall on that branch. -
13:16 - 13:18And I counted,
-
13:18 - 13:222 million, 999 thousand, 999 snow flakes.
-
13:23 - 13:28As each snow flake weighs nothing more
than nothing, nothing happened." -
13:30 - 13:35But then the bird said,
"Snow flake 3 million fell. -
13:35 - 13:37And, when snow flake 3 million fell,
-
13:37 - 13:40the branch broke and fell on the ground."
-
13:40 - 13:42The squirrel said, "So?"
-
13:42 - 13:44And the bird said, "So, I kept thinking,
-
13:44 - 13:48what if the entire world
has made its movement, -
13:48 - 13:49and it's only waiting for my move
-
13:49 - 13:52so a great movement can take shape?"
-
13:54 - 13:57(Applause)
-
14:03 - 14:05And he continued,
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14:05 - 14:09"What if the only thing missing is my move
-
14:09 - 14:12so I can, in fact, see the world
the way I want it?" -
14:13 - 14:17That girl in the Amazon was a snow flake,
even without knowing it. -
14:18 - 14:20Exactly like each one of us here.
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14:20 - 14:24And, as I finish here, hoping that
we'll keep on asking and questioning, -
14:24 - 14:27I'll finish with one question:
-
14:27 - 14:29what if only you are missing?
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14:29 - 14:31Thank you.
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14:31 - 14:34(Applause)
- Title:
- The wisdom of questions | Ryoichi Oka Penna | TEDxLaçador
- Description:
-
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
- Video Language:
- Portuguese, Brazilian
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDxTalks
- Duration:
- 14:41
Leonardo Silva edited English subtitles for A sabedoria das perguntas | Ryoichi Oka Penna | TEDxLaçador | ||
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Claudia Sander edited English subtitles for A sabedoria das perguntas | Ryoichi Oka Penna | TEDxLaçador | ||
Claudia Sander edited English subtitles for A sabedoria das perguntas | Ryoichi Oka Penna | TEDxLaçador | ||
Claudia Sander edited English subtitles for A sabedoria das perguntas | Ryoichi Oka Penna | TEDxLaçador | ||
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