Fear is the enemy of curiosity.

A beautiful question shifts the way we think about something and often sets in motion a process than can result in change. Entrepreneurs-o r at least the successful ones-do a great job asking beautiful questions. They almost have no choice -their whole reason for being is to disrupt, innovate, solve a problem no one else is solving.

We have an education and business culture that tends to reward quick factual answers over imaginative inquiry. Questioning isn’t encouraged - it is barely tolerated.

If we’re born to inquire, then why must it be taught?

A beautiful question is an ambitious yet actionable question that can begin to shift the way we perceive or think about something - and that might serve as a catalyst to bring about change.

Designers can show us a better future, can present us with all kinds of new possibilities so that we can decide: Is this what we want? Before any of that can happen, though, the designer must first commit—by taking what is just a faint glimmer in the mind’s eye and giving it shape and life.