Innovative breakthrough ideas for your business success start with one word

‘WHY?’ – a word that we probably use 100 times a day.

‘WHY?’ is crucial to the success of your business.

Innovative breakthrough ideas start with ‘WHY?’.

The 3-question formula to create breakthrough questions starts with ‘WHY?’.

Warren Berger in his book ‘A More Beautiful Question’ uncovered this formula, a formula that goes a long way to explaining how some of the best business ideas and innovations have been created.

‘WHY?’ wakes you up, so that you become aware of and understand the problem.

‘WHY?’ is about seeing and understanding, looking with a fresh eye, which when you are entrenched in the everyday excitement of getting the job done, is not easy to do!

To ask the right ‘WHY’ question you need to do the following:

• step back – take time-out of your business to really look at things with a fresh perspective, this is best done away from the office to avoid the normal distractions
• notice what others miss, try to see what is lacking
• challenge the natural assumptions of your business – including your own
• question the questions – get the team involved – ask the naïve and simple questions – sometimes people are too afraid to ask the same question a 3-year-old would – but it worked for Edwin Land (creator of the Polaroid camera)
• get an ‘stranger’ involved when you start asking ‘WHY?’ questions about your business, customers, products or services, this enables you to step back and really think about the questions being asked

Joe Gebbia and Brian Chesky asked a simple ‘WHY?’ question when struggling to pay their rent on their San Francisco apartment, with astonishing results. They created AirBnB from nothing to what is now worth £2billion.