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Ask Why Multiple Times


Asking Why multiple times helps you get to the root cause and helps your company to prevent undesirable results from occurring again or allows you to repeat a desirable results, explains author Michael Kallett in his book, Think Smarter: Critical Thinking To Improve Problem-Solving And Decision-Making Skills.

For example

  • Ask why to get to “I don’t know” and then go learn what you don’t know.
  • Ask why to get to “Because” – which is a constraint to your eventual solution.

In short, Why is the most powerful question you can ask, and ask again, during the critical thinking process.

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