As per the Indian Culture, a wife is always younger in age than the husband.

When we were at school and college, we were judged by our mastery over the answers. Those who knew all answers  were marked as intelligent and awarded  merit cards, scholarships etc.. etc..

The corporate world operates in the reverse. More than the answers, a person moves up the hierarchy more by mastering the questions & the way it is asked.

My boss begins any telephone call  with a simple question .“Kither hey? (where are you).. Only after that, comes good morning or congratulations or brickbats or thank you or anything else.

The collective answers we give during telecom over various times of  a day and over a  month gives him a thorough knowledge of what a person is actually doing, why his results are good or bad etc.. In order to weed out any wrong answers he has a different set of questions to others, by which he gets what he wants to know.

In mega projects with mega corporations, project review meetings take place. A bulky status report is circulated in advance to all attendees. All are expected to have gone through them

Only a one line mention of a problem is made, Thereafter the question wagon starts moving. The ignition question is “what have you done to resolve …..”. This is a pretty unnerving question in a big meeting. You are not expected to narrate the problem, but come with what we have done to overcome it. The first gear is shifted in the next question: How do you plan to correct it? The second gear: when do you expect to get it resolved…?”. Third gear: shift happens with “ Why!!, Why not tomorrow?” The fourth gear :what resources do you..” The fifth gear: Who are those responsible for the problem  /not achieving the target This is yet another embarrassing question. If you name the  blacksheep – you are no longer a leader. If you don’t name them, you are eventually eaten away by their results. At this point, you start beating around the bush, and  a break is applied.

The wagon starts in the next meeting: Is it done?, followed by a why?, when? How? who? Etc…

In a given situation, there can be multiple correct answers depending upon how you ask a question and to whom. Depending upon the answer you get and interpretation you make – you pick your shopping cart for  bouquets or brickbats. So it is important to ask the right question to the right person.

A questioner needs to be more intelligent and mature. He needs to understand the competency of the answerer, the mistakes he will make, calm the answerer if he is agitated and know his limitations and then ask questions accordingly. Your question also should be in such a manner that the ultimate user of the answer (who is your internal customer down the line) gets what he wants in the way he wants and in minimum time.

A wife asks too many questions ( beyond a threshold limit it’s called pestering). The questioner always needs to be more intelligent and mature. And that makes her intelligent than her hubby. Probably that’s why a wife is younger in age than a hubby ( hi… hi… hi… )

The questions asked by a leader inspires a nation. The questions asked by a kid at times is embarrassing. To become a CEO, begin learning the art of questioning. Its easier to question to earn the mega bucks.

It’s an irony.  Questions always precede answers, but in life, we go after answers the first twenty years and then get into questioning phase.

I remember one particular incident, SA Prakash, myself & K Ramanathan were at his B5 house in township on a Friday night. His father  was  free and was chatting with us in the garden. He was trying to ignite out minds with some questions on some perpetual machine or something. I vaguely remember. One thing that I clearly remember we three wanted to get out at the earliest. His sister Bhuvana was getting desperate as it was time for chitrahaar  - the only  programme watched in DD those days. Had I taken the question seriously then, probably I might have been much different now.

At least four of the many golden opportunities in my life that would have made me rich enough to build a 28 storied house next to Antila,  came in the form of simple one liner questions, which I immaturely ignored then. I’m waiting for the next question

Keep Questioning. It can change your fortunes.