To raise your hand during class and ask a question between grades K-12 is a dangerous proposition for many kids. Asking means you dont know something. Not knowing something exposes weakness. Exposing weakness among kids can be socially lethal. So most kids clam up, resulting in less being asked and learned. The same happens in professional situations. Especially when bankers are involved.

We were all kids once; and many of us can relate to the fear of asking questions during our formative years. For me, there was nothing worse than calling attention to myself in front of all those kids. Asking a question implied to everyone in the classroom that I didn’t know something. I was sure that many kids were just waiting to pounce on my “not-knowingness” and label me uncool (or worse, stupid). So like many kids, I was content to clam up and try and figure stuff out myself. The funny thing is, I was then - and still am - an extrovert. I can only imagine how it must have felt for the shy, introverted kids.

When college came all that disappeared. Now I was among peers who actually wanted to learn. I can still remember the liberating feeling of being able to unleash my natural curiosity and [gasp] raise my hand and ask questions. Even better, I was able to connect with peers and professors who were so immersed in the desire to learn that we met often outside of the classroom to ask and answer each other’s questions. College taught me that, in reality, it’s the cool kids who ask questions, not the other way around.

That was over 30 years ago. Since then, I have unashamedly striven to ask and learn in any setting, during any challenge. It’s been decades since I felt uncool or uncomfortable when asking a question in a professional or social situation. And I have been the better for it.

A little more personal history: I worked over the years trying to help a broad variety of professionals innovate. Many of those professional are notorious know-it-alls. I’m talking about doctors/surgeons, attorneys, pilots, engineers, and psychologists, et al. All of them were challenging in their own ways, but none of them made me feel inferior when asking simple probing questions. And in my profession, curiosity and questions are the key to understanding and unearthing opportunities, the lifeblood of innovation. We call it celebrating our sense of wonder.

And then I began working with financial services professionals... Not just one brand, but a number of them. In each engagement I felt the old days of not wanting to ask questions envelope me like a suffocating wind. And was not alone. No one in my clients' organizations asked questions either. Roomfuls of financial services professionals and their associates would espouse information regarding regulations and reasons why things could never work. No one really asked questions or offered hope for change. Everyone just kept stating facts and tried to maintain the flow/status quo of the room — most of which were of the negative nature. They all seemed so afraid to swim upstream and “wonder.” As if there were some unspoken rule that curiosity is simply not allowed. Or worse, a fear, like during grades K-12, of being labeled stupid or unknowledgeable. A serious offense in financial services, I guess. How dare you not know everything?

Perhaps if these folk lightened up a bit and realized that they do not have all the answers (as evidenced by the events of the last 18 months), they might find that asking questions and wondering about “what-ifs” might be just the antidote for what ails them.

Hmmm, I wonder...

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