QUALITY OF LEADERSHIP depends on the quality of the questions they foster among their teams or community.

Here is the thing.  Our lives are surrounded and embedded in previous answers (from ourselves or others, whether alive today or historical).  And we are also trying to find new answers.  But, what is our basic relationship with “questions" and “answers" ? 

Let's go over two sets of reflections. 

First, the most obvious facts:

a) Some questions have single answers. And that's good sometimes.

b) Some questions have multiple answers. Whether it's the paradox of choosing inside a person or among an ingroup or outgroup. And that's where one has to manage conflict, intersubjectivities, or power dynamics.

c) Some questions do not have answers. Either we have struggled or failed with previous answers to these inquiries.

d) Some questions make us question the question itself. We arrive at the point where we realize we need to either reframe the questions or go beyond questions and answers.


Here is the trickier-to-grasp:

a) Questions are embedded, enmeshed, evolving, emergent in question.

b) Answers are embedded, enmeshed, evolving, emergent in answer.

c) Questions are embedded, enmeshed, evolving, emergent in answer.

d) Answers are embedded, enmeshed, evolving, emergent in question.

No single question is just a single question. Trying to solve for one question, and one question alone, is a mere artifact of our times -- and or our urgent narrow action-oriented interdependent or interpushy goals.

When looked at deeply and reflectively, every question (even the ones with a single answer or apparent multiple answers) has questions, at another span/scale, to which there are failed earlier answers. Or questions where there is a need to reframe the question itself to go beyond it.

You may ask:

But then when we are solving those single-answer questions or multiple-answer questions, why don't we get stymied or hurdled by the other two kinds of questions (“c" and “d") ?

About the things we do and we don't:

Sometimes we hurdle ourselves. Sometimes it creates hurdles in different geographies. Sometimes it creates hurdles in different time/era. And sometimes, through life's passage and reflection over thousands of encounters, we realize the depth of those simplified questions and answers.  The thing is that whether we want or not, or like or not, we are, in proxy, even living the implicit relation with those questions (c and d).

Take this post for example: I am typing some words here. Implicitly, I am simultaneously solving a lot of grammar questions (mostly a setting of single right answers or a few right answers) as I continue typing, i.e. to ensure that my sentences aren't grammatically incorrect. But I am also living, while doing so, what I believe is the nature of self and nature of reality. If I believe in some kind of karmic theory, then I will try to be as authentic as possible: about what I know, about what I am discovering as I write, about sources of my knowledge, about what I am exhorting you to believe or do.... But the karmic theory would belong to a domain of higher-order questions & higher-order answers.

Have I always been this aware? The answer is "No".

Before 2012, I was still trying to be authentic sometimes, but didn't know where the question and answer of authenticity was coming from. I must have heard it from a lot of people and took it as gospel. But since 2012, I have been cultivating a practice of seeing the questions and answers from different spans and scales. I am having to confront a few questions because the previous era's questions and answers were tackled in a certain way. Similarly, my living off of questions and answers currently, could be facilitating and/or constraining questions and answers of many fellow beings. And would be so for the generations to come too.

Ok, then! What can we do with all of the above?  

There is a ritual that can be followed:

As individuals / teams/ party/ parliamentary or media or think-tank debates or dialogues or dialogos/ community can have a proper conversation architectured around asking the four kinds of questions pertaining to the issue at hand.

If all we get to or deal with are only the first two kinds of questions (single answer or multiple answers by many) all the time, then there is a problem. We need to invoke and be honest about the questions to which we have failed answers, or questions that need reframing or going beyond them too.

The tragedy and comedy of our times is that a lot more people are asking a lot more questions. A lot more people are answering a lot more questions. And a lot more people are silent about a lot of questions and answers. There is a way in which questions and answers are happening. There is a reimagined and revised way in which it needs to be cultivated.

P.S: It is one thing to live the questions and/or live the answer. Many times, we aren't able to live some of the answers despite having them.

Also, that questions and answers invoke a certain "thinking first" and "action later" mindset. However, sometimes, we discover better about the questions and the answers, or better questions and answers, even as we are living the questions and answers, by doing and letting things emerge and evolve. Ala doing first and or simultaneous to thinking.

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Hemant Gupta is interested in co-sensing and co-discovery-based approaches for a better self, better relationships, and better civilization. He took to this path since 2012.  Before this, he was involved in various corporate roles, like mergers and acquisitions, political advocacy, and more. Since 2012, he has been conducting various social experiments.

Take for example, “Thank You, India."  Based on the premise: “our hunt for the wrong is hurting our ability to appreciate what's already right". Along with Mumbai Police, Thane Police, Indiabulls Foundation, Raymond and more, they managed to do various experiments to thank 190,000+ fellow humans for doing simple things right.

His team was instrumental in partnering with Search Inside Yourself (Born at Google) for their Indian foray. Hemant has been involved in niche consulting projects for clients like India Today Conclave, an agency for ICICI Bank, an investor assessing the investment potential of Ashoka Foundation Ranked Top 10 Changemaker School in India, a Futuristic University by a Japanese Scientist group, and more. Hemant has also been host to 40+ trans-disciplinary dialogues.

With fellow humans from Literature, Quantum Computing, Consciousness, Indian Indigenous Psychology, Futurist, Science of Happiness, Machine Intelligence, Reinventing Organizations,  Existential Risk, Public Policy, and more. They have been from organizations like LinkedIn, Google, Paypal, Stanford, Wharton, IIM-A, FedEx, Skype, Goldman School of Public Policy-Berkeley, and more. His 2023 book, "Meditations of a 21st Century Hunter Gatherer," offers a reflective take on navigating the complexities of modern life, blending creativity with analytical thought, using 230+ two-by-two grids.


* BONUS *

Explore Hemant holding space for conversations that approach the problem of upgrading human consciousness and civilizations from many angles on the youtube channel This Journey Dialogues.

Explore his writing, art and meditations:

https://www.hemantgupta.net

https://www.instagram.com/1947parttwo