The power of questions in shaping the future

Jensen Huang, co-founder and CEO of NVIDIA, leads one of the world's most innovative companies in the semiconductor and artificial intelligence sector, where the speed of change is impressive. In a recent interview with The New York Times, he said he has radically changed his leadership style: “Today, I give fewer answers and ask many more questions. By asking questions, I force my management team to explore ideas they would never otherwise consider.”

By asking profound questions, Huang has realized that he stimulates his team to explore ideas that would otherwise remain unexpressed, creating a space where curiosity becomes the real driver of innovation. This example illustrates in a concrete way how the power of questions comes before answers and directly influences the ability to innovate and drive change.

This personal experience is not an isolated case: it represents a broader trend in the world of leadership. As highlighted in the article recently published in Harvard Business Review, “The Art of Asking Smarter Questions,” the task of leaders should not be to provide all the answers, but to train themselves to ask the right questions. The answers, in fact, should come from team members and the expertise distributed throughout the organization.

Yet, contrary to what happens in daily practice, most managers tend to ask the same questions over and over again, influenced by their past experiences, acquired beliefs, and more or less conscious cognitive biases. This drastically reduces the range of options explored and limits the quality of strategic decisions.

As emerges in “The Art of Asking Smarter Questions,” the key lies in having a richer repertoire, a ‘set’ that covers the different dimensions of the decision-making process. They have identified five main types of questions, each capable of opening a different window on reality.

1. Investigative questions – “What do we really know?”

These are questions that aim to analyze the facts in depth. They do not merely describe the situation, but dig down to the root of the problem.
Useful examples:

• What really happened?
• What are the root causes of this problem?
• What evidence supports the proposed plan?
• How feasible and desirable is each option?

Investigative questions help to avoid superficiality. It is not enough to say that revenues are falling: we need to understand whether this is due to customer churn, excessive prices, or a lack of innovation.

2. Speculative questions – “What if...?”

This is where creativity comes into play. Speculative questions allow us to imagine alternative scenarios and go beyond the boundaries of conventional thinking.
Practical examples:

• What other scenarios could exist?
• Could we act differently?
• What else could we offer or simplify?
• What solutions have we not yet considered?

A famous example reported by HBR concerns Emirates Team New Zealand, winner of the America's Cup in 2017. They did not just ask themselves “what if we used the power of our legs instead of our arms to maneuver the catamaran?”, but went further: " What else would a pedal system allow us to do?“ This paved the way for a revolutionary design that enabled the team to overcome more illustrious opponents.

3. Productive questions – ”What do we do now?"

These are action-oriented questions, which are essential for assessing the availability of resources and the sequence of priorities. Without them, there is a risk of getting stuck with ideas without ever moving on to execution.
Some key questions:

• What is the next step?
• What do we need to achieve before taking it?
• Do we have the right resources?
• Do we know enough to decide?

A symbolic mistake was made by Lego in the early 2000s: in an attempt to respond to the growth of digital games, it launched too many initiatives in different sectors at the same time, without asking itself whether the company really had the resources to support them. The result was a period of heavy losses.

4. Interpretive questions – “So what does this mean?”

These are the questions that help make sense of the information gathered. They lead to synthesis, reframe the problem, and connect data, scenarios, and objectives.
Examples:

• What have we learned from this new information?
• What does it mean for our future actions?
• What is the real goal we are aiming for?
• How does this choice fit into the overall strategy?

Interpretive questions avoid getting lost in the details. They are the transition from “what we see” to “why it is relevant.” They are the bridge between analysis and insight, without which even the best investigative work risks remaining fruitless.

5. Subjective questions – “What is not being said?”

These are the most delicate and perhaps the most overlooked. They serve to bring out emotions, tensions, and latent resistance, which are often decisive in guiding choices.
Some examples:

• How do you really feel about this decision?
• What aspect concerns you the most?
• Are there differences between what was said and what was meant?
• Are all stakeholders truly aligned?

Many strategies fail not because they are wrong on paper, but because they overlook the emotional and political dynamics within the organization. Subjective questions have the courage to ask what often remains implicit.

AI has made this issue even more central. Until yesterday, competitive advantage was linked to data ownership, but today the real differentiator is the ability to formulate intelligent queries. It is no coincidence that we talk about prompt engineering: without well-posed questions, even the most advanced technology returns generic and unhelpful answers.

In other words, the value lies not in the information itself, but in the ability to guide it with the right questions. This is a cultural change that affects technology companies as much as SMEs.

Fostering a question-oriented corporate culture means encouraging collaboration, trust, and innovation. It means creating safe spaces where both brilliant insights and doubts can emerge.

Many corporate crises arise not from wrong answers, but from questions that were never asked. The signs were there, but no one had the courage to put them on the table. Training yourself to ask questions—and to leave room for others' questions—is therefore an essential leadership practice.

This is where WhAI comes in. If the quality of questions determines the quality of decisions, you need a tool that can transform questions into concrete and measurable scenarios.

WhAI is not simply a platform: it is a methodology that helps identify truly strategic questions, translate them into rigorous simulations, and return defensible answers.

• For SMEs, WhAI is a strategic navigator: it guides entrepreneurs and managers through complex scenarios, showing ROI, risks, and returns before committing valuable resources.
• For large companies, WhAI represents a decision-making superpower: it allows leaders and boards to test hundreds of alternatives, stress test plans, and arrive at transparent and shared decisions.

In both cases, WhAI does not replace decision-makers, but empowers them. It is like having a co-pilot who, starting from a good question, explores all possible routes and points out the safest, fastest, and most sustainable ones.