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It's not enough to just have the mindset of inquiry. You have to have some processes so
it's systematic inquiry. All inquiry is not created equal. Let me give you a specific
example from my past. When I was in college, for two summers I worked a fantastic job.
I was a lifeguard at Acadia National Park. Any of you ever been to Acadia National Park?
Yeah, so I was the lifeguard at Sand Beach for two summers. It's an ocean beach in Maine.
Think about that. No one swims in Maine. The best job ever! Okay. My job was primarily
to being there when people had questions about the trails, or if someone sprained their ankle,
or a kid got lost somewhere in the trails I'd go wandering off in the woods and help
them out. So I was always answering questions and there were two questions that I got multiple
times both years that I worked there. The first question, and probably the most popular
one, was... Is that a whale? I got that one all the time. Because if you've ever been
there, there is a rock that twice a day, when the tide is right, looks an awful lot like
a whale out there. Spouting away. So I always knew where the tide was because I could look
up on the beach and see all the binoculars trained on the rock and people excitedly pointing.
I usually just left them alone because it's exciting to see a whale and I didn't want
to ruin that. If they did come up to me, I did, of course, have to let them know that
no in fact it will be there again in six hours. That to me though is a question which is a
good type of inquiry. Is that a whale? That's a good question. I don't know. I've never
seen anything like this before. Let me find someone who might know and see if I can get
some insight into this. But it's someone who's not in their environment at all. They don't
understand it but they recognize enough that they better explore it a little bit. That's
a good question. The second question which I got quite a bit as well is someone would
walk up to me on the beach and say... How high above sea level are we? And this is not
just one or two people. It happened quite frequently. Certainly as someone who's in
college, I usually would not let that person off the hook. I'd sort of, you know, very
slowly turn and look and then turn back and answer the question and watch his face turn
red. That's an example of inquiry that is not good inquiry. Okay. You've heard there
are no stupid questions. I learned early yes there are. That's it. Okay. Why do people
do that? These people... I don't think they're stupid. I think because you know they managed
to get to Acadia they didn't drive off the road anything but there's something about
taking them out of their environment, taking them out of their routines, which gets them
just not quite thinking clearly about things and you're asking and you're asking about
everything. One of the things that I like to think about when we talk about flexibility
and focus is that the flexibility is there to constantly be questioning what we know,
what's confusing us, but the focus is also knowing where to go, who has that expertise,
bringing the right people on board, and once you have some guidance you guide others.