Daniel Pink shares research from Harvard Business School showing that asking "What could I do?" instead of "What should I do?" generates better solutions. The word "should" narrows your thinking to limited options, while "could" opens up possibilities you'd otherwise miss.
Hi everyone, welcome to another Pinkcast. Today I want to share with you a very simple linguistic trick that can help you solve problems more effectively. So suppose you're faced with some kind of challenge: getting a project unstuck, or dealing with an unpleasant relative, or figuring out the next 30 years of your life. When we face those challenges, we often ask ourselves this question: What should I do? What should I do? And that's not a bad question, but according to 3 researchers at Harvard Business School, it might not be the optimal question. They found that when people made a very subtle shift moving from what should I do to— listen carefully— what could I do, they generated many more solutions and better solutions. Why? Should is in many ways a narrowing word. It suggests there are a limited set of possibilities, and we see them in this very, very concentrated way. Could is a widening word. It suggests there are many possibilities, several of which we can't see when we're just staring straight ahead. And so when we shift from should to could, we widen our aperture and we see things we otherwise would have missed. So, Pinkcast viewers, the next time you face a dilemma, an existential dilemma, a moral dilemma, the dilemma of what to have for dinner, don't ask yourself, what should I do? Ask yourself, what could I do? And my guess is that you'll generate more solutions, and when you generate more solutions, you'll generate better solutions. Give it a try. Thanks, Daniel. Thanks for watching.
