Guess what? ‘innovation’ is going to be the keyword of the year again. More specifically how you reinvent your business from the inside out is what’s going to separate the leaders from the laggards and this doesn’t happen with some magic potion, it happens with questioning the assumptions by which your business operates.

According to new research one of the characteristics that distinguishes successful innovators is ‘questioning’, as in questioning the status quo. If you plan to get your company on the fast track to innovation this year, then asking questions is the first place to start and cultivate the habit of asking questions such as why? why not? and what if?

Now that you get it, here’s an exercise for you to help you cultivate the habit of ‘questioning’:

• Write 10 questions each day that challenge assumptions in your company or industry.

Yes, that’s it. Once you do this for a couple of weeks go back to your list and look for ways to reverse those assumptions or better yet, think how you can eliminate them from your thinking and come up with something new.

Understand: questions open the mind to new things, to more possibilities, to alternatives to new perspectives, they unbox your mind and take it back to childhood when anything was possible. The goal is to think like a kid again, without limits. Anything is possible.