A good question can be more valuable than a confident answer.

A good question opens territory; a confident answer closes it. Answers are more satisfying and more socially rewarded, which is why so many conversations produce certainty and so few produce understanding. The question is the harder contribution and usually the more valuable one.

In your next difficult discussion, try aiming for the best question rather than the best answer. What is not being examined, what is everyone assuming, what would change our minds. It slows things down and it tends to be the point where a stuck conversation begins to move.