Why reinvent the wheel when you can swipe the blueprint? Gates reminds us that wisdom is often borrowed, not born. The brilliance here isn’t just in asking, “Who’s nailed this?”—it’s in the humility to admit you don’t have all the answers. The hardest part of these "obvious" questions is overcoming ego to actually ask them. Leadership isn’t just solving problems—it’s, at times, finding the right people to solve them with. 𝐀𝐬𝐤 𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐝𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐨𝐩 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐛𝐥𝐞𝐦-𝐬𝐨𝐥𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐬𝐤𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐬 "Business leaders are consistently tasked with problem-solving—whether it’s something with long-term or short-term implications. Gates said he always starts his problem-solving process by asking two questions: 𝐖𝐡𝐨 𝐡𝐚𝐬 𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐭 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐛𝐥𝐞𝐦 𝐰𝐞𝐥𝐥? 𝐀𝐧𝐝 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐰𝐞 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐧 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐦? “Ever since I was a teenager, I’ve tackled every big new problem the same way: by starting off with two questions,” Gates wrote in a 2020 blog post. “I used this technique at Microsoft, and I still use it today.” While they’re seemingly simple questions, they can serve as good starting points for research about how best to address a challenge. “𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐬𝐞𝐞𝐦 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐨𝐛𝐯𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬 𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬,” 𝐆𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐬 𝐬𝐚𝐢𝐝. “𝐁𝐮𝐭 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐬 𝐢𝐭’𝐬 𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐥𝐲 𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐬.” -Bill Gates