Asking is the skill

EY has put $100 million behind bonuses for adaptability, judgment and innovation.

That's a serious move from a firm whose trade is judgment, and judgment starts with critical thinking, which is really the habit of asking questions, quietly or out loud. Asking them. Not necessarily answering them.

One detail is public: anyone at the firm can nominate a colleague.

So my questions are these.

How does the critical thinker get nominated, the one who checks a number everyone already believed and finds that it's wrong?

Who would nominate them?

And is there another way to find the people who ask the questions and usually find nothing, because most of the time there is nothing there?

Training for judgment means patience. It means celebrating those toddlers who ask why, those who think again, those who nitpick, those who validate. Yes, celebrate them and never shut them down.

Reward the asking, not the finding. The finding is rare. The asking is the skill.

I came across the EY news through Lydia Mor's post on LinkedIn.