From Goals to Puzzles: How Questions Outperform OKRs in Real Teams! | Radhika Dutt #60

Curated Questions: Conversations Celebrating the Power of Questions!

"We vote with our labor for the world we want to create. If you don't reflect on what you're doing, how do you know you're casting the right vote?" - Radhika Dutt

In this episode of Curated Questions, host Ken Woodward engages entrepreneur and author Radhika Dutt in a profound exploration of how questions can transform organizations from goal-driven to puzzle-solving entities. Radhika is the author of "Radical Product Thinking" and shares her journey from MIT to becoming a serial entrepreneur to developing the puzzle-based leadership OHLA framework (Objectives, Hypotheses, Learnings, Adaptations).

The conversation reveals how traditional goal-setting, rooted in 1940s assembly-line thinking, fails in today's complex environment, where creative problem-solving matters more than repetitive execution.

Radhika demonstrates through a live experiment how "puzzles" energize while "goals" burden, explaining that puzzles tap into internal motivation rather than external pressure. She emphasizes the critical importance of reflection, a practice she credits with enabling better decision-making both personally and professionally.

Drawing from her nine languages and global experience, including living in post-apartheid South Africa, Radhika offers insights on creating psychological safety for questions across cultures. The episode culminates with practical guidance on implementing puzzle-based thinking in organizations, showing how asking better questions leads to ownership, engagement, and transformative results.

This Curated Questions episode can be found on all major platforms and at CuratedQuestions.com.

Keep questioning!

Resources Mentioned

Radical Product Thinking: The New Mindset for Innovating Smarter by Radhika Dutt

Lobby Seven

MIT

Avid Technology

Monetary Authority of Singapore

ChatGPT

Sam Altman

Gates Foundation

What has the Gates Foundation done for Global Health?

Muhammad Yunus

Microloans

Esther Duflo

Abhijit Banerjee

Frank Blake

Adobe

Apple

Only The Paranoid Survive

David Eagleman

Management by Objectives detailed in The Practice of Management by Peter Drucker

General Motors

Lean Startup

Adidas

Bryn Mawr College

Monument Lab

Albert Einstein

Drama of the Gifted Child by Alice Miller

OHLA Framework Toolkit (Objectives, Hypotheses, Learnings, Adaptations)

Radhika Dutt on LinkedIn

RadicalProduct.com

Producer Ben Ford

Beauty Pill