But unfocused curiosity is not enough. Let's say you are in a new city and start walking from your hotel. You could pass a block away from an awesome sight and miss it because you failed to direct your curiosity by asking questions. By asking the right questions, you are likely to maximize your experience.

There is an art to asking the right questions. In business issues, we often take the easy answer and run with it, missing out on the next level answers that get to the best solution. Let's imagine for a moment that someone designing the iPhone had not asked, “If we leave on the photo flash, wouldn't the phone make a great flashlight?” How would we read the menus in all those dark restaurants?

Stepping back into our world, things are becoming more complex every day. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act continues to be a gift that keeps giving. PPACA compliance has become a huge concern for employers, and the Cadillac tax still looms, though delayed. Voluntary benefits continue to proliferate and evolve. Compliance tracking requires technology. Considering technology, PPACA also brought new ways to distribute benefits to the table, in the form of exchanges. Wellness packaging is expanding beyond weight loss and smoking cessation into lifestyle management, tracking tools and much more.

We cannot take anything for granted about our business. New entrants view our business as being ripe for disruption. This is true of both the product manufacturing and distribution side of the business. A quick look into the success of Zenefits tells us our customers are ready to listen to a new story.

Given all this, we need to think clearly to discover how we can best help our customers via our products and services. We need to think like the Apple engineers who discovered a flashlight inside a camera inside a cell phone. At the same time, we need to fall into the trap of improving current products and services in a direction different from desires of our customers (the classic, as my friend Dale Alexander observes, is “improving the shelves in a Blockbuster franchise while Netflix is the next idea”). In the terrific business book, “Seven Practices of Effective Ministry,” Andy Stanley wrote, “Listen to outsiders. The needs and interests of insiders have a tendency to determine the agenda for the organization. Focus your efforts on those you're trying to reach, rather than those you're trying to keep.”

At the Expo this year, we will discuss the art of thinking deeper and asking the right questions. We will go over some examples of innovations fueled by inquiry. We will think a bit about the issues facing our business and our customers. Of course, I'll have a few questions for you — and I'm sure you will have a few for me, as well!