Questions are a good thing.

I have just spent a week at an assessment centre in the UK asking questions about the suitability of six people to be promoted to the senior level of the British Foreign Ministry. It's a tough process for them but we do it to ensure that the most capable people are promoted, on the basis of merit and according to objective and transparent criteria. That way we can ensure we have the most effective Foreign service we can.

Any organisation or society which welcomes questions, and encourages the flow of information and ideas, helps ensure continuous improvement, innovation, creativity and accountability and good government. Scientific discoveries are a result of researchers asking questions and conducting experiments. New products are produced by companies after asking questions about what consumers want and what technology can produce. The best students are those who ask questions, and as a result come up with new ideas which can benefit society.

Organisations improve and survive, adapting to fast changing environments because people ask questions about how they could perform better. The best governed societies are those where there is accountability - the people or their representatives are informed of activities and there are processes in place to ask questions of those in positions of government. Such systems of accountability strengthen the confidence of the people in the way authorities govern. Such transparency helps reduce the chances of abuses of power or corruption.

We should encourage people to ask questions across our societies and organisations - whether it be academics, government officials, parliamentarians, journalists or ordinary citizens. If we discourage questions and transparency, it is not only a sign of lack of self-confidence but also damages our reputation and undermines the longer term basis of our development and prosperity.

- Mark Kent, British Ambassador to Vietnam

Notes for Editors

See also: Ambassador's vietnamese language blog

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