Eugène Ionesco, the Romanian French playwright, once remarked that “It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question.” It is a compelling premise, especially when considering how rarely in the cruise industry we pause to ask truly meaningful questions about how to improve public health standards.
We tend to focus on execution over careful examination. The pace of operations, the weight of expectations, and the burden to deliver commercial results can all discourage open-ended inquiry. However, when questions are avoided, so too are the opportunities to uncover weak spots before they become liabilities.
This reluctance to question doesn’t begin in the boardroom. It unfolds much earlier, long before we take on leadership roles or carry any operational responsibility. By the time we enter professional life, many of us have already learned that asking the difficult questions can be uncomfortable, and in some cases, unwelcome.
What Happened to Curiosity?
As young children, we asked “Why?” constantly. It was a sign of curiosity, a desire to understand the world around us, and that desire served a purpose. The “why” questions are important to our development as understanding brings confidence, and confidence creates security.
Yet as we grew older, we stopped. We became conditioned to value receiving a correct response more than asking the right question, adopting a “don’t ask unless it’s absolutely necessary” mindset in order to conform with societal norms. Asking “dumb” questions, we were told, was for kids.
This shift begins early. In schools, standardised testing reduces learning to what can be measured and compared. Students are taught to recall information from memory rather than question it. Moreover as parents, we often shut down a child’s persistent “why” with a simple, “Just because.” Consequently, questioning feels disruptive long before we reach the workplace.
In many professional settings, questions are perceived as threats to efficiency. Asking “Why?”—particularly in front of senior management—can feel precarious. It signals uncertainty in environments that prize decisiveness and control.
Over time, this mindset becomes embedded in organisational culture, where challenging assumptions is viewed as inconvenient or even subversive. Curiosity is replaced by compliance. Assumptions go unchallenged. Systems remain unexamined.
In public health, the consequences of this are significant.
Questions Shape Outcomes
Asking the right questions is not a philosophical exercise; it’s a practical necessity. In health and safety, questions shape strategy. They guide investment. They influence how success is defined and where risk is overlooked.
In the cruise industry, the difference between success and failure often originates with what leadership chooses to focus on. Too often, that focus is misplaced. Cruise lines frequently centre their efforts around questions tied to compliance—or the optics of compliance—rather than prevention.
Getting the job done becomes the priority. Pausing to ask “how” or “why” is seen as getting in the way. Those who “rock the boat” by asking uncomfortable questions are labelled “difficult” or “not team players.”
This misdirection is rarely intentional. Executives face constant pressure to deliver results, avoid negative headlines, and meet shareholder expectations. As a result, they rely on what is easily measured such as inspection scores, sampling results, and incident counts.
But these are backward-looking metrics. At surface level, they are outputs not insights. They reveal what happened, not why it happened or whether it is likely to be repeated. This misalignment leads to short-term fixes that leave systemic vulnerabilities unaddressed.
If cruise lines want to strengthen public health, they must start by asking better questions. Not those designed to check a box, but the ones that uncover what is truly happening on board and what it will take to consciously improve standards.
The Wrong Questions Are Leading the Conversation
Shoreside cruise line offices are heavily staffed by individuals with shipboard experience. This brings a clear advantage: they understand firsthand the challenges faced by seafarers.
However, familiarity with the on board environment can also discourage critical thinking. Past experience becomes the lens through which new issues are interpreted, and default assumptions can go unchallenged. Consequently, the same time-worn questions continue to dominate internal discussions:
- “When is our next public health inspection?”
This question often drives deadline-focused activity aimed at preparing for a single day of scrutiny. It encourages a mindset of short-term readiness rather than sustained operational improvement.
- “What’s our inspection score?”
Scores can offer a performance benchmark over time, but a single result is not a comprehensive measure of shipboard public health standards. A high score may offer reassurance to executives, but it does not confirm that procedures are followed consistently, nor does it reliably predict the risk of future outbreaks.
- “Is this covered in our SOPs?”
There is a tendency to equate the existence of documentation with effective risk management. In practice, the presence of a procedure or checklist says little about whether it is understood, prioritised, or routinely implemented.
- “Why didn’t anyone catch this?”
This question usually arises after something has gone wrong. It shifts attention toward individual accountability, often overlooking whether systems were ever designed to detect and prevent such issues in the first place.
Better Questions Lead to Better Insight
Curiosity is one of the most valuable leadership traits, and it becomes even more essential as operational complexity increases. Given that few senior cruise line executives have a public health background, one might expect them to ask many questions about how policies are being implemented throughout their fleets. In practice, the opposite is often true.
Curiosity is quieted by corporate urgency. Senior executives feel pressure to appear decisive, efficient, and informed. As a result, open-ended questions are avoided, and inquiry gives way to assumption. Public health responsibilities are delegated yet rarely cross-examined. Companies employ people to manage health risks but may never ask how effectively those risks are being mitigated.
This avoidance carries consequences. When the wrong questions dominate, they obscure the very conditions that allow health risks to develop. Better questions do more than uncover problems: they reveal the systems, behaviours, and blind spots that inspections alone cannot detect.
- “How well are our procedures being practiced on board?”
This question shifts attention from what exists on paper to what happens in practice. It prompts deeper discussions about consistency, interpretation, and crew behaviour; factors critical to preventing illness that are typically missing from compliance reports. It also offers a view into how well shoreside managers understand the actual realities on the vessels they support.
- “Are we building a culture that supports safe practices even when no one is watching?”
Culture is the foundation of any effective public health programme. This question moves beyond technical compliance and asks whether the working environment actively reinforces safe practices day after day, regardless of crew turnover, location, or whether a ship is sailing under the scrutiny of inspection regimes like the VSP.
- “Where are we relying on habits instead of systems?”
On cruise ships, many safety-critical tasks depend on habit, informal reminders, or legacy knowledge. While these may function under ideal conditions, they often falter during times of stress or transition. This question helps expose areas of operational fragility before those weaknesses translate into costly failures.
- “What do our Public Health Officers need to succeed in the long term?”
PHOs frequently work in isolation, balancing competing demands with limited structural support. Rather than assuming their role is simply to enforce compliance, this question invites leaders to consider what systems, authority, and cross-departmental backing are required for them to be truly effective.
Why the Right Questions Matters More Than Ever
All cruise companies express a strong commitment to public health when asked. However, the gap between intention and outcome is often shaped less by the answers available and more by the questions being asked. Metrics such as inspection results can be useful, but only if leaders look beyond numerical scores to the compliance issues behind them and understand the root cause of the findings.
The cost of asking the wrong questions is not abstract. It plays out in missed warning signs, disjointed procedures, unclear accountability, and preventable outbreaks. It shows up in overworked PHOs, in training that is forgotten as soon as an inspection passes, and in leadership teams that are confident in their documentation but unaware of how it translates into practice.
Public health resilience does not emerge from compliance alone. It begins with curiosity and the willingness to ask questions that challenge assumptions, expose discomfort, and drive change.
Cruise lines that make space for this kind of inquiry will not only prevent more problems, but will also develop stronger cultures, retain more capable crew, and gain reputational advantages in an increasingly health-conscious market.
Eugène Ionesco was right: it is not the answers to the questions asked that matter most. It is whether your organisation is asking the right questions.
And the key to asking the right questions is not to be afraid of the answers.