Knowing the right answers, can be less important than knowing the right questions.April 16 2007
| |
I've always been puzzled by certain employers who never seemed to know the right answers to their own business problems.
Despite their seemingly less than clever intellect they muddle along and sometimes actually prospered.
How can this be?
Late in my career I realized the explanation. The real talent in business is not having all the answers, but having the ability to ask the right questions. Once you ask the right question the answer will eventually come. But when you start off with the wrong question, the solution to your business problem will never arrive.
The best description of this was the one I read in Anthony Robbins' "Awaken the Giant Within." He described how he came back from a business trip to learn that his business partner had embezzled all of the company's funds, leaving his business a quarter million dollars in the hole. While his staff were busily asking the question, "How can we gracefully shut down the operations?" Robbins' instead asked the question: "How can we deliver more value to more people and thus earn the money needed to save the business?"
Clearly Robbins was right on the money ... the right question produces the best results. The wrong questions leads to failure.
So remember, the next time you go to criticize your boss or your clients, because they don't know any of the right answers, remember that their success came from asking the right questions ... something you should be thinking about as well.
|
