The Dangerous Art of the Right Question

http://blog.trailmeme.com/2010/07/the-dangerous-art-of-the-right-question/

by thekguy • 16 years ago

77 23 16 years ago

blog.trailmeme.com

Ardit20• 16 years ago

I do not think it is useless to ask what makes me happy. You know there are such things as forests and trees. You start with differentiating big themes, such as what makes me happy, or what do I want, or what will I be doing in ten years time, or am I really in love, you focus on one of the big themes and then you go into the specifics.

Its harder to start from the bottom up when the matter is so pervasive and complex.

psycocoffey• 16 years ago

I _think_ the article is trying to convey that asking those questions about an existing business is not helpful. I first read it as 'These are all bad questions that are never useful,' which is obviously false. But in the situation where there is an existing in depth knowledge base, they are better replaced with more topical questions.

I baulked at 'What is our goal?" since that is the first question I ask after someone requests help. But if I am expected to already be acquainted with the situation, I wouldn't ask.

vgr4• 16 years ago

I use 'what's your goal' as a conversation starter as well, but if it gets bogged down there, I start to tune out.

I think you and I may differ in what we consider 'useful.' I don't classify procedural starting points as 'useful' except in a ritualistic sense. So in that sense I think I stand by my rather extreme-sounding view :)

quanticle• 16 years ago

Another thing I've noticed is that asking the "big questions" (e.g. "Who is our customer? What will make me happy?) sometimes becomes a way to avoid acknowledging the answer. The purpose of the question is to bury you in the process of finding an answer, while simultaneously obscuring the answer itself. If you're a business, you probably already know who your customers are. If you're an individual, you probably already know what makes you happy. Attaching momentous formalism to the question only serves to emphasize process over result.

vgr4• 16 years ago

I believe it is not a big picture/details distinction but an information-free vs. informational distinction. There can be insight questions that are very large scale. Pascal's "probability that God/heaven/hell exist" is a very insightful but big-picture question.

frossie3• 16 years ago

Slightly off-tangent, but:

What is the top reason people leave jobs? (Answer: they dislike their immediate manager)

I know this, everybody knows this, and still it amazes me how few places have bottom up (or so called 360) assessments of their managers.

mcantor• 16 years ago

Technically, if your comment is slightly off-topic, that would make it slightly on-tangent.

frossie3• 16 years ago

Oh dear, take it as sine that I haven't had my coffee yet.

imp• 16 years ago

Yeah, I once asked about that kind of review at a company that didn't have it, and everyone automatically assumed that I hated my manager and wanted to get her in trouble. In fact, the opposite was true. For some reason people think that the only purpose of upward feedback is to rat on your boss.

frossie3• 16 years ago

Sad isn't it. And good managers want that feedback, but if there is no workplace structure for it, it's hard to obtain properly because HR isn't handling the anonymity, training on how to give the right sort of feedback and so on.

Hmmm. Maybe I should set up a surveymonkey template or something for people who are interested in doing it themselves.

flostre• 16 years ago

I hope you could set it straight.

tome• 16 years ago

These "right questions" sound an awful lot like half-answers to me.

barryaustin• 16 years ago

"The ability to ask the right question is more than half the battle of finding the answer." - Thomas J. Watson

"A problem well-defined is half solved." - John Dewey

oozcitak• 16 years ago

This is why the author says that they are dangerous:

> The right questions set you up for real success or failure. You never know whether a clue leads down a bunny trail or to genuine insight.

RyanMcGreal• 16 years ago

>Hastings’ question is clear even if you know nothing about the book. [...] Poirot’s questions, on the other hand, only makes sense if you know something about the story.

varjag• 16 years ago

"Patented formulas"? WTF

shalmanese• 16 years ago

FWIW, this is the same guy who wrote the gervais principle series of posts. http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-o...

balding_n_tired• 16 years ago

The corresponding questions do not really correspond, and their possible usefulness is questionable. The supposed correspondence on the Middle East is notably lame.

dkarl• 16 years ago

The supposed correspondence on the Middle East is notably lame.

I think the inability to come up with a great question about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict corresponds pretty well with the fact that there are no known good solutions to it (except the "if only they would..." kind of solutions.)

vgr4• 16 years ago

The 'different comm styles' ... I did not cite the reference, but there is a documentary about how Arab-Israeli conversations tend to break down badly even when both sides go in with win-win positive intentions. It showed some deep cultural diffs (specifically, Arabs don't like to be interrupted, while Israelis thrive on it...it's deeper, but that's the highlight point). Seems like anyone who could figure out how to resolve that diff could organize better peace talks.

BTW, if it isn't clear, I am the author of the post.

I've lost my password for HN and can't see a way to recover, so I haven't been responding to HN comments on my posts. Anyhoo, caved and logged in using my Google id now...I am the same as lost-password vgr on some older threads. If someone can tell me how to recover my password, I'd appreciate it. Kinda like my vgr handle.

vgr4• 16 years ago

aargh, sorry... looks like I DID use my google account last time and selected the vgr handle. Sorry.

zb• 16 years ago

Great article. The distinction between formulaic and versus insightful questions seems very similar to the difference between top-down and bottom-up processes.

The Dangerous Art of the Right Question

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