Prateek's Musings

During a farewell event organised for me by a team I worked with, one of my team members stayed that they appreciated that I asked a lot of questions. I guess the questions started during my first job, when problem solving became essential for earning bread. At IIMA, questions were a device for driving class discussion in the academic sphere. During placement preparation, we were told about the importance of asking clarifying questions to define the scope of problems.

Every decision we make is an outcome of a problem solving exercise, and each problem is essentially a question. An optimised question could unlock the potential for a much better outcome, therefore I believe it is imperative to work on asking better questions.

Use The Internet

The internet is the biggest source of information and knowledge available to us today. The incentive of ad revenue has driven the creation of websites with relevant (looking?) information in concise form accessible to everyone with a smartphone and working internet connection. Traditional information and knowledge sources have also realised the potential of this medium, so our dictionaries and encyclopedia have also moved to the cloud. An individual cannot compete with the capacity, speed and accuracy of the algorithm of a global search engine. So why not check if the answer is directly available on the internet?

Too Big or Too Small?

If I had to look at the entire lifecycle of a question I asked someone, it would start with me formulating the question in my mind, followed by expressing it in some form, then by the other person receiving the question, processing it, formulating their response and expressing it, and ending with me receiving and processing the response. I might have a lot of time to formulate the question or process the response, but the time available for the intermediate activities is certainly limited. You also have no control over the time that the responder could take! Hence, it is essential that we work on optimising our part of this lifecycle.

Is It Clear?

Communication is both implicit and explicit, and the implicit part can add a lot of processing overload because it is usually open to interpretation. Therefore, unless you are posing a rhetorical question or being sarcastic, an important consideration is making the question as clear as possible. A clear question could lead to a quicker and more valuable response contributing to a more effective decision with a better outcome.

Ask The Right Person

Similarities in experiences reduce as the underlying factors change. E.g. my experience in the classroom during a PGP1 course at IIMA would match a lot closely with someone from my section, a little less with someone from another section, lesser when compared with an immediate senior or junior and a lot less when compared with someone five years senior or junior. Asking someone with an ongoing or recent experience of a setting could lead to getting more valuable information, and thereby ultimately improve the outcomes of your decisions.

Final Thoughts

Most of us remember all our teachers asking if we have doubts, pushing us to ask questions. That's because we are rarely able to acknowledge that we have a lot of unanswered questions in our mind. If we are able to identify the existence of such questions, refine them, pose them to the right people and process the answers in the intended form, our decisions stand to improve vastly. Hope all of us are able to use our questions well!