Chapter 7

The Power of a Good Question

After piling into Juan's office, the team began to take stock of the data. Juan walked them through the mind map. Amy was the first to grab a marker. “May I?” she asked. With a few strokes, she added lines connecting key data points, and new areas to explore emerged. Although Amy and Maya were the most active in the process, Damon and Elaine added their own insights as the mind map branched out. More flip chart paper went up around the whiteboard and the map kept expanding.

Within forty-five minutes, Juan's office wall looked like an office-sized Christo art installation. Damon, whose creativity had shifted into hyper drive, began peppering Juan with rapid-fire ideas.

“Hang on, Damon,” Kate cautioned. “Let's try not to leap to solutions too quickly. How about jotting those ideas down so we can talk about them later?”

Kate smiled as Damon made some notes. The team seemed very pleased to be getting into the weeds of the problem. Even Elaine, who didn't much enjoy clarifying, was seeing opportunities emerge from their shared work. Here and there, Elaine would chime in, “There's some low-hanging fruit” or “That area is ready for some work.”

As the group slowed down, Kate asked, “So are we ready to start the convergent part of this process?” No objections, so she continued. “Let's get another flip chart pad.” Juan stuck a new sheet to the adjacent wall. “OK, guys, where are the natural connections? Do you see any themes here in this map?”

The team volunteered ideas and Juan captured their connections on the flip chart. Kate was surprised that ten different areas of focus emerged. She asked, “Are these all distinct areas?” On reflection, the team grouped three under one common theme and brought two more together under another. That left them with seven distinct areas for analysis.

“Great work, everyone!” Kate said. “Seven areas still seem like a lot.”

“Yeah, if we come up with analysis and recommendations for all of them, our report might be several volumes long,” Elaine put in. “Of course, we've already covered some of this territory in our previous report. We don't need to focus there again.”

Juan spoke up, “We focused on them before because they were important. I don't think we should lose them. Maybe we can use them more creatively later in this process.”

Damon said, “There are at least two areas we've never touched—the ones we're calling ‘end-user needs’ and ‘marketplace compatibility.’ I think those might lead us somewhere new.”

“What do you think we need to do now?” asked Kate. Seeing the team gain independence, she did not want to be too directive here. The team was clearly feeling ownership of the process now that they had some success with the mind-mapping tool. She decided to back off a bit and see where they wanted to head.

“Are we ready to get some ideas on these areas?” asked Damon.

“Ideas about what, exactly?” Juan said. “All we have here are some key areas to focus on; what would we generate ideas about?”

“I agree with Juan,” said Amy. “We know what the broad areas are, but they don't offer enough definition for me to think about solutions. I mean, solutions to what exactly?”

Maya turned to Kate. “What do you think? Where in the process do you think we are?”

Kate thought a moment and said, “I think there's one more step we need to clarify the situation. You all touched on it just now: we need something to solve. Juan, thanks for letting us use your office. Let's take a break and reconvene in the conference room in fifteen minutes. Will that work for everyone?”

“Should I order lunch?” asked Maya.

“Great idea. Anyone have any other plans?” In a few moments, lunch decisions were finalized and the team dispersed to check e-mail prior to their next meeting.

Juan and Kate were alone again.

“I have to say, Kate, before you came to my door this morning I had a completely different scenario in my mind of how this day might go,” said Juan. “I'm very glad I was wrong.”

“Me, too. How'd you think we did?” she said, gesturing at the enormous amount of work covering Juan's office.

“I think we got more done this morning in less time than we usually would. Much less. I'm looking forward to keeping it going.”

“Glad to hear it. Me, too. When we reconvene, we're going to diverge a little bit more but in a different kind of way. I think you'll find it interesting.”

The group arrived at the conference room one by one. Elaine was first, followed closely by Kate and Amy. Maya and Juan came in next. Damon was late. They started without him.

“This morning we outlined several topic areas to address but we need more specific directions on where to focus. It may seem counterintuitive, but right now, it's time to diverge again. This time, our challenge is to come up with a whole list of angles and perspectives on each topic area. Then we can converge on the framing that really gets to the heart of each topic. It's a good set-up for brainstorming ideas later.”

As if on cue, Damon entered the room. “Ideas? Oh good, I've been waiting for this.”

“Questions first—then ideas,” warned Elaine, fixing Damon with a pointed look that stopped just shy of a glare.

“Drat. All right, hit me with the questions.”

Kate continued, “Here's the thing: I'd like you to phrase the questions a particular way. We are looking at getting more deeply into the problem areas that we identified in the mind map. So we're going to phrase our questions using a couple of ‘statement starters’ that will set our questions on the right path. To help you out, I've written four different statement starters on the whiteboard.” Kate pointed to four statements neatly written in a block letters: ‘How to . . . ,’ ‘How might . . . ,’ ‘In what ways might . . . ,’ and ‘What might . . . .’”

“Why do you think we are going to do this in this way?” she asked.

No one moved an inch. They looked at her with as much sentience as five blobs of pizza dough. Something clearly didn't connect. Kate decided to wait them out. She let her question float. To amuse herself, she began counting in her head to see how long it would take for pizza dough to grow vocal cords.

By the time Kate counted to seventeen, the blob that was Damon spoke up first (as usual, thought Kate).

“We want questions because they become things to solve?” he asked tentatively.

Kate's blue eyes sparkled with relief at Damon. “Yes—we use open-ended questions that invite lots of possibilities and solutions. She scanned the flip chart and picked a topic. “If we're working on marketplace compatibility, for instance, what might be an issue?”

Maya spoke up. “Other companies in the marketplace may not want to work together.”

“Great. And how might you phrase that as a question, using ‘How to . . .’ or ‘In what ways might . . . ?’”

“Hmm,” Maya said, pausing to think. Kate bit her lower lip to keep from answering for Maya. “How about . . . ,” Maya started, and paused again “. . . in what ways might we reduce competition? Or maybe, how to work effectively with other businesses?”

Kate wrote Maya's questions on the whiteboard.

Damon burst in like a racehorse breaking the gate. “In what ways might we merge with other businesses? How might we target new markets? What other products do we have that could fly in those markets?”

“Whoa, whoa. Use the stems, please,” Kate directed.

“OK. What might be some new markets for existing products?”

“Exactly. You got it,” Kate said with genuine enthusiasm.

“How to open doors to new markets?” added Juan, quite pleased with himself.

“How to build alliances with competitors?” added Maya.

“Isn't that the same as your last question?” asked Juan.

“Doesn't matter, let's just get as many questions as possible,” advised Kate.

The questions began to flow:

And on they went until Kate had covered three flip chart pages with questions.

As the group's questions slowed to a trickle, Kate checked in to be sure they were still on the right path. “Do you think we have enough areas to explore to meet our goal of providing new directions for Alicia and Consolidated?” she asked.

Reminding them of their goal at this point proved key. The group was gently brought back from the divergence blitz to refocus on their expected outcome. They immediately reviewed their list with a critical eye toward the directions it offered. Was it indeed enough?

“Some of these questions kind of go together,” said Amy.

“Yes, I see that, too,” Juan added. “But even with that, if we were to pursue all these directions, I think we'd overwhelm our client.”

“And it would take forever and a day to complete a new report. We'd need a lot more resources to get it done,” added Elaine.

“I don't think we need to start from scratch. Our last report contained a lot of the data we need to explore some of these questions. I bet if we targeted the ones we felt had the most promise, we'd be able to fit it into our existing work,” suggested Juan.

“What criteria are we going to use to make that choice?” asked Amy.

“I don't know, you guys; there is one question that just stands out to me. I think if we did nothing else but explore that question, we'd be giving Consolidated the creative solutions they're looking for,” added Maya, speaking unusually softly, without her typical full-steam-ahead brio. She was sure of her opinion but less sure as to how the more senior members of the team would react.

“I think I know the question you have in mind.” Amy's wheels were turning. “Should we just vote?”

“Vote?” asked Juan. “How's that supposed to work?” Juan was skeptical of a democratic process at such a top-driven firm. He expected Kate to make the call.

“Why wouldn't it work?” Kate said. “Do you expect me to be the decision maker of this team? Is that the way I've been behaving?” Kate smiled at Juan. She knew where his reaction was coming from. She also knew she had to call him on his thinking to build trust with the group. They needed to trust in her leadership style as well as trust in the process. Juan was almost there; he just needed gentle reminders.

Juan smiled back. Everything that had occurred this day was very new to him but he was beginning to take it on faith. “No. Certainly not. Forget I said anything. How do you want to vote? Raise hands? A ballot perhaps?”

Damon took the lead. “No, I've done some group voting before. We can do it much easier than a ballot box.” “Let's just go up with a marker and draw a check mark next to the question we feel provides the best direction to give Alicia what she needs.”

“Yes,” said Kate, “I've done something similar. But let's each select three to five questions. I don't want to lose a good one just because someone didn't want use her one vote on it.”

“Please, just three—let's get to a decision.” Elaine was trying to be patient with the process but sometimes her need to get to the finish line overtook her better judgment.

Damon was pushing her. “Ah, let's just split the difference. Let's go with four.”

“All right, fine. Four! But let's get to it quickly.” Elaine agreed just to get this group moving—she didn't care where to at this point. Let's go already! she thought. Do I need a cattle prod to get these guys going?

Each person stood and approached the list of questions. When they were ready, each put a check next to the question he or she thought met the client's need best. At least two markers seemed to be moving at once. Within five minutes, there were checks dotting the page but two questions clearly generated the most interest.

“There you have it,” Juan said. “Looks like we have a winner or two.”

“‘In what ways might we connect the changes in the marketplace with the way things have been?’ and ‘In what ways might the market react to Consolidated's change of approach?’” Kate read. “Any arguments for choosing a different question?”

No one wanted to argue. Kate thought that “arguments” might have been a poor choice of word on her part, so she rephrased. “Does anyone feel strongly about another question up here? If you do, now is the time to make your case. Let's talk about it.”

Maya gathered her courage and spoke up. “The one I was talking about before was the question about building alliances within the marketplace. It only got two votes but I still think it's the best. If we look at those other players out there we may be able to combine products or services that would make a huge difference, both in terms of lessening burdens on both companies by sharing costs as well as providing more comprehensive customer experience—you know, a better product delivered more easily. I think if Alicia is looking for something creative, recommendations we can make in regards to alliances around products may be just the thing.”

“Thank you, Maya. Well said. Reactions?” Kate asked.

“I think I'm going to change my vote,” Damon said, getting up and grabbing a marker. He crossed out one of his earlier check marks and put one on Maya's favorite.

Maya smiled, validated.

“I think Maya is onto something. We didn't look at how to leverage competitors in our previous reports. I think we were in the mind-set that we were out to put them out of business,” Elaine added. “That may have been too aggressive a view. I kind of like the idea of looking at ways to partner with them rather than merge fully. I'm changing my vote as well.”

And with that short discussion, the question of “How might we build alliances in the marketplace?” supplanted “In what ways might we connect the changes in the marketplace with the way things have been?” as a favorite.

Juan spoke: “I feel good about these two questions. Obviously, anticipating changes in how the market reacts to Consolidated's changes has to be done once we have some recommendations about what those changes may be. Let's just work on that first one—building alliances—and see where it takes us.”

Elaine was excited. “Yes! Let's go with that.”