Businesses naturally resort to quick business pain-killers and forget to ask the right questions. However, the right questions lead us to permanent, impactful solutions.
Rushing to answers is like duct taping or repeatedly bandaging a problem instead of finding what heals the wound. And yet we all know it is the journey, not the destination, that matters most when permanently resolving problems.
So the trick is getting comfortable with asking more questions rather than jumping to answers. Harvard’s Gregersen [1] provides us with a method called Question Bursting and I have converted the steps into a simple 4 meeting how-to:
Identify the business challenge, create a team of 3-4 people that could help brainstorm solutions, and schedule four, weekly meetings with the agenda below:
Meeting 1:
Select a challenge you care deeply about and why you want to solve it
Brainstorm and collect as many questions about the challenge as possible
Review and select the questions that hint to new solutions to consider
Revert to being 4 yrs old and ask why – why is this question seem important, why did you give it importance compared to other questions, why does the question seem to hint to a solution, why why why
Wrap up with a list of questions to focus on in Meeting 2
Meeting 2:
Revisit the challenge and why you want to solve it
Re-review the questions and brainstorm to create more
Narrow the list of questions to 3-5 that seem meaningful and interesting
Pursue a chain of discussion around the questions and start identifying solutions to the challenge
Keep a list of new questions that arise
Wrap up with a list of meaningful questions, a list of possible solutions, and a few questions about the solutions that still need to be answered in Meeting 3
Meeting 3:
Revisit the challenge and why you want to solve it
Re-review the questions and brainstorm to create more
Pursue a chain of discussion around the questions and refine the list of solutions to the challenge
Keep a list of new questions that arise
Wrap up with a list of meaningful questions, a list of possible solutions, and a few questions about the solutions that still need to be answered
Meeting 4:
Revisit the challenge and why you want to solve it
Pursue a chain of discussion around the questions and refine the list of solutions to the challenge
Finalize the list of solutions and assign someone to be the “tester” of each solution
Schedule a meeting for the testers to report the testing results back to the team to then finalize the solutions to implement
You will love the outcome and hopefully make this a habit to tackling future business challenges. Carpe Diem!
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