Stupid Questions 101: Why Ask "Why?"

While asking “Stupid Questions” is an easy concept for most people to grasp, using them effectively and using them to build up team cohesiveness takes a bit of practice. Done wrong, you come off as a slow, pedantic, plodder at best; a complete idiot at worst.

Now I'm not one to worry that much about what others think (I am, after all, a Project Manager), but as any mathematician will tell you, sometimes the crowd is right. So, in the next few blogs we will talk about how when and why to use each of the stupid questions listed in my 10 June 2010 Blog.

I usually use “Why?” as my first stupid question. I am constantly amazed at how often folks simply do not have a coherent rationale for their statements or decisions.

I do it because it forces folks to articulate the rational and reasons driving their actions. Forcing them to verbalize the reasons means they actually have to take a moment and think about what they've done or want to do; to find underlying rationale and articulate that to a third party (me). Asking this question consistently gets the team in the habit of looking at their recommendations critically beforehand.

This reduces the number of times they embarrass themselves with customers, vendors or colleagues, because they have a better grasp of the situation and are prepared to answer potentially embarassing, critical questions.

When I ask “why?”, or any other stupid questions, for that matter, I try to wrap the question in a few more words – I find it softens the blow so to speak. One word sentences tend to come across a bit to blunt for most situations. People tend to see them as aggressive personal attacks and they get defensive, digging in their heels and closing down to new ideas.

I have been managing engineering teams and leading system/product design projects since the mid 1980's. For many of those years, I have been a troubleshooter / turn-around specialist, stepping in when projects are significantly behind schedule, over budget and missing critical technical milestones. When you're trying to fix situations like these, personal attacks are not usually the best approach to take right out of the gate.

So rather than a simple “Why?”, I might ask “Why are we doing it this way?”; “Why did you eliminate that option?”; or “I don't quite understand the rational here, can you explain it to me?”.

Asked with the properly obsequious attitude, “Why?” can put the person being questioned in the position of teacher, rather than suspect. This shift in roles gives them an ego boost – which is often a great help in building team cohesiveness – as well as providing a safe, face-saving reason for them to review their designs, ideas and approaches.

In the long run, this approach gives other members of your team the power to lead.

Of course, to do this successfully, you've got to be confident enough in yourself and in your ability to guide the work “from the shadows” to put your ego aside for the good of the project, the team and the customer. But that's a topic for another day.

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If you need help asking stupid questions, let me know! Either leave a comment here or e-mail me at: TomFawls@Council4SmallBiz.com.