Asking Better Questions To Receive Better Answers

The best engineers I’ve been around ask the best questions. Which in turn provides the best answers. Those answers produce a better product.

Which then begs the question, how do you ask better questions? What makes a better question? 

And while I don’t profess to have the key answer here, I do have some things that have worked in my life. And as I’ve pondered on this question and by looking for answers, here’s what I’ve come to.

A better question thinks further down the path. It takes into consideration 3rd, 4th, and 5th order effects. Instead of just thinking about the next move ahead.

For example, instead of asking yourself how to lose 5 lbs today. You might instead ask, how do I become fit, healthy, lean with 10% body fat, and maintain that for the rest of my life? What habits would I have to adopt to maintain that physique? 

Notice a few things. First, I framed it as a gain, rather than a loss. Second, it looked well down the path with a continuation of the outcome. Not a single instance. A greater good if you will.

It’s not how do I close this one sale, but how do I create a process to give me the highest probability of closing all future sales while maintaining an excellent reputation? 

Different questions, different answers, different results. 

A frame you can use to improve this is as follows: If ____ happens, what happens next? And if that were to happen, what does that mean? 

The inverse, which doing both is beneficial, would be I want ____ outcome. What are the steps I need to achieve that outcome? Through that process what assumptions am I making? Are they valid? How long will it take to achieve that outcome? 

For example, it’s no secret I like Super Yachts. The massive vessels that are capable of navigating the globe. Well, those are anywhere from $50-$500 million and beyond. Plus a minimum of 10% of the purchase price to operate annually and more like 20%. 

Worst case I spent 5% of my income annually on a yacht (being a responsible person) and the investment required is 20% of the purchase price to operate, then on an annual basis for a $100M yacht, I would need to have an income of $400M per year.

Then the question becomes how would I go about earning that much in income. Especially if the business only nets 10% and I take home half of that. 

When you start with a goal in mind, work backward for what it takes to achieve it, and then set out to determine the steps required to achieve it, you then have a pathway to your successful outcome.

For you, it could just be a home paid off and a nice car to drive. It could be your own personal fleet of cars. It could be literally anything you want in life, but you have to put pencil to paper and figure out what it is that you truly want. The thing that you can't let go of.

For me to achieve the goal of Super Yacht, I would need to build a $10 Billion annual business. I have my outcome, it then becomes a process of figuring out how to do that and knowing that it might take the rest of my life to get there.

I know it's possible because others have already done it. The same is true with your goals. Someone has already done it, meaning it's possible too.  

Not all the answers you will have to start, but in most cases, getting the directionality correct is what you’re looking for and you can move forward from there.