It’s often not the answer that matters but the question

My son, like many children, had his birthday around the cut-off date for entry into primary school. So my wife and I had a choice: do we send him a little earlier, or a little late? My position on the matter was: “Give me one good reason we should hold him back”. And we couldn’t come up with one.

I then read Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers which discussed, among other things, the correlation between careers as a professional sportsman and birth dates. When I changed the question to: “Why would I deliberately make him the smallest, youngest boy in the class?” the answer was obvious.

I realised the truth in the old adage – it’s not the answer that matters but the question.

Recently I cam across a quote by Henry Ford, which I will come to later, which reminded me how important the question is. So I thought I’d share with you some of the great questions I have come across in start up and innovative environments.

1. What would an extraordinary life look like to you?

I find that this question really focuses people on what’s important to them. Nobody chooses a mundane life, it just kind of happens while you are busy. For my wife and I, it’s a continuing conversation as it’s the question that shapes both long-term and short-term goals. I also find that it helps founders dream large and set the course for their business.

2. What exactly are you getting out of this?

I love this question. My friend Fiona Boyd of Collectzing asks this question all the time, as not only does it give her insight into other people’s motivations – it also uncovers a whole heap of attributes around the situation that you haven’t considered. For instance, I never would have picked that a slightly complex program for an international business development visit I have just worked out with a client, was actually all about them making time to catch up with a sibling that they haven’t seen for years. It was actually the most important part of the trip for them.

3. Has money actually been spent to solve this problem?

What most aspiring entrepreneurs don’t seem to get is that just because you have a great idea, it’s not a great business idea unless it has potential customers. The quickest way to figure out whether people will buy your solution is to ask whether they are currently paying money to try and solve this problem in another way. And it’s not just aspiring entrepreneurs who don’t get it either. A vast number of Research Agencies (funded by you and me) have IP portfolios of solutions nobody actually wants to pay money for. I pretty much see solutions falling into one of three categories, of which only the last category makes me happy:

• Solutions without problems.
• Solutions solving a problem.
• Solutions solving problems that people will pay real money to fix.

4. How well does this solve your problem?

This is the Henry Ford question and the basis of balancing customer focus with innovation-based advantage. If Henry Ford had asked his customers what they wanted, the answer was going to be “faster horses”. His competitors could also get exactly the same answers and they would all fight it out in the arena of diminishing margins. But by coming up with innovative solutions, then asking “how well does this solve your problem?”, he got to satisfy his customers plus reap the profits of innovation-based competitive advantage, or, “he got rich selling factory produced cars, when no one else thought of it”.

So spending time thinking about and refining the questions you need to ask, is time well invested. The questions determine the answers and choose the direction you take without even being aware of it.

By the way, I sent my son to school late, not early.

What great questions have you got?

To read more Brendan Lewis blogs, click here.

Brendan Lewis is a serial technology entrepreneur having founded: Ideas Lighting, Carradale Media, Edion, Verve IT, The Churchill Club, Flinders Pacific and L2i Technology Advisory. He has set up businesses for others in Romania, Indonesia and Vietnam. Qualified in IT and Accounting, he has also spent time running an Advertising agency and as a Cavalry Officer with the Australian Army Reserve.