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When It’s BETTER to Answer a Question with a Question

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Answering a Question

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This week I was talking to a friend — he’s a kind, wise observer — about a habit that’s been with me a long time. It’s usually harmless, but it also doesn’t serve me well.

Sometimes it’s better to answer a question with a question.

This is a good story . . . it really happened.

The Question Was When?

It was the time I was commuting from Southern California to rural Massachusetts. I was living in a hotel, driving a rental, and parking in the visitor’s space.

The situation was caused by the real estate market in California. Banks were “forgiving” mortgages, which meant house prices were lower than the amount that folks still owed to the bank. We couldn’t afford to sell our home and lose the money invested in it. We ended up waiting two years for the prices to get back to where we could afford to sell.

During that two years, I would spend two weeks at each location. Every time I was in the office, two or three people would ask some form of the question

When are you going to move here?

One day, some time in the middle of the second year of my commute, I was walking out to my car with a woman who worked on my team. She asked,

When are you going to stop being a visitor?

I launched into my answer about where the housing market was at that moment and where we predicted it was going. I told her when we projected that would mean my family would be moving to the area for real. She stood with me, by my car, and listened intently.

As soon as i finished, she polited said, “Thank you, but what I wanted to know was, when you were going to quit parking in the visitor’s parking place?”

How many mistakes had I made there? Oh.

If only, I had thought to find out why she was asking.

If only, I didn’t assume I already knew.

BTW, I didn’t really park there every day. She a classic set-up for a joke when she saw one.

–ME ‘Liz” Strauss
Why SOBCon — Not that Other One? —

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Check out the Work with Liz!! page in the sidebar.

SOB Business Cafe 04-13-07

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SB Cafe

Welcome to the SOB Cafe

We offer the best in thinking–articles on the business of blogging written by the Successful and Outstanding Bloggers of Successful Blog. Click on the titles to enjoy each selection.

The Specials this Week are

Converstations reminds us that we need to keep our eyes open.

Success from the Nest tells us about a simple 15 minutes.

Fish Creek Innkeeping reminds us what common ground means.

Legal Andrew explains something about colorful law students.

Kent Blumberg offers focus for that pile of priorities on your agenda.

Beyond Blinking Lights and Acronyms tells the real story.

Related ala carte selections include

Matthew Coddington guest posts at Problogger on a question that comes up often.

Sit back. Enjoy your read. Nachos and drinks will be right over. Stay as long as you like. No tips required. Comments appreciated.

Have a great weekend!

–ME “Liz” Strauss

For the Quiet Ones . . .

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I’ve been thinking . . .

about the quiet ones.

They say we don’t stop to smell the roses. I think everyone pretty much knows that. The roses, the tulips, the other flowers — they do just fine without us. We’re the ones missing out on them, when we walk right by without notice.

Ah, but I’ve been remembering a conversation I had once with a guy whose child was about to start school. We talked about how teachers spend all of their time on certain kids and how managers do too. What we realized was that everyone notices the really smart kids, the funny ones, the helpful ones, and the ones who cause problems. Everyone remembers them.

But it’s hard to remember the quiet ones.

You know the quiet ones. They are the ones who let the rest of us go first. They’re the ones, who when they smile seem to do so for no reason. They’re polite. They don’t push or shove. They don’t complain or gripe. Quite frankly, they’re easy to miss. They don’t stand or say much about what they think.

That’s why they are the quiet ones.

That doesn’t mean they aren’t thinking.

That doesn’t mean they aren’t intelligent, or entertaining, or beautiful down to the last detail. It only means that they don’t make noise.

Are they like the roses that do just fine without us?

What are we missing by not listening to the quiet ones?

This weekend, I’m going to notice all of the quiet ones.

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The quiet ones who are always here . . .

The quiet ones who just happened by . . .

The quiet one inside each of us . . .

This is for you.

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Why SOBCon — Not That Other One?

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Conversation Means YOU Talk Too

A conversation involves more than one person talking. A conversation means you get to talk too. The best ideas come when we mash up the knowledge and approaches from different fields and when we look at ideas from all points of view.

Imagine SOBCon — a room filled with web publishers, many you have met on your blog or blogs like this one.

See the SOBCon presenters. They’re leading conversations.

Can you see it? It’s an audience of people engaged in swapping strategies, offering top-notch thinking from which you get to choose . . . Here’s just a few of the folks who will be adding value.

  • Brad, Sheila, and Marcus, who know how words make connections with readers
  • Lisa, who brings the soul of an actress and the mind of a teacher
  • Jesse, who can see how a gamer might get over a wall
  • Tony, who can diagnose a problem inside a plan
  • Dr. Wolcott, who is at the top in the field of business innovation
  • Ashley, who brings a painter’s vision and delicate hand
  • Sandra, who knows tools and techniques of visual thinking
  • Joe, who brings those grounding questions and computer expertise
  • Jeff, who understands good to great and will get there
  • Tammy, who knows the people in every part of our job and the dynamics of conversation
  • Steve, who is the extreme leadership that lifts us to try
  • Dawud, who brings those goals he wrote that prove we express ourselves in our business
  • Vernun, who knows how to celebrate others as part of our dream
  • Muhammed, who can’t help but provide energy and new ideas
  • Robert, who will be there with a practical eye toward what is real
  • Franke and Timothy, who know the “group think” of the situation
  • Easton, who knows how to organize and monetize without killing the grace of an idea
  • Ann and Kent, who are leaders that know presentation is as important as content
  • Troy, who thinks big and challenges everyone to take permission to do so

And add to that list people from every walk of business life — corporate innovators, public relations communicators, and the hippest new media contributors — no kidding really. I’ve seen who’s coming and they’re all on it.

Why SOBCon 07 and Not That Other One?

An entire room of experienced minds challenging each other to find the best ways of

  • engaging readers and connecting with customers
  • drawing people into deeper and more meaningful conversation
  • using architecture that invites people hang out around and talk longer
  • converting visitors into friends and super influencers
  • reaching out beyond the blogosphere

And of course, each person’s answer will be different.
Think about that . . . a roomful of minds all looking the same direction — toward how relationships can build a business — your blog, your business.

SOBCon 07 is more than a conference. It will be a one of a kind experience.
A roomful of incredible minds, ideas, and choices.

You can’t get that just anywhere.

What is He Talking About? Chris Cree on Questions

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“What if this were not a hypothetical question?”

I love to ask questions.

When I was a tyke I like to drove my folks bug-nuts with the “Why, Mommy? Why, Daddy? Why? Why? Why?” questions that never much seemed to end.

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Even now as I approach my fourth decade I still tend to get conversations rolling by asking questions that I may or may not think I’ve got an answer for. I’m not in the teaching profession but I love seeing the light bulb go off when someone I’m talking with “gets it.”

I have a Brazilian friend who said there is a Portuguese phrase for that light bulb moment. It escapes me right now but I remember the English translation: “nickel down”. He told me it came from the old vending machines they used to have South of the Equator. You didn’t get whatever you were trying to buy from the machine until the nickel dropped down.

My mom’s a high school biology teacher still, so maybe I come by it genetically. I don’t know.

Thinking Excercise

One big reason questions are so wonderful is that they force us to think. And thinking can keep us young.

Not only that, but thinking through questions and problems and scenarios can help prepare us for times of crisis.

I remember we were living in Florida when hurricane Floyd was forming up in the Atlantic. Because I was in marine operations in the shipping business I keep close tabs on the storm systems out there. Looking at the satellite photos of that storm I called Gorgeous and told her to start packing up. Because if the storm didn’t change tracks we were going to be heading out.

And that was 5 days before the storm hit the coast. Got a framed picture of Floyd taken three days after that phone call hanging on my office wall right now.

Hurricane Floyd 14 September 1999Fortunately for us packing up and heading out was fairly simple and straight forward. Why? Because we’d asked ourselves a question prior to that day.

What would we do if “the Big One” was headed our way?

For us, living right near the Florida coast surrounded by tidal marsh (our subdivision at the time was called “Marsh Lakes” 🙄 ) the question was not hypothetical. The danger was real. In 18 years of living in the Southeast I’ve run from about a half a dozen storms. I’ve also ridden out a couple doozies onboard ships. I’ve seen their destructive power up close and personal.

Therefore we treated the question much more seriously than a hypothetical exercise. We actually invested the effort it took to come up with a workable plan. And because of the way we treated the question, facing the reality was not nearly as big a deal when the time came as it was for many other folks.

How You Respond Makes a Difference

How do you respond when you see a question?

Many people just gloss over it with a little, “Hmmph.” And then they go about their business.

Other folks don’t even notice that a question was asked.

If you fall into one of those categories you may very well one day end up like a friend of ours. She grew up in that coastal Florida town, lived there all her life, and never even thought about “the Big One.”

When it eventually came she was in a tight spot. She was seriously stressed out to say the least.

Fortunately we were on top of our game well enough that while I sorted out the ships I had to get out of the way of the storm at work Gorgeous went over and adapted our plan to their situation. It worked out that our friend got some help from us to get her and her infant baby out of harms way. And her cat. And her dog. And her Vietnamese pot-bellied pig.

We brought the whole zoo (plus our own cat) along with us to higher ground.

The Choice is Yours

So the next time someone asks you a challenging or difficult question you have a choice.

You can blow it off and hope you never face that situation in reality. Or, if you do, that a good friend will come a long and bail you out if you ever get in that jam.

Or you can think about it as if it really wasn’t a hypothetical question and work out how you’d respond for real. Then if you ever find yourself in that situation you will be way ahead of the game. And folks will appreciate how well you respond when things around you start falling apart. Trust me.

But that’s just the Way I C it.

–Chris Cree, SuccessCREEations.