Ostrowski's Outlook III
Fall 1999
After my last article on Concurrency, I thought something more uplifting would be in order. Therefore, I'd like to share a little story about the "One Question Manager".
When I was an engineering college student, I took a surveying course from Pop Hillis. Pop taught us a lot about surveying in the days before electronic systems made all the double and triple checks on our calculations pointless. We weren't great students. I don't remember any two teams coming up with the same height for the Schroeder Hotel. Actually, I don't remember anyone getting the right answer either.
What I remember, however, is one question that Pop asked one day. We were doing some sort of surveying exercise in the park near the college and Pop left us to our own devices for a while. We used the time to screw around. Actually, we became quite engrossed in our screwing around to the point that we didn't notice Pop's arrival. We were all bent over some sort of valve cover that we were trying to pry loose with a piece of our surveying equipment.
We did hear Pop say, almost too quietly: "What are we trying to accomplish here?" I'll never forget how we instantaneously got back to our assignment. We never answered his question and he never asked it a second time. We never answered it because we knew that what we were doing had absolutely nothing to do with what we were supposed to be doing. I think Pop didn't ask it again because he got the result he wanted.
Over the years the image of that brief exchange has popped back into my head repeatedly. I'm now convinced that there is only one question any manager needs to ask and it's the most important question to be asked. It's the question Pop asked us that day with such miraculous focusing power.
Students and employees have a lot in common. They lose focus easily and need someone to refocus them if they're going to be successful. The power of one question to refocus can be seen in my surveying story. The power of the question as an evaluative tool is something I found in my years in government and in my study of business successes and failures.
At the start of any endeavor, the question needs to be asked. If you ask it of your colleagues, don't expect the immediate positive results Pop Hillis got in surveying class. The question is much tougher to answer correctly in a strategic planning session than at almost any other time. This is because no one may know the right answer or everyone may have a different idea of what the right answer is. The key is to focus on answering the question and not the lovely esoteric policy discussions that we all get into when given the chance.
When we're building our product or our process or whatever it is we're in charge of, the power of the question as a focusing tool could have the same immediate results it had for Pop. If you're working with good people, as I assume we all are, they will very quickly figure out whether what they are doing is what they are really supposed to be doing.
When we're in business and trying to evaluate our customer's responses to the service we provide, we can use the question to check if our original direction was the right one or if we need to change direction. Does this mean that I believe that the successful manager needs to only know one thing? Yes, that's exactly what I mean. Of course, there are a lot of technical and people skills we all need to do our jobs well but if we don't ask the one important question early and often, all those skills will help us do the wrong job more efficiently.
Once again, your chance to influence future editorial content lies in sending your thoughts to me at ostrowj@pacifier.com.