QUESTIONS OVER ANSWERS

I don’t have to tell you that today’s marketing world is incredibly complex. And the pressure to perform and deliver positive results has never been higher. So, it’s no surprise that everyone is looking for answers, answers, answers to their marketing problems. But to find those answers, it’s never been more important to ask lots of good questions.

Questions stimulate ideas, fix incorrect assumptions, and drive continuous improvement. By asking questions, you find better answers.

We all know that children are famous for constantly asking questions to help them make sense of the world and develop their own opinions and ideas. So why does asking questions become any less important in adulthood?

There are many reasons people stop asking questions as adults. Many are afraid they will look uninformed, underprepared, or interruptive. Others because they aren’t passionate enough to dig deeper. And many are simply engaged in their tactical doing, in fulfilling tasks, in checking a box in a long list of to-dos.

But great leaders know, and are comfortable with the fact that, they don’t have all the answers They know to never stop asking questions of themselves, their teams, their assumptions, and their work. And questions should be central to all phases of project development – before, during and after.

Before, to ensure there’s enough clarity and understanding of the problem you’re solving. What really is the problem? Agree to objectives and goals before you even start to seek answers.

Continue to ask questions during project development. Are we building a program to answer our core problem? Is this doing what we want it to? What else can/should we be doing?

And post-project, continue to question. What did we learn? What did we do right and should carry to future projects? What went wrong and why? How do we try to avoid this in the future?

Albert Einstein said, “Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning”. This is one thing you don’t need to question.