There’s a Dutch saying that apparently has no English equivalent: “de vraag stellen is hem beantwoorden”. In English, this would translate like: “asking a question is answering it”. Many people will have once experienced this strange phenomenon. I think, feel and believe it only applies to asking the right question. A wrong question seldom gives a right answer.
Thomas J. Watson Sr. (1874-1956), founder and CEO of IBM came to a similar conclusion: “The ability to ask the right question is more than half the battle of finding the answer.” Sources: HR Daily Advisor, Quotes. Note: bold and italic markings in quote by LO.
Many articles are about asking the right questions (to others) but that is not the perspective of this blog. We all have questions to ourselves. These questions are usually not shared with others. We prefer keeping these questions silent. Yet, we still need answers to our questions.
Mid 2014, I was deleting friends from Facebook. I was about to delete Joan as I hadn’t heard from her for years. Suddenly, she asked me how I was. I was still fighting my burnout and became upset by merely reading her question. During my answering, I made a new, sudden and unexpected analogy with Abraham Maslow‘s concept of the hierarchy of needs.
Finally, I had my Eureka moment in which I realised the essence of my burnout: every level of my own Maslow pyramid needed to be repaired. The solution was “simple”: build a new one or repair the old one. I quickly realised that repairing a house on fire is not a solution.
Actually, I often use analogies for finding solutions. My underlying reason might be related to why reinventing the wheel? Some examples: airplane = bird, submarine = whale, boat = duck, spiderweb = internet, etcetera. Moreover, biomimicry is “the emulation of the models, systems, and elements of nature for the purpose of solving complex human problems” (Wiki).
I have also learned that everything follows Why (my blogs: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6). Wrong questions usually include: how, what, when, where and who (Wiki). The Why question usually gives a comprehensive answer.
“An approximate answer to the right question is worth a great deal more than a precise answer to the wrong question.” A quote by John Tukey (1915-2000), an American mathematician.
Right to Be Wrong (2004) by Joss Stone
artist, lyrics, video, Wiki-1, Wiki-2
Note: all markings (bold, italic, underlining) by LO unless stated otherwise.
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