Some variation of “What is the other person’s actual objective?” Or “Why did they do that?” or “What are they actually asking me?”
I started this habit in chess where it’s always useful to ask ‘why did my opponent make their last move?’ (and then see if there are answers past the obvious one). But I’ve also found it useful in other areas. Several times at work I’ve gone through iterations of something with someone because I answered exactly what they said instead of what they actually wanted. I now try to stop and ask them what their actual purpose is and it often saves me a bit of work.
I wish more people would try to solve the problem rather than answer the question, especially when it takes little additional effort.
example:
q: “Will material x work in this scenario?”
A1: “No, that’s not a good choice.” vs
A2: “No, instead try or Y”
or even A3: “No, in fact none of our products will.”
Interesting. I get rather annoyed by people who run around trying to solve a problem they think I implied by my question, rather than giving me the information I requested specifically to solve my actual problem.
The other day, for example, I asked about my health insurance coverage. Just to be prepared, as I’m still covered by my parents’ insurance and thought it would be prudent to have better emergency plans in place than “Call parents for help” or “Follow the doctor’s lead and hope things work out”. I got treated to a helping dose of panicked attempts to discern how I’d critically injured myself and fervent offers to drive me to an ER. It came with odd feeling of reverse deja vu, as if the scene were short one Professor McGonagall spitting “Gryffindors,” like some bitter curse.
This reminds me of of the times when I have to compile reports for users from our database. I started requiring that everyone gives me a reason why they want the reports. Most of the users aren’t technical people so half the time I need to give them exactly what they asked for and half the time I need to give them something completely different. I’ve started preemptively adding the reason why I want something into my questions, and I have stopped bothering to guess why people want something. Now I go straight to asking questions.
Some variation of “What is the other person’s actual objective?” Or “Why did they do that?” or “What are they actually asking me?”
I started this habit in chess where it’s always useful to ask ‘why did my opponent make their last move?’ (and then see if there are answers past the obvious one). But I’ve also found it useful in other areas. Several times at work I’ve gone through iterations of something with someone because I answered exactly what they said instead of what they actually wanted. I now try to stop and ask them what their actual purpose is and it often saves me a bit of work.
I wish more people would try to solve the problem rather than answer the question, especially when it takes little additional effort. example: q: “Will material x work in this scenario?” A1: “No, that’s not a good choice.” vs A2: “No, instead try or Y” or even A3: “No, in fact none of our products will.”
Interesting. I get rather annoyed by people who run around trying to solve a problem they think I implied by my question, rather than giving me the information I requested specifically to solve my actual problem.
The other day, for example, I asked about my health insurance coverage. Just to be prepared, as I’m still covered by my parents’ insurance and thought it would be prudent to have better emergency plans in place than “Call parents for help” or “Follow the doctor’s lead and hope things work out”. I got treated to a helping dose of panicked attempts to discern how I’d critically injured myself and fervent offers to drive me to an ER. It came with odd feeling of reverse deja vu, as if the scene were short one Professor McGonagall spitting “Gryffindors,” like some bitter curse.
Good point. Maybe the better advice than “try to solve the underlying problem” would be “check for obvious follow-up questions, and answer them.”
In your situation, that’s the difference between “Yes.” and “Yes, it’s by company x, and it will expire in 6 months unless we pay Y extra.”
This reminds me of of the times when I have to compile reports for users from our database. I started requiring that everyone gives me a reason why they want the reports. Most of the users aren’t technical people so half the time I need to give them exactly what they asked for and half the time I need to give them something completely different. I’ve started preemptively adding the reason why I want something into my questions, and I have stopped bothering to guess why people want something. Now I go straight to asking questions.
Communication is hard.