Daily insights to help you change minds and drive action. Bi-weekly premium essays that dive deep on how the world’s best leaders communicate.
When did we stop questioning the question?
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As you might know, 42 is the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, The Universe, and Everything, at least according to “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.” The only problem is that nobody knows the question. Which couldn’t be more timely. We’re living in a time that’s obsessed with answers. Open any app or tune into any media and you’re bombarded with all kinds of answers on all kinds of questions you never asked. Even worse, when you do ask a question, you’ll get all sorts of answers from people who didn’t listen closely, don’t understand the context, or simply have no clue what they are talking about. Answers feel like the shortcut to results: Know this, do that, and everything will be fine. The appeal of an answer is that it’s definite. It’s an end to a story. Even better: When someone gives you a simple answer it can feel like you’ve reached the summit without having to climb. Until you discover that you’re on the wrong summit. Or only halfway there. Or something even worse … Because e.g. the answer wasn’t applicable in that case. Or only half the truth. Or outdated. Or plain wrong. Because, well, what was the question again? When everyone seems to have answers to almost anything, it’s a good habit to start looking at the questions again. Answers get you only as far as the question went. Without a good question, answers are meaningless. Just as “42” can be the answer to a lot of things and will remain meaningless until we know exactly what the question was, many answers that we get today are meaningless because we haven’t agreed on the question or the question was unclear from the very start. And with AI generating 42s faster than ever, this problem is only going to get worse as the flood of answers is growing by the hour. What we need is leaders who ask better questions and make sure the team is climbing the right mountain. Because as the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy so beautifully proves, questions can be harder to find than the answer. Keep lighting the path, __ Have a big moment coming up, like a keynote, a launch, or an important announcement? And this time you really can’t afford to be misunderstood? You want to craft a message so clear and a story so strong that it becomes irresistible? That’s what a Clarity Lab is for. |
What the Best Leaders Say
Daily insights to help you change minds and drive action. Bi-weekly premium essays that dive deep on how the world’s best leaders communicate.
What the Best Leaders Say Issue 8 In leadership circles, the “Patagonia Case Study” has become a bit of a cliché. It’s usually presented as a moral fable: Be virtuous like Yvon, and you will win. A nice sentiment for sure, but utterly useless advice. It suggests that unless you are saving the planet, you cannot replicate their loyalty. And it certainly isn’t helpful if you are selling enterprise software or financial services rather than fleece jackets. But if you strip away the moralizing,...
By now, many of you have been through your annual strategy retreat. How did it go? Too often, this is what happens next: What hurts most is that everyone poured their heart into this. Didn’t you? You locked yourself away. You had good debates. Which turned into heated discussions. And still, you landed on something that feels really good. It’s logically sound. It’s brave. It’s clear. So what happened between the retreat and this chart? Often, I hear it’s an “execution problem”. I don’t buy...
I have three core values:Honesty. Empathy. Trust. And I’d argue they’re all you need to know about communication. If you take these three values seriously and apply them to how you speak and write, they become the most ruthless, demanding communication strategy you can possibly use. Honesty requires a true story worth telling.If you commit to only ever saying what is true, you lose your ability to spin. You can’t use clever words to dress up a bad idea. You can’t hide behind corporate jargon....