Question-able logic

Our local newspaper recently ran an opinion piece by Minnesota’s Senate majority leader, suggesting that it’s time to end our governor’s COVID-19-driven emergency powers. His logic? We aren’t better off than we were a year ago, when the governor’s emergency powers took effect.

I’m nowhere near wise or informed enough to take a position on the question of whether the governor’s emergency powers have outlived their usefulness.

But as a professional consultant I’m more than wise and informed enough to know this is Lewis’s Law #5 in action: When you ask the wrong question, even the right answer is misleading.

Are we (“we” referring to all Minnesotans) better off than we were a year ago? No. Sure, there are a few notable exceptions, like people who had the foresight to invest in Zoom (I’m still kicking myself for missing this one).

But after a year of a pandemic that to date has killed 6,600 Minnesotans, 523 thousand Americans, and more than two and a half million people worldwide, asking whether we’re better off than we were a year ago makes about as much sense as asking whether, following emergency surgery, the patient is better off than he was before the car crash that sent him to the hospital.

A better question, although one that’s much harder to answer (yes, I did say the same thing twice, didn’t I?) is whether we’re better off than we would have been had our governor not assumed emergency powers.

Among the reasons it’s a much harder question to answer is that it asks us to compare the path we did take to all the paths we didn’t.

The point this week

Lewis’s Law #5 matters to every manager and leader, for every important decision. In my consulting I find frequent violations. What’s hard is that pointing them out invariable seems nitpicky to the perpetrators. Some examples:

What’s the return on investment? What makes this a wrong question is that it’s so intensely tactical and one-dimensional. Insisting that every action generates a direct, measurable financial return precludes investments in, for example, the business strategy.

Who is accountable for this? This is ManagementSpeak for “Whose fault is this?” It invites blamestorming while preventing the root cause analysis that might prevent the next problem.

Will this create shareholder value? Shareholder value … dividends and increases in the price of a share of stock … isn’t a bad thing. It’s that so many ways of achieving it help prevent long-term success. Shareholder value should be thought of as a consequence of achieving competitive advantage, not as the focal point of management attention.

What are the right metrics for this? This is a wrong question because the question to ask is what management’s goals are. Only after these are clear does it make sense to ask how we’ll tell if we’re achieving them … a semiotic improvement over asking about metrics.

Bob’s last word: Asking a wrong questions in business is like handwaving by stage magicians. It’s a way to distract attention from what’s really going on.

So as a business leader and manager, take time to ask yourself and everyone around you: “Is this the question we should be asking?” That’s always a good question to ask, and one whose right answer won’t mislead you.

Bob’s sales pitch: Nothing in particular this week, but watch this space. I’m building up to a good one!