Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Questions without answers are the easy ones to ask and discuss.

I recently saw a movie about folks building bombs. Large parts of the movie were discussions among scientists and engineers about building devices that kill people, but also save lives by stopping the killing.

Those discussions were easy, much easier than the tasks they had at hand (physics, chemistry, engineering, etc.).

The questions were easy because they had no answers. They could talk and talk and talk all day and no one was right or wrong.

Questions without answers are that way, they are easy because they have no answers. It is easy to talk forever.

Is that what you are doing at work, talking forever about things that have no right or wrong answers? That’s okay for a coffee break, but are you discussing those in meetings? If you are, that is a waste of everyone’s time.

Let’s do better. Table them, “Let’s discuss that at lunch or at the coffee shop before work or the bar after work.”