I love asking questions. There is a streak of insatiable curiosity that runs right through me that means I always want to know more.
Here are some of my favourites:
- How do you know when you have done a good job?
- If you had to choose between a job well done, but late, and a job not done well, but on time, which would you choose?
- What was your worst decision, and what did you do about it?
While in a Trustees meeting of a charity I am Treasurer of recently, someone asked a really great question:
- What would the world be like without our organisation in it?
As a charity that prides itself on the difference we make to people’s lives, this ought to have been easy to answer. Our sticking point came when we needed to produce some evidence of what that difference was.
Questions are good, answers are great, but evidence is key.
As a school governor, I am aware of the move away from teaching, towards learning. It doesn’t matter how good the teacher is, if the pupils are not learning. Evidence acquired at the end of the year in the form of exam results, or course work, is too late to be of use to change teaching style and content. Governors are now being asked to look for evidence that pupils are learning.
Questions that have no right or wrong answer are a good start to finding out what people think and feel.
And businesses are made and broken by people, not numbers.