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The Five-Second Answer
20220413 The Five-Second Answer
I’ve been pondering what I call the five-second question answer.
I remember a point when I was filled with hubris full of myself and knew everything. And people would ask me questions.
I would think, man, can’t you go online to look it up? It will take five seconds. I realized I was doing myself and them a severe disservice.
I realized when somebody asks a question, they probably do want answer and they don’t know where to find it. So they are asking the person they think will have the answer.
Currently, I get asked questions regularly, and depending on the circumstances. I will try to get the answer immediately, and give additional resources to research the question in more detail.
If it’s a question I can’t answer, there are quite a few of them out there. I try immediately seek the answer with the questioner, to see if we can find an appropriate answer or solution to whatever the question is.
That does a couple of things. First, it allows me to learn something new. And it provides the questioner with the chance to use a tool to seek out answers to their questions.
In our modern technological era, most of us have smartphones and computers. And everybody knows how to find answers, no, this is not necessarily true. Everybody does not know how to find answers, even if they have smartphones and computers.
A lot of that is culture and upbringing. For example, some people have never been taught to research an answer to a deep question.
If somebody reaches out to you and asks you a question to which you know the answer, give it to them. Then dig deep and find out what is behind that question and how else can you help the person?
As a leader, how can we better serve them? It is our responsibility to help those in need.
I discovered many years ago there are three basic reasons people don’t accomplish something.
- One is they don’t know how to do what they want. They need an answer.
- They are afraid of doing something wrong, and they need an answer to do it right.
- And three there seeking permission. Permit them to find the answer to do what they feel like they need to do and accomplish whatever their goal is.
Till next time
“Be Safe”
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