Scribe Media President J. T. McCormick calls his employees “tribe members”. One day a co-founder of the company entered one of the new "representatives of the tribe" and threw two black garbage bags at his feet.
Better to ask a stupid question than do a stupid act
The CEO looked at his employee in surprise and then at the trash bags: “Damn it, what does it all mean?” “This is additional material for the seminar,” the employee replied. “You asked me to bring him.” “In trash bags?” What are you doing with me? ”The company president continued to be perplexed. He did not understand how garbage bags could be used as handouts at the seminar. The new employee did not know what to answer to his boss, and said nothing.
Later, McCormick asked him: “Why didn’t you tell anyone why garbage bags might be needed?” To which the new “tribal member” looked down and answered: “I did not want to ask stupid questions.”
The president of Scribe Media explained to him that there are no stupid questions, but there are stupid actions. “Next time, it’s better to ask me a stupid question, and keep garbage bags somewhere behind me,” McCormick advised his employee.
The meaning of stupid questions
Each question has some meaning, even the so-called stupid question. At Scribe Media, management encourages its employees to ask if something is not clear to them. It believes that this is the best way to ensure a workflow in which each “member of the tribe” correctly understands what and why he is doing.
McCormick says that he has repeatedly heard from some of his leaders regarding this issue: “What if someone asks the same question several times?”
To which the director of Scribe Media replies: “This question is still good, because a person is learning something in the process. It is possible that I am not explaining well enough or the employee himself is not making enough effort to independently receive an answer to his question. Any of these problems needs to be addressed. ”
Why do people ask obvious questions?
If something is simple and clear for you, this does not mean that it should be equally accessible to other people. Many executives very often forget about it and dismiss questions as stupid because the answers to them are obvious, in their opinion.
Each of us has repeatedly been in this situation: you are attending a lecture, conference or business meeting; you have a question, but you are afraid to ask it so as not to look stupid.
But suddenly someone raises his hand and asks the speaker exactly the question that you also wanted to ask. As a result, you breathe a sigh of relief. But if he didn’t? Information would be misunderstood by each participant in a business meeting.
Scribe Media has the following rule regarding the question of asking questions: every time you have a question and are afraid to ask it, imagine a situation that there are several more people in the room next to you who have the same question. Just ask a question.
Training on issues
Many corporations lack the practice of encouraging employees to not be afraid to ask questions. Moreover, people fear that they will be fired for asking too many questions. Scribe Media is the exact opposite of such organizations. It can be fired for the fact that not enough questions were asked to qualitatively fulfill the task.
Why did the company management take such a position? Because it pays a lot of attention to the learning process. And in order to learn something, you need to ask questions. The most useful knowledge often comes after stupid questions have been asked. Members of the tribe receive answers that enable them to better perform their duties. On the other hand, the company's management gets an idea of the problems that it did not even represent.
A simple example to illustrate the problem.
Scribe is a publishing company; the office is full of books. One company official once asked the director a question: “Where are our new books going?” He replied: “To the shelves in our large conference room.”
After 2 weeks, the same question came from the same employee. The director had to repeat his answer.
After another 2 weeks, this employee again has this question. Then it is McCormick's turn to ask questions. He says: “You ask me the same question 3 times. I have an understanding that this is consistent with the principles of our company. But maybe I’m just not explaining it clearly to you. What is happening? ”To which the answer follows:“ There is not enough space in the large conference room to accommodate all the new books that we publish. ”
As a result of this question, the director found out that there was a problem that he did not even suspect. This is the value of corporate culture, allowing everyone to ask any questions.