“How am I supposed to do THAT?”

June 17th, 2008

What if we took our rhetorical questions and turned them into genuine questions?

My own experience tells me that, much of the time, we ask these questions to put an end to considering alternatives:

  • How am I supposed to do that?
  • How’s THAT supposed to work?
  • Wouldn’t that be great?
  • What made you do that? (What were you thinking?)
  • What makes you think that?
  • . . .

The problem isn’t that we ask these questions, but that we ask them in a way that forestalls debate, discussion, or contemplation. Consider: if you say, “What makes you think that?” is a rhetorical tone of voice, you’re really saying “You shouldn’t think that.” But if you ask it — really ask it — with an open mind, you might open a window into the thought process of a vendor, customer, or colleague. And from where I sit, we need every one of those windows that we can get.

What are your favorite / most dreaded rhetorical questions? Please lob in your own suggestions in the comments.

Category: The language of business

4 Comments so far

Aneesh Rahavan June 18th, 2008 7:25 am

That is a great suggestion. But at times it is difficult to transform a rhetorical question to a rational one.

Tim Walker June 18th, 2008 8:33 am

Aneesh - I completely agree that it’s difficult. To me, this is one of those things that SOUNDS simple . . . until you actually try to DO it. In my experience, though, those sorts of challenges are often some of the most worthwhile to undertake, because they lead us to ask fundamental, nuts-and-bolts questions about how we work, and how we THINK about how we work.

Cheri Le Clear June 18th, 2008 2:51 pm

I love this one. “We shouldn’t have to do that”. If you have a simple solution that reduces the pain of a person or group of people, increases productivity at the same time is fun for all, why not do it? On a personal note;I’ll never forget the time I ruined my new $4,000 Apple Monitor with a can of computer cleaner. It caused a terrible brown stain right down the middle of the screen. I was sick. At that time the monitors were on back order and I called several people at Apple and they all said there was nothing they could do. Luckily for me, a product engineer saw the report, called me, and said if I would send the ruined monitor in, he would send me a new one. I nearly cried when it arrived. One person did what he “shouldn’t have to do” and I was saved from having to look at my stained monitor for the next 5 years.

Tim Walker June 21st, 2008 3:44 pm

Good story, Cheri!

In general, I try to watch out for “should” language, as in “We shouldn’t have to do that.” Because often the proper rebuttal is, “Okay, maybe so, in a perfect world — but that’s not the world we live in.”

Given the world we DO live in — what’s needed? This is so much better, because it’s more effective, than our typical rhetoric.

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