How to get to an answer

Dear Bob …

When I read this question in the Advice Line, I thought the submitter didn’t give enough information for you to give a meaningful reply…

https://weblog.infoworld.com/lewis/archives/2005/07/how_to_handle_a_1.html

I was thinking “How can Bob answer this without knowing the answer to these questions?”

– What exactly is the guy doing? Is anything about the hobby inappropriate for the workplace?

– How much time is the guy actually spending doing something other than work while on the clock?

– Is anybody outside the department complaining, especially above the submitter in the chain of command?

– Does the boss get along with the employee aside from this issue, or is this a manifestation of issues between the two and the submitter feels a little more comfortable bringing up this issue rather than passive aggressive insubordination?

– Is the buyer ever a hard salesman that makes others feel like he is creating a hostile work environment?

I realized you cut through all that in your reply. You read the same question I did, but you knew the answers to my questions. You knew that the guy wasn’t selling anything inappropriate, because the submitter wouldn’t have a dilemma in that case and could ask the behavior to stop on that grounds. You knew the amount of time was not the issue because you pointed out that the employee is delivering on expectations. You knew that complaints from other employees was not an issue, because you point out he isn’t distracting other employees. Most important, you know what the underlying issue was for the submitter and you could talk to that. I had no idea that the submitter lamenting “what ever happened to company loyalty?” gave all the needed insight into their underlying issue.

In short, you made some very good assumptions, spelled them out and gave your advice. Your insight gave you the ability to cut to the chase. Do you think that’s a skill you were born with, something that comes with age, or something you can purposely develop? What can I do to sharpen this skill?

I had to learn to be the type of person who asks all the questions I listed above. Before I learned that, I would go full speed into solving a problem and find out later that I did not understand what people wanted. Now I see people who ask those type of questions using deliberation as an excuse to avoid work. Somebody will come up with a list of questions and call a meeting to discuss them. The answers always lead to another group of questions that we have to discuss in another meeting a week later. I can’t help but think that my productivity would soar if I could ask the right questions myself, but then deduce the answers with minimal additional input.

– Questioning the questions

Dear Questioning …

Well, with compliments like yours I have to answer, don’t I?

Like so many answers to so many questions, this is situational. There are times it makes sense to ask all of the questions, to uncover hidden time bombs. The term “due diligence” is generally applied to these. When your goal is to avoid unpleasant surprises, it’s just the ticket. And most of us who grew up in IT learned to do exactly this, because when you’re being asked to estimate how long it will take to build a system, you need to know a lot of specifics. Everything looks easy when all you’re looking at is the main thread, after all. It’s the exceptions that drive cost, effort, and risk.

There’s a different class of decision, for which most of the information available is noise. Some of the better story problems from the math classes of our youth fall into this category. For example: “Someone gives you three apples. One has a circumference of 8 inches, the second has a radius of 2.5 inches and the third has a volume of 32 cubic inches. You’re instructed to juggle the three apples, tossing them at a high enough velocity to overcome the rate of gravitational acceleration of 30 feet per second per second. After juggling for exactly 90 seconds you eat one of the apples. How many are left?”

Recognizing when due diligence is required and when it’s more appropriate to get to the most likely answer is important. I’ve known a lot of people who fit the description you gave. I’m not sure whether they’re trying to avoid work or trying to avoid the risk of making a decision – I suspect the latter – but regardless, they cause needless delays. After all, the number of questions you can ask about any subject is nearly infinite.

The number that matter, on the other hand, are finite. Everything else is noise.

Is the ability to ignore the noise learnable? I’m not certain. What I do is to start with the question being asked and apply the Louis Sullivan formula to it: Form follows function. Which is to say, I sort through the facts being offered and ask myself if the fact has any relevance to the question. If it doesn’t, I ignore it (and for Advice Line I try to remember to say so). If it is, I include it, and if it’s at all ambiguous I resolve the ambiguity in the way that seems most likely, and make the resolution clear through restatement.

In this particular case it was straightforward. The question was whether this, that, and the other thing matter when evaluating the performance of an employee who’s doing his job well and isn’t hampering the ability of other employees to do theirs. Whether this, that and the other thing are low-key selling of products from a hobby business, selling Girl Scout Cookies for a daughter, reading the Wall Street Journal while on break (or, better, Keep the Joint Running) or going outside to take a short walk during the lunch hour, it all comes to the same issue: Are you managing performance or acting as the behavior police?

Not a great answer, but I don’t think I can reduce the process to an algorithm, beyond classifying facts as “matters,” “doesn’t matter,” and “depends on interpretation.”

– Bob