Dear Bob ... Your column, "Building a culture of honest inquiry" was right on target. This type of thinking is what some of us try to practice, but often times getting the correct answer is squashed by getting the answer the boss wants. "Don't confuse me with the facts" is what the CEO really means when he says "My experience and instincts tell me ..." - Inquisitive (honest!) Dear Inquisitive ... There's no simp Dear Bob …Your column, “Building a culture of honest inquiry” was right on target. This type of thinking is what some of us try to practice, but often times getting the correct answer is squashed by getting the answer the boss wants. “Don’t confuse me with the facts” is what the CEO really means when he says “My experience and instincts tell me …”– Inquisitive (honest!) Dear Inquisitive …There’s no simple solution to a CEO who is interested only in reaching a pre-defined answer. And to be fair, when a successful executive’s experience and instincts run counter to the evidence, it does make sense to try understand what’s causing the disconnect. After all, evidence can be faulty, and as any project manager knows, unexpected problems are expected no matter how good the plan.Occasionally, this tactic can work: Say something like, “That’s interesting. I certainly don’t want to ignore either your instincts or your experience. You’ve been pretty successful, after all. But we were pretty careful in our analysis. Can we spend some time going over our analysis to see exactly where we’re out of sync?” If you can engage the CEO in the details, even if his/her initial reason for doing so is to show you the error of your ways, sometimes a lightbulb will go on (sometimes for the CEO; sometimes it will turn out the CEO was right, too). Sometimes isn’t usually, but it is usually worth a shot.– Bob Technology Industry