The Right Question
Allegedly, Albert Einstein once said: “If I had an hour to solve a problem, I’d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and five minutes thinking about the solution.”
If you truly understand the problem, the solution will present itself.
I was in a board meeting when a CEO stopped everything and said: “We don’t have enough information to ask the right questions.”
The room went quiet. Because he was right.
The danger of jumping too quickly to solutions is that you end up solving the wrong problem. Even being slightly off can send you down a path that becomes difficult - and expensive - to unwind.
Think about the meeting at Blockbuster where the team was laser-focused on solving late fees. Meanwhile, Netflix was solving a completely different problem: customers didn’t want to visit a video store at all.
Same industry. Completely different question. You know how that ended…
Most businesses fall into one of four camps:
Some manage the status quo until they’re irrelevant.
Some overanalyze until the window closes.
Some throw money at everything and hope something sticks.
The best ones listen hard, make small calculated bets, learn from every loss, and keep moving.
So before you try to build a better __________ - first ask: do people even want a __________ anymore?
The right question is invaluable.
Poll Results: The results are in from last week’s survey:
80% of voters said they are “staying the course” with their messaging.
Shoutout to Rocky Lalvani for inviting me to be a guest on his podcast - The Profit Answer Man - Listen here.
Movie of the week…
Song of the week…
Tim Martinez — “The Inside Man”
If you’re not sure you’re solving the right problem - that’s usually where I come in. Let’s find out.
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PS — from time to time a few typos or a broken link may occur, just visit my Substack page for the most up to date version.