April 6, 2025 • 20 mins
How do you act effectively in times of uncertainty? One way is by asking yourself better questions. In this conversation, Harry shares a framework to do just that.
Show notes:
- Masters of Uncertainty by Rich Diviney
- 8 1/2
- Cascading Choices Framework by Roger Martin
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Harry (00:00):
I want to make sure that people recognize this is a way
(00:03):
of thinking and prioritizingquestions as the category of
information, and then drivingyou through a process of getting
to an increasing amount ofclarity that leads you to a more
obvious place.
Narrator (00:20):
You're listening to Traction Heroes.
Digging In to Get Results withHarry Max and Jorge Arango.
Jorge (00:30):
Hey Harry, it's good to see you.
Harry (00:32):
Oh, it's fantastic to see you again, Jorge.
Appreciate you making timetoday.
Jorge (00:37):
I'm always excited when, when we get to talk.
I always learn something when wetalk and I'm really excited to
be able to share it with folks.
Harry (00:47):
I've been really surprised at how much these
conversations have beenaffecting me in a positive way.
I think I mentioned that insomething I posted on LinkedIn
earlier, but I'm leaving feelinga little enlivened from each
conversation, I'm leavingfeeling a bit smarter and I'm
leaving feeling a little bitmore hopeful, even when the
(01:08):
topics are challenging.
And I think that's an unexpectedoutcome of these conversations
with you.
Jorge (01:18):
I'll say the same here.
And I'm expecting that you'vebrought something to discuss and
I'm excited to know what thatwould be.
Harry (01:26):
Oh, I'm so excited about it too.
Yeah, I just posted somethingsaying I'm gonna predict that
this reading is gonna come froma book that's gonna turn out to
be my 2025 book of the year.
So in December, we'll see ifthat's true.
But here it goes.
(01:48):
"To remain grounded in this fearof what you know and control,
cultivate a habit of askingyourself better questions.
The brain operates with aquestion-answer mechanism.
It continuously assesses thesurroundings with questions and
then conjures answers.
This typically happenssubliminally and instantly
(02:11):
faster than you can notice.
You can, however, participateconsciously in this process and
influence your thoughts andfeelings by introducing your own
questions.
"When you introduce a questioninto conscious thought, the mind
is compelled to come up with ananswer.
The problem is that it's all toocommon to default to reactive,
(02:34):
negative, and sometimesemotion-laden questions such as,
'Why am I so bad at this?' Or'Why can't I succeed?' Your
brain will immediately begin togive you answers to these, yet
the answers will not lead toenlightenment.
Rather, they will spiral youinto further negativity and
(02:55):
anxiety.
"Masters of uncertainty steertheir thoughts with better, more
effective questions (03:00):
questions that center on what they can
ascertain and influence.
Well aware that knowledge morphsinto power, they prime their
minds with inquiries like,'Whatdo I know?
What can I control?' The braincan't help but answer these
questions in ways that you putat the helm.
(03:22):
These are inquiries that empowerand hone your focus on
traversing uncertainty, notsuccumbing to it."
Jorge (03:30):
There's a lot coursing through my mind.
One of my favorite movies is 81/2 by Federico Fellini.
And one of the characters inthat movie is the critic.
And the critic is constantlysitting next to the director,
basically doing this runningcommentary on what's going on.
(03:52):
And the sense I get is that thisreading has to do with this
inner critic that we have in us,at least partly.
What is it from?
Harry (04:03):
So this book just came out and, it's called Masters of
Uncertainty.
It was written by Rich Diviney,and the subtitle is The Navy
Seal Way to Turn Stress IntoSuccess for You and your Team.
And there are lots of books thatI read'em and I think,"Oh, I'm
(04:25):
gonna go back and reread thatone." And then, there are books
where I say,"I gotta get theKindle version so I can search
it." and then there are bookswhere I think,"Oh, I gotta get
the hard copy so I can mark itup." So I already started
rereading this one.
I already ordered the Kindleversion and I already ordered
the hard copy, because this is afantastic book that really
(04:48):
underscores the idea that youhave to start with self.
And it gives such clearinstruction for where to start
with self in terms of improvingyour ability to deal with
unprecedented times and thechallenges that we're facing in
our personal lives with thefolks that we're working
intimately with, and in theorganizations where we're
(05:10):
navigating toward whateverbusiness, or civic, or other
outcomes we're aiming for.
So I was blown out of the waterhere, with this particular one.
And I just loved the idea thatyou can train yourself to ask
better questions simply becauseit forces you to start answering
(05:34):
things about the environmentthat you're in to help you
navigate the situation you findyourself in.
Jorge (05:40):
When you read that part about the questions, where my
mind went was our conversationabout mental models.
And the questions felt like aprobing mechanism to build a
mental model.
And I think we talked aboutdungeon crawler games in a
(06:02):
previous episode, this notionthat you start without knowing
the map, and as you transversethe terrain, you build out the
map, right?
And the questions might be themechanism...
that it's like a flashlight,right?
that lets you see the walls ofthe dungeon somehow.
Harry (06:19):
Totally.
I don't remember if we talkedabout this in a previous
conversation or not, but did weever talk about my open
questions framework?
Jorge (06:28):
I don't think we have.
Harry (06:29):
Okay, so when I read this the first time, I was like, oh
man, this is gonna be greatbecause we'll be able to leave
people with a very simple toolthat I've been using for many,
years, and I've had a lot offeedback from folks that have
worked with folks that who'veworked for me, clients, and so
on and so forth, that have toldme, among the, hundreds of tools
(06:53):
that I bring to bear, peopleoften come back to me about this
one.
They're like,"Whoa, how did thatwork again?
Can I use that?
That's really helpful." And it'sa really simple four-column
framework.
And the idea is that in almostany circumstance, there's a
(07:14):
controlling question.
The challenge is sometimesidentifying it and then figuring
out what to do with it.
And so, the idea is, in acolumn, in a spreadsheet, or
however you want to do it, youwrite down what your questions
are.
And you then just do a simplestack rank of those questions.
(07:38):
And if you get stuck, you can dopairwise comparison.
You can use a simpleprioritization technique to
force yourself to get clearabout which question is the most
important.
And that's helpful.
But what's really helpful ishaving them in a structure that
I'm about to share with you.
(07:59):
So let's just say you've managedto prioritize the questions.
Let's say you've got fivequestions and you've got those
in your first column.
The second column is, what doyou think the answer is for each
question.
And that way you know, if it'spurely,"I have no clue." Okay,
(08:19):
fine.
"Really, you have no clue?
You have no information, youhave no thoughts, you have no
hypothesis, you have nothing?"okay, that's possible, but in
all probability, you've got somesemblance of an idea that
addresses the question.
It might be completely a hundredpercent wrong, but you still
have a sense of it.
(08:40):
The next column is, where am Ilikely to find the answer?
And I typically like to point toa who.
Like, who has to answer?
But it could also be aninformation source, right?
And the next column is, what isthe next step to find the actual
(09:05):
answer?
And it's not always asstraightforward as it seems
because let's say thatinformation source is buried
somewhere and you have no ideahow to get to it.
Maybe it's gonna take you threelevels of indirection to go find
it or get to it or whatnot.
And so, the next action is gonnanudge you down the path of
getting you closer to the revealof what the actual answer is.
(09:30):
And then the last column and I'mgonna wreck my own framework
here,'cause I'm gonna add acolumn the last column, is
what's the actual answer?
What did the actual answer turnout to be?
And I know for myself, I oftenthen sketch out, what are the
(09:51):
implications of that?
So a fifth column, because oftenthe getting to the actual answer
from the question that I hadleads to a set of thinking or
leads to, or points to adecision or decisions that need
to be made or it suggests thingsthat...
(10:12):
Sometimes it's helpful to spellthose out explicitly.
And I call this the OpenQuestions framework because you
could just call it the questionsframework, but I wanna leave it
open, right?
I want to make sure that peoplerecognize this is a way of
thinking and prioritizingquestions as the category of
information, and then drivingyou through a process of getting
(10:34):
to an increasing amount ofclarity that leads you to a more
obvious place.
And that's what I thought ofwhen I read this, because I do
that pretty naturally.
I don't think I do it with thelevel of precision that the
author, Diviney, is asking us todo in situations of uncertainty.
(11:00):
I definitely wanna press onthat.
I felt like,"Wow, this isbasically validating why this
approach that I've been using,and somebody must have taught it
to me.
I don't think I made it up.
I don't know where it came from,but I've been using it for years
to very positive effect.
Jorge (11:18):
I remember you and I talking a long time ago, and you
talking about questions.
So it's certainly a topic that'sbeen top of mind for you for a
long time.
I was hoping that you wouldclarify...
I think I'm pretty clear oncolumns two through five.
I'm not as clear on the veryfirst column.
So, you said,"Write down thequestions and stack rank them."
(11:40):
But you also said that there issomething you call the
controlling question.
Harry (11:44):
Ah, yeah.
Jorge (11:45):
The way that played to me is like somehow there's what
these questions are in serviceto, or like the ur-question.
Can you clarify the differencebetween the controlling question
and this first column?
Harry (12:00):
Sure.
I think what you've done isyou've put your finger on
something implicit in thestructure, which is, to me, the
first question's the only onethat matters.
It's the controlling question.
That may or may not turn out tofundamentally be true, but
that's how I think about it,which is, if you understand what
(12:22):
the single most importantquestion is, that's your
controlling question.
And almost invariably you'llfind that the questions
underneath it are not the onesthat matter the most, somewhat
by definition, but also thatthey tend to be subservient to
the answer that comes out.
Jorge (12:43):
I know that I mentioned this in a previous conversation,
but the model that comes to mymind in hearing you talk about
this is Roger Martin's CascadingChoices framework, right?
Where there is a set ofquestions that the business must
ask itself.
And they are prioritized.
Like, the very first questionis, what is our winning
(13:04):
aspiration?
And the other ones things like,where will we play?
How will we win?
What capabilities must we have?
They're all in service to thatone.
And they relate to each other,because if you determine that
you will address a particularmarket, that might influence
your winning aspiration.
But you do have to address thekind of higher order questions
(13:27):
first, before you start gettinginto details.
Harry (13:31):
Yeah.
You know, one of the tricks thatI use in dealing with this
framework is, if I'm not surewhich one is the controlling
question, maybe I have two thatare competing, I'll often just
flip them and ask myself,"Ifthis were the controlling
(13:52):
question, why would that betrue?" And usually what happens
when I do that is I'm able toaddress that, the friction in
that, and help me then stackrank most effectively.
Jorge (14:14):
How does this play in a team environment?
Harry (14:18):
Actually, that's where it's most valuable.
It plays in a team environment,I think, to some extent, even
better than it works for anindividual.
I've certainly used thistechnique for myself by myself.
But where I have found thismethod to be so powerful is in
getting a group of people towork together to rank a set of
(14:42):
questions and ultimately toidentify what amounts to the
question that is above andbeyond all the other questions
because the rest of theframework, if you will, is
fairly mechanical, right?
It's not that hard to workthrough columns two through
five.
What is hard is identifying thequestions, clarifying them, and
(15:04):
then getting them ranked in anorder.
And doing that in a teamsetting, getting the
collaboration to happen so thatpeople are on the same page
about what those questions areand what order those questions
are in is much of the value ofhaving this as a tool that makes
explicit this implicit model.
Jorge (15:25):
It's okay if you don't have any, but do you have an
example of a controllingquestion?
Because now I'm like,"I wonderif I have any of these myself?"
Harry (15:34):
Here's a personal one, here's a personal example, or
one from personal lives.
Like, wanna buy a new house,right?
I mean, this is a thing thathappened before.
And there are lots of questionsabout buying: how many rooms do
you want?
What kind of layout do you want?
How much is it gonna cost?
There are a lot of questions youcan ask, but the controlling
(15:56):
question is, where do you wannalive?
Because everything falls outtathat: all the constraints and
everything else, and the entireprocess of figuring out where
you're gonna live is a result ofthe location that you actually
(16:17):
would wanna live.
And often there's a lot ofimplicit information that's
embedded in that question.
So, for example, when, lookingfor my most recent house, where
did I wanna live was definitelynot on the list.
There were a set of criteria.
I was looking for a place thatwas single story because I've
got a bad knee.
I was for a place where I couldget to all sorts of services.
(16:41):
Had I thought about just lookingfor small towns, I wanna live in
a small town that's encapsulatedby services, I probably could
have saved myself a year ofsearching for the house.
Because by focusing on the houseand focusing on the
characteristics and attributesof the house, I did not realize
(17:04):
that what I was looking for wasan ecosystem around the house,
and the house was reallysecondary to the ecosystem.
Jorge (17:13):
Wow, that's really powerful.
What comes to mind in hearingyou say that is that we tend to
spend so much more time on theanswers, when spending a bit
more time thinking about thequestions might save us a lot of
grief.
Harry (17:30):
Absolutely.
Yeah.
And certainly save us a lot oftime.
And I think that's kinda whatDiviney is getting to, is that
if we can come up with betterquestions...
he says,"to remain grounded inthe sphere of what you know and
control, cultivate a habit ofasking yourself better
questions." It's not acomplicated directive, right?
(17:51):
But getting good at, it's gonnatake time and energy and
practice.
Jorge (17:56):
Have you found any practices that let you ask
better questions?
Harry (18:01):
I think that the one that I use a lot, I'm not gonna
recommend it necessarily, is"What am I assuming is true?" Or
a flip version of that is,"Whatwould have to be true in order
to...
fill in the blank?"
Jorge (18:17):
So, for example, in the one you just brought up about
where do you wanna live, itsounded like you had assumed
that you would be living in thesame town somehow, right?
Harry (18:28):
That was clearly one assumption.
Another assumption was that Icould find a house that fit
every other criterion I had inany town.
And that simply wasn't true.
Jorge (18:39):
That makes sense.
Okay, so questioningassumptions.
Harry (18:42):
Yeah.
So quick test of assumptions, anassumption.
Being an uncritically heldbelief, means that it isn't too
hard to pressure test what theassumptions are, and so,
identifying assumptions is oftena good place to start to ask
better questions.
And then, another way into thatis to ask myself,"Well, what
(19:04):
would have to be true in orderfor whatever it is I'm looking
for?" What would have to be truein the example that we just had.
What would have to be true inorder for me to really want this
house if I found it?
Let's say I found everythingabout this house was perfect,
what would have to be true?
"Oh, I have to be able to walkto a hardware store, a bank, a
(19:26):
post office, a market, a bar."But I didn't even think about
those things.
Maybe I'm asking myself thewrong question.
Maybe I should be thinking aboutwhat towns and what would the
proximity to that town need tobe in order for me to find a
house that would satisfy me?
It changes the equation.
Jorge (19:49):
well, that seems really useful.
I have an idea in mind right nowof a situation in which I need
to apply this, so it feels likea very practical outcome of this
conversation.
Harry (20:00):
I, personally rely on this a lot.
And I really deeply appreciatedthe words that Diviney gave to
this in Masters of Uncertainty,because he makes it very clear
that this is a...
it's a skill and a habit worthcultivating, because it'll get
you closer to where you wannabe, quicker.
Jorge (20:21):
Once again, I feel like I've learned a lot in one of our
conversations, Harry.
Thank you.
Harry (20:28):
Absolutely.
Thanks so much for theconversation, Jorge.
Narrator (20:35):
Thank you for listening to Traction Heroes
with Harry Max and Jorge Arango.
Check out the shownotes@tractionheroes.com and if
you enjoyed the show, pleaseleave us a rating in Apple's
podcasts app.
Thanks.
I want to make sure that people recognize this is a way
(00:03):
of thinking and prioritizingquestions as the category of
information, and then drivingyou through a process of getting
to an increasing amount ofclarity that leads you to a more
obvious place.
Narrator (00:20):
You're listening to Traction Heroes.
Digging In to Get Results withHarry Max and Jorge Arango.
Jorge (00:30):
Hey Harry, it's good to see you.
Harry (00:32):
Oh, it's fantastic to see you again, Jorge.
Appreciate you making timetoday.
Jorge (00:37):
I'm always excited when, when we get to talk.
I always learn something when wetalk and I'm really excited to
be able to share it with folks.
Harry (00:47):
I've been really surprised at how much these
conversations have beenaffecting me in a positive way.
I think I mentioned that insomething I posted on LinkedIn
earlier, but I'm leaving feelinga little enlivened from each
conversation, I'm leavingfeeling a bit smarter and I'm
leaving feeling a little bitmore hopeful, even when the
(01:08):
topics are challenging.
And I think that's an unexpectedoutcome of these conversations
with you.
Jorge (01:18):
I'll say the same here.
And I'm expecting that you'vebrought something to discuss and
I'm excited to know what thatwould be.
Harry (01:26):
Oh, I'm so excited about it too.
Yeah, I just posted somethingsaying I'm gonna predict that
this reading is gonna come froma book that's gonna turn out to
be my 2025 book of the year.
So in December, we'll see ifthat's true.
But here it goes.
(01:48):
"To remain grounded in this fearof what you know and control,
cultivate a habit of askingyourself better questions.
The brain operates with aquestion-answer mechanism.
It continuously assesses thesurroundings with questions and
then conjures answers.
This typically happenssubliminally and instantly
(02:11):
faster than you can notice.
You can, however, participateconsciously in this process and
influence your thoughts andfeelings by introducing your own
questions.
"When you introduce a questioninto conscious thought, the mind
is compelled to come up with ananswer.
The problem is that it's all toocommon to default to reactive,
(02:34):
negative, and sometimesemotion-laden questions such as,
'Why am I so bad at this?' Or'Why can't I succeed?' Your
brain will immediately begin togive you answers to these, yet
the answers will not lead toenlightenment.
Rather, they will spiral youinto further negativity and
(02:55):
anxiety.
"Masters of uncertainty steertheir thoughts with better, more
effective questions (03:00):
questions that center on what they can
ascertain and influence.
Well aware that knowledge morphsinto power, they prime their
minds with inquiries like,'Whatdo I know?
What can I control?' The braincan't help but answer these
questions in ways that you putat the helm.
(03:22):
These are inquiries that empowerand hone your focus on
traversing uncertainty, notsuccumbing to it."
Jorge (03:30):
There's a lot coursing through my mind.
One of my favorite movies is 81/2 by Federico Fellini.
And one of the characters inthat movie is the critic.
And the critic is constantlysitting next to the director,
basically doing this runningcommentary on what's going on.
(03:52):
And the sense I get is that thisreading has to do with this
inner critic that we have in us,at least partly.
What is it from?
Harry (04:03):
So this book just came out and, it's called Masters of
Uncertainty.
It was written by Rich Diviney,and the subtitle is The Navy
Seal Way to Turn Stress IntoSuccess for You and your Team.
And there are lots of books thatI read'em and I think,"Oh, I'm
(04:25):
gonna go back and reread thatone." And then, there are books
where I say,"I gotta get theKindle version so I can search
it." and then there are bookswhere I think,"Oh, I gotta get
the hard copy so I can mark itup." So I already started
rereading this one.
I already ordered the Kindleversion and I already ordered
the hard copy, because this is afantastic book that really
(04:48):
underscores the idea that youhave to start with self.
And it gives such clearinstruction for where to start
with self in terms of improvingyour ability to deal with
unprecedented times and thechallenges that we're facing in
our personal lives with thefolks that we're working
intimately with, and in theorganizations where we're
(05:10):
navigating toward whateverbusiness, or civic, or other
outcomes we're aiming for.
So I was blown out of the waterhere, with this particular one.
And I just loved the idea thatyou can train yourself to ask
better questions simply becauseit forces you to start answering
(05:34):
things about the environmentthat you're in to help you
navigate the situation you findyourself in.
Jorge (05:40):
When you read that part about the questions, where my
mind went was our conversationabout mental models.
And the questions felt like aprobing mechanism to build a
mental model.
And I think we talked aboutdungeon crawler games in a
(06:02):
previous episode, this notionthat you start without knowing
the map, and as you transversethe terrain, you build out the
map, right?
And the questions might be themechanism...
that it's like a flashlight,right?
that lets you see the walls ofthe dungeon somehow.
Harry (06:19):
Totally.
I don't remember if we talkedabout this in a previous
conversation or not, but did weever talk about my open
questions framework?
Jorge (06:28):
I don't think we have.
Harry (06:29):
Okay, so when I read this the first time, I was like, oh
man, this is gonna be greatbecause we'll be able to leave
people with a very simple toolthat I've been using for many,
years, and I've had a lot offeedback from folks that have
worked with folks that who'veworked for me, clients, and so
on and so forth, that have toldme, among the, hundreds of tools
(06:53):
that I bring to bear, peopleoften come back to me about this
one.
They're like,"Whoa, how did thatwork again?
Can I use that?
That's really helpful." And it'sa really simple four-column
framework.
And the idea is that in almostany circumstance, there's a
(07:14):
controlling question.
The challenge is sometimesidentifying it and then figuring
out what to do with it.
And so, the idea is, in acolumn, in a spreadsheet, or
however you want to do it, youwrite down what your questions
are.
And you then just do a simplestack rank of those questions.
(07:38):
And if you get stuck, you can dopairwise comparison.
You can use a simpleprioritization technique to
force yourself to get clearabout which question is the most
important.
And that's helpful.
But what's really helpful ishaving them in a structure that
I'm about to share with you.
(07:59):
So let's just say you've managedto prioritize the questions.
Let's say you've got fivequestions and you've got those
in your first column.
The second column is, what doyou think the answer is for each
question.
And that way you know, if it'spurely,"I have no clue." Okay,
(08:19):
fine.
"Really, you have no clue?
You have no information, youhave no thoughts, you have no
hypothesis, you have nothing?"okay, that's possible, but in
all probability, you've got somesemblance of an idea that
addresses the question.
It might be completely a hundredpercent wrong, but you still
have a sense of it.
(08:40):
The next column is, where am Ilikely to find the answer?
And I typically like to point toa who.
Like, who has to answer?
But it could also be aninformation source, right?
And the next column is, what isthe next step to find the actual
(09:05):
answer?
And it's not always asstraightforward as it seems
because let's say thatinformation source is buried
somewhere and you have no ideahow to get to it.
Maybe it's gonna take you threelevels of indirection to go find
it or get to it or whatnot.
And so, the next action is gonnanudge you down the path of
getting you closer to the revealof what the actual answer is.
(09:30):
And then the last column and I'mgonna wreck my own framework
here,'cause I'm gonna add acolumn the last column, is
what's the actual answer?
What did the actual answer turnout to be?
And I know for myself, I oftenthen sketch out, what are the
(09:51):
implications of that?
So a fifth column, because oftenthe getting to the actual answer
from the question that I hadleads to a set of thinking or
leads to, or points to adecision or decisions that need
to be made or it suggests thingsthat...
(10:12):
Sometimes it's helpful to spellthose out explicitly.
And I call this the OpenQuestions framework because you
could just call it the questionsframework, but I wanna leave it
open, right?
I want to make sure that peoplerecognize this is a way of
thinking and prioritizingquestions as the category of
information, and then drivingyou through a process of getting
(10:34):
to an increasing amount ofclarity that leads you to a more
obvious place.
And that's what I thought ofwhen I read this, because I do
that pretty naturally.
I don't think I do it with thelevel of precision that the
author, Diviney, is asking us todo in situations of uncertainty.
(11:00):
I definitely wanna press onthat.
I felt like,"Wow, this isbasically validating why this
approach that I've been using,and somebody must have taught it
to me.
I don't think I made it up.
I don't know where it came from,but I've been using it for years
to very positive effect.
Jorge (11:18):
I remember you and I talking a long time ago, and you
talking about questions.
So it's certainly a topic that'sbeen top of mind for you for a
long time.
I was hoping that you wouldclarify...
I think I'm pretty clear oncolumns two through five.
I'm not as clear on the veryfirst column.
So, you said,"Write down thequestions and stack rank them."
(11:40):
But you also said that there issomething you call the
controlling question.
Harry (11:44):
Ah, yeah.
Jorge (11:45):
The way that played to me is like somehow there's what
these questions are in serviceto, or like the ur-question.
Can you clarify the differencebetween the controlling question
and this first column?
Harry (12:00):
Sure.
I think what you've done isyou've put your finger on
something implicit in thestructure, which is, to me, the
first question's the only onethat matters.
It's the controlling question.
That may or may not turn out tofundamentally be true, but
that's how I think about it,which is, if you understand what
(12:22):
the single most importantquestion is, that's your
controlling question.
And almost invariably you'llfind that the questions
underneath it are not the onesthat matter the most, somewhat
by definition, but also thatthey tend to be subservient to
the answer that comes out.
Jorge (12:43):
I know that I mentioned this in a previous conversation,
but the model that comes to mymind in hearing you talk about
this is Roger Martin's CascadingChoices framework, right?
Where there is a set ofquestions that the business must
ask itself.
And they are prioritized.
Like, the very first questionis, what is our winning
(13:04):
aspiration?
And the other ones things like,where will we play?
How will we win?
What capabilities must we have?
They're all in service to thatone.
And they relate to each other,because if you determine that
you will address a particularmarket, that might influence
your winning aspiration.
But you do have to address thekind of higher order questions
(13:27):
first, before you start gettinginto details.
Harry (13:31):
Yeah.
You know, one of the tricks thatI use in dealing with this
framework is, if I'm not surewhich one is the controlling
question, maybe I have two thatare competing, I'll often just
flip them and ask myself,"Ifthis were the controlling
(13:52):
question, why would that betrue?" And usually what happens
when I do that is I'm able toaddress that, the friction in
that, and help me then stackrank most effectively.
Jorge (14:14):
How does this play in a team environment?
Harry (14:18):
Actually, that's where it's most valuable.
It plays in a team environment,I think, to some extent, even
better than it works for anindividual.
I've certainly used thistechnique for myself by myself.
But where I have found thismethod to be so powerful is in
getting a group of people towork together to rank a set of
(14:42):
questions and ultimately toidentify what amounts to the
question that is above andbeyond all the other questions
because the rest of theframework, if you will, is
fairly mechanical, right?
It's not that hard to workthrough columns two through
five.
What is hard is identifying thequestions, clarifying them, and
(15:04):
then getting them ranked in anorder.
And doing that in a teamsetting, getting the
collaboration to happen so thatpeople are on the same page
about what those questions areand what order those questions
are in is much of the value ofhaving this as a tool that makes
explicit this implicit model.
Jorge (15:25):
It's okay if you don't have any, but do you have an
example of a controllingquestion?
Because now I'm like,"I wonderif I have any of these myself?"
Harry (15:34):
Here's a personal one, here's a personal example, or
one from personal lives.
Like, wanna buy a new house,right?
I mean, this is a thing thathappened before.
And there are lots of questionsabout buying: how many rooms do
you want?
What kind of layout do you want?
How much is it gonna cost?
There are a lot of questions youcan ask, but the controlling
(15:56):
question is, where do you wannalive?
Because everything falls outtathat: all the constraints and
everything else, and the entireprocess of figuring out where
you're gonna live is a result ofthe location that you actually
(16:17):
would wanna live.
And often there's a lot ofimplicit information that's
embedded in that question.
So, for example, when, lookingfor my most recent house, where
did I wanna live was definitelynot on the list.
There were a set of criteria.
I was looking for a place thatwas single story because I've
got a bad knee.
I was for a place where I couldget to all sorts of services.
(16:41):
Had I thought about just lookingfor small towns, I wanna live in
a small town that's encapsulatedby services, I probably could
have saved myself a year ofsearching for the house.
Because by focusing on the houseand focusing on the
characteristics and attributesof the house, I did not realize
(17:04):
that what I was looking for wasan ecosystem around the house,
and the house was reallysecondary to the ecosystem.
Jorge (17:13):
Wow, that's really powerful.
What comes to mind in hearingyou say that is that we tend to
spend so much more time on theanswers, when spending a bit
more time thinking about thequestions might save us a lot of
grief.
Harry (17:30):
Absolutely.
Yeah.
And certainly save us a lot oftime.
And I think that's kinda whatDiviney is getting to, is that
if we can come up with betterquestions...
he says,"to remain grounded inthe sphere of what you know and
control, cultivate a habit ofasking yourself better
questions." It's not acomplicated directive, right?
(17:51):
But getting good at, it's gonnatake time and energy and
practice.
Jorge (17:56):
Have you found any practices that let you ask
better questions?
Harry (18:01):
I think that the one that I use a lot, I'm not gonna
recommend it necessarily, is"What am I assuming is true?" Or
a flip version of that is,"Whatwould have to be true in order
to...
fill in the blank?"
Jorge (18:17):
So, for example, in the one you just brought up about
where do you wanna live, itsounded like you had assumed
that you would be living in thesame town somehow, right?
Harry (18:28):
That was clearly one assumption.
Another assumption was that Icould find a house that fit
every other criterion I had inany town.
And that simply wasn't true.
Jorge (18:39):
That makes sense.
Okay, so questioningassumptions.
Harry (18:42):
Yeah.
So quick test of assumptions, anassumption.
Being an uncritically heldbelief, means that it isn't too
hard to pressure test what theassumptions are, and so,
identifying assumptions is oftena good place to start to ask
better questions.
And then, another way into thatis to ask myself,"Well, what
(19:04):
would have to be true in orderfor whatever it is I'm looking
for?" What would have to be truein the example that we just had.
What would have to be true inorder for me to really want this
house if I found it?
Let's say I found everythingabout this house was perfect,
what would have to be true?
"Oh, I have to be able to walkto a hardware store, a bank, a
(19:26):
post office, a market, a bar."But I didn't even think about
those things.
Maybe I'm asking myself thewrong question.
Maybe I should be thinking aboutwhat towns and what would the
proximity to that town need tobe in order for me to find a
house that would satisfy me?
It changes the equation.
Jorge (19:49):
well, that seems really useful.
I have an idea in mind right nowof a situation in which I need
to apply this, so it feels likea very practical outcome of this
conversation.
Harry (20:00):
I, personally rely on this a lot.
And I really deeply appreciatedthe words that Diviney gave to
this in Masters of Uncertainty,because he makes it very clear
that this is a...
it's a skill and a habit worthcultivating, because it'll get
you closer to where you wannabe, quicker.
Jorge (20:21):
Once again, I feel like I've learned a lot in one of our
conversations, Harry.
Thank you.
Harry (20:28):
Absolutely.
Thanks so much for theconversation, Jorge.
Narrator (20:35):
Thank you for listening to Traction Heroes
with Harry Max and Jorge Arango.
Check out the shownotes@tractionheroes.com and if
you enjoyed the show, pleaseleave us a rating in Apple's
podcasts app.
Thanks.
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