Answers..?’d is short for, “Answers That Need to Be Questioned”. It is the newest category on the ever evolving Jobisms to empower you as an employee to succeed in Corporate America.
Over the years I have been given absurd answers to questions that I have asked. But earlier in my career I was reluctant to question the answers even though my gut told me something was awry. Now that I am much more experienced and able to distinguish between credible and non-credible answers, I will challenge every answer that never made any sense then and probably still does not make any sense now.
So let’s kick off with one of the most absurd answers I have ever heard, “That’s just the way we have always done it…”
If I could turn back the clock a few years + another couple of years, I would respond to this answer completely differently. Fortunately I have not heard this response lately. But if I did, I would answer it the way I wish I would have when I first heard it. And that answer would be, “well that explains the gross ineffectiveness of the status quo…”
In other words, the status quo has no bearing on being effective today. In all fairness, things may be working fine by sticking to the original game plan. But if you don’t stop to evaluate advances in technology, lessons from industry trends or measure internal metrics for optimal performance, then how do you know if you couldn’t be doing much better? How do you know if you are actually hurting the company by chugging along the same beaten old path?
I hate to throw a 131 year old American icon like Kodak under the bus on this one, but they are close to bankruptcy for conducting business the way they have always done it. (source) While the digital revolution was happening, they were stubbornly clinging to paper based film as their foundation. Can you tell me the last time you actually got film developed?
If the company that invented the Kodak Moment can get annihilated for not adapting to new ways of doing business, then no one person or any other company for that matter is immune either.
GE & IBM on the other hand figured out new business models and adapted to current events. Microsoft currently has an opportunity to do the same now that software is moving to the cloud and a whole new business model needs to be adapted to compensate for lost licensing fees on their traditional Windows / Office business.
So where do you fall into this A&Q session? Do you walk away inspired to question answers that make no sense like I wish I had back when they were so carelessly thrown at me. Or are you the person who clings to old habits and ineffective status quo’s?
My guess is that you are an innovative, progressive get it done type who challenges people to be the best they can be. And that is what Empowered Employment is all about.
So until the next Answer…?’d, don’t settle for anything less than data driven accuracy!
Make It Happen!!!
