You have surely sat in a meeting like this one.
A new project is being discussed. One person asks: “And how exactly is this going to work?” The second, cutting in before he finishes: “Let’s just start, we’ll figure it out as we go.” The third: “Can’t you see — our last project fell apart on this very pattern.” The fourth stays silent for a long time, then says: “And why are we doing all this? What are we saying about ourselves by doing it?”
And then the familiar begins. Each decides that the other three are in the way. To the analyst, the strategist seems shallow. To the strategist, the analyst is a brake. The critic is certain he is surrounded by the naive. The dramaturge feels he is speaking another language.
But not one of them is being difficult. This is not character, not mood, not a manner of speaking. It is a type — a stable way of entering reality. Four different questions put to one and the same event: how it works, what can be done, what is wrong here, what it means.
Remove any one of them — and the decision gets worse. Without the first, we will not understand. Without the second, we will not move. Without the third, we will not see the drop. Without the fourth, we will arrive somewhere and not remember why.
Irritation with a colleague is often simply meeting a question you do not ask yourself.
Which of the four questions is the last to be heard in your team?