Do You Assume or Do You Ask?
Dr. John Loblack
Helping small to medium size nonprofits with strategic planning process.
In your hands, you hold the key to unlock the doors that are closed in front of you. Have you been using it?
The key I’m referring to is a question.
Yes, a question can be the difference-maker. Unfortunately, we travel the assumption route instead of the question route.
And then, we’re shocked when our assumption left us holding the blade, not the handle.
Shouldn’t we know by now that an assumption is an opinion—the way we see things? And if we keep going down that path, we increase the odds of making the wrong turn.
Asking questions, therefore, increases the odds of getting the answer we need to unravel the problem we are grappling with.
Therefore, going forward, we must decrease the frequency of making assumptions and increase the frequency of asking questions. However, we must do all we can to ask specific questions. Specific questions increase your chances of getting your question answered.
Remember though, you’ve no control over the answer, but you do have control over the question.