The Business Questions That Transform What is Possible
SYPartners CEO Jessica Orkin: Moving away from what could been asked to what was instead asked
This publication published an article about a highly-successful leader responding to a media member, “It’s the wrong question.” It was respectfully done and pointed out the fact that while questions are learning opportunities, not all questions lead us to desired understanding.
The fact is, not all questions are equal in opportunity or value. Particular ones, though, open up the mind to far greater possibilities and breakthrough.
Jessica Orkin, a leadership advisor and the CEO at SYPartners, recently spoke in depth about it and provided some important lessons.
In the article, Airbnb's Brian Chesky became a billionaire by knowing how to find the right question, Steve Mollman, writing at Fortune, detailed what Orkin taught an audience.
“What we’re finding again and again is that the most transformative leaders are those asking the most courageous questions,” Mollman reported Orkin communicating at Fortune’s Most Powerful Women summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
What does that mean, specifically?
Orkin explained that it’s the process and skill of learning which questions to use, figuratively speaking, to significantly move the needle and capitalize on potential.
“These are questions that are not just about strategy,” she pointed out. “They’re bigger than that…They’re questions which, by the act of asking, changes the field of what’s possible.”
Orkin brought up Chesky as an example to illustrate her point.
When starting Airbnb, she said, he could have asked, “How do we monetize a spare room? A second house?” Instead, he asked, “What if travel was about belonging?”
That smarter, more-important, consumer-focused question “created an $85 billion business and has revolutionized hospitality around the world,” Orkin pointed out.
She dovetailed off that story to provide more evidence of her point.
Orkin talked about cosmetics brand Sephora. “They could have asked, ‘How do we sell more makeup globally?’ But instead, the question became, ‘How can we help people around the world define beauty for themselves?’ So instead of chasing a universal standard of beauty, people were able to create theirs.”
This, again, is first focused on the consumer and their experience and isn’t first thinking and obsessed about the company winning.
It’s the right question because it’s more curious, patient, deeper in thought, thinking about what will trigger benefits for the market first and in the process, likely create grander brand awareness and respect — and financial possibilities in return.
It’s a far-better question.
Orkin additionally provided an example about Oprah Winfrey.
Orkin stated about the billionaire media and entertainment titan “could have asked, ‘What’s next for me after television?’
“Instead, she asked, ‘How can I help other people find their purpose as an expression of my own?’ And this launched new platforms, new communications and a global tour that filled arenas.”
Instead of a narrow, “me-driven” question, Winfrey supposedly thought, how can I do something special and meaningful for others that aligns with my strengths and passion?
That opened up a defined value offering for the market and also allowed Winfrey to greatly benefit as a result.
Orkin admits that “finding this question is not easy,” Mollman reported.
“Standing in the uncertainty is hard,” she said.
We don’t always have the time, patience, skills and strength to do it.
Then there is the all-too-common reality.
The search for the right question is made all the more difficult, Orkin said and Mollman wrote, by the deadlines and other pressing matters that business leaders contend with on a day-to-day business.
It’s important however to pause and invest the time for thought and question development for, as Orkin says, business survival. It’s more attractive though as the key to unlock something special.
This also holds true for more situations and business, revenue and profit. It’s most challenges.
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