{"id":426,"date":"2017-08-26T00:36:44","date_gmt":"2017-08-26T00:36:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/?p=426"},"modified":"2018-05-30T19:40:13","modified_gmt":"2018-05-30T19:40:13","slug":"ask-you-never-know-what-the-answer-is-going-to-be-until-unless-your-do","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/rwc-blog\/ask-you-never-know-what-the-answer-is-going-to-be-until-unless-your-do\/","title":{"rendered":"Ask…You Never Know What the Answer is Going to be Until\/ Unless You Do"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sometimes a student will come-up to me after a lecture to ask a question…yet ask the pre-cursory question beforehand, “would it be O.K. if I ask you a question ?”. I understand that normally the pre-cursory question is asked out of politeness.<\/span><\/p>\n

My answer is always “Please feel free to ask me any question you like”.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I grew-up in an era when people were encouraged<\/strong> to ask questions…to seek answers to questions that they didn’t know the answers to themselves. More than that, my brother and I had the good fortune of being raised by two outwardly-focused parents – both of whom were high achieving teachers who loved to share their thoughts, feelings and knowledge with others. They constantly talked to us.<\/span><\/p>\n

I find that in the current era, now that “ideas” and “information” seemingly have such high price tags associated with them, many people are reluctant to share their views\/ thoughts\/ opinions\/ knowledge for whatever reasons. I speculate that one major reason why this “closed lip” behaviour has become so prevalent is out of fear that by sharing knowledge\/ information somehow someone else may benefit from your insight\/ thoughts…perhaps to your detriment (e.g. you lose a comparative advantage as a consequence).<\/span><\/p>\n

Sadly I’ve learned from a Hawkes Bay commerce leader recently that whole sections\/ portions of communities in Hawkes Bay are no longer talking to one another – either “in the street” or elsewhere. My concern for N.Z. is that we’re steadily losing our strength of connection between individuals through choosing not to hold good old fashioned verbal conversations<\/strong> with one another as\/ when the opportunity to do so arises. Digital screens are not<\/strong> a good substitute for face-to-face interaction.<\/span><\/p>\n

Anyway, returning to the central theme of this particular blog…<\/span><\/p>\n

Don’t be afraid to “ask<\/strong>” when you don’t know the answer – or would appreciate the injection of another person’s input into whatever you’re contemplating\/ pondering. There are still people out there who love to help other people – all you need to do is be willing to “ask”. You don’t need to “accept” the answer\/s that you receive in response – that’s your discretion entirely as to what you do and don’t accept. However, by inviting input from others you will improve your own understanding and possibly even broaden your own thinking on the given issue\/ subject matter you are pondering (e.g. see your quandry from a new\/ different perspective).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When I see people “asking” I typically interpret their willingness to ask as being reflective of:<\/span><\/p>\n

a) Someone who has an ability to open their mind.<\/span><\/p>\n

b) Someone who has the maturity to show that they don’t have\/ know all the answers (Newsflash: no human being who has ever lived on earth or who will live on earth in the future will ever know all the answers in\/ to life).<\/span><\/p>\n

c) Someone who has the desire\/ interest to engage with others and collaborate. I look for this mindset among employee candidates.<\/span><\/p>\n

d) Someone who has an inquisitive mind and knows how to communicate. I look for this mindset among employee candidates also.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sometimes a student will come-up to me after a lecture to ask a question…yet ask the pre-cursory question beforehand, “would it be O.K. if I ask you a question ?”. I understand that normally the pre-cursory question is asked out of politeness. My answer is always “Please feel free to ask me any question you like”.\u00a0 I grew-up in an era when people were encouraged to ask questions…to seek answers to questions that they didn’t know the answers to themselves.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=426"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":859,"href":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/426\/revisions\/859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}