We love quick answers.

We’re problem solvers, right?

Especially experts. That’s why most speakers give a Q&A (question and answer session) at the end of their presentations.

There’s not anything truly wrong with this. Except not everything has a quick answer.

In fact, maybe a quick answer isn’t a quick answer. Maybe it’s just the easy answer.

——————-

I went to college to be an illustrator. During some class project work, my illustration instructor came by my table and looked over my work. I was in the middle of working on a fine draft of my illustration idea.

“Where are your other ideas?” She asked.

I blankly replied, “This is my only one.”

“You never go with the first idea.” She remarked, “You always dig deeper and find more solutions. Even if the first idea turns out to be your best, you might learn something from your other ideas that you bring back to the original.”

——————-

The problem with Q&A is that it implies a simple pattern:
Question 1 –> Answer 1
Question 2 –> Answer 2
Question 3 –> Answer 3
And so on… and so on… etc.

Instead, what if we adopted a pattern of Q&Q:
Question –leads to deeper thought–> Question –leads to deeper thought–> Question –leads to deeper thought–> Question –>

It’s hard for us to accept this because we feel as if every question deserves a very clear, concise, black & white answer. But when we think this way, we try to find that answer quickly… and when we do find it, then it has to be the one and only answer. It closes our minds from other options. It locks us into our first idea and we never dig deeper for more solutions.

This is one of the reasons why change is so hard.