The Art of Asking: Ask Better Questions, Get Better Answers

Appendix . Endnotes

1.

What if cows had wings? The what if question is the only one on the list that allows a manager to step out of his or her formal role and engage people in a unique way because it suspends the normal rules of managing.

2.

Fred Taylor studied shovels, and he studied the men who wielded shovels. He concluded that large men can use larger shovels and smaller men need smaller shovels. That is not management. That is observing and explaining the obvious. The management part of his story came next. He concluded that the smaller man needed a shovel small enough to enable him to shovel fast enough to shovel the same amount of material as a large man with a large shovel. So, the manager’s job was to match the man with the right shovel. ...