Time's Up!

5This Could Be the Most Important Business Question Ever

I can't remember who first mentioned this quote to me (one we used early in the book).

I think it could have been Jon Berghoff at XCHANGE. Here it is again:

Questions change the future before the answers even arrive.

Just ponder for a moment how profound and powerful that is. Consider this: On October 5, 2021, Paul Polman and Andrew Winston released their first book together, Net Positive: How Courageous Companies Thrive by Giving More Than They Take. Right at the start of the book, they pose this question:

Is the world better off because your business is in it?

Is it?

Does it matter? Of course it does.

We want you to be able to enthusiastically answer that with a pumped‐fist “Yes!”

Just as importantly, we believe it's a question you might want to pose to your customers. In fact, you may well want to include it in a series of “criteria” questions to determine whether there's a good fit between you and the potential client.

Such a series of questions on this particular issue might go like this:

• On a 1–10 scale, where 1 represents a “Definitely not” and a 10 represents an “Absolutely yes,” how would you answer this question: Is the world better off because your business is in it?
• Could you explain why you've answered the way you have, please?
• If our firm could help move that number up the scale, would that be something in which you'd be interested?

Those three simple questions alone could open up a whole plethora ...