Let’s go back to the late 2000s. You want to watch a movie or TV show.
You could rent a DVD at a video store or stream it online on your computer or TV.
What would you choose if the data on your internet plan was not a barrier?
Most people would choose streaming because it is faster, cheaper, and more convenient than renting DVDs. You can watch what you want, when you want, and where you want.
You don’t have to change out of your PJs, jump in the car, and go to the shop. You don’t have to deal with late fees, scratched discs, or get there before someone else rents what you want to watch.
But in the late 2000s, this was not an easy choice.
Most people still rented DVDs, and streaming was new and unreliable. The leader in the video rental market was Blockbuster, which had thousands of stores and millions of customers.
However, one company saw a big change in how people would consume media—they preferred digital streaming over physical media. That company was Netflix.
Netflix began as a DVD-by-mail service in 1997, but it soon realised that the future of entertainment was not in discs but in data.
Netflix’s leaders understood that the content (movies and TV shows) was important, but the context of how people accessed this content was changing. This led them to pivot from a DVD rental service to a streaming service in 2007.
By asking questions like, “How do our customers want to consume entertainment in the digital age?” Netflix changed its business model to fit the emerging context, leading to huge growth and transforming the entertainment industry.
In July 2024, Netflix has over 275 million subscribers worldwide and offers original content that competes with Hollywood studios. On the other hand, Blockbuster went bankrupt in 2010 and closed its last store in 2014.
Yet you may have heard the phrase “content is king” before suggesting that the ‘what’ is more important than the context.
The phrase is often attributed to Bill Gates, who wrote an essay with that title in 1996, predicting that the Internet would become a marketplace of information and entertainment.
However, too much content can be overwhelming. Content is only valuable if it is relevant and meaningful to the problem at hand, and context determines that. To me, context is king.
However, there’s rarely one context to consider. In organisations, contexts you may want to consider include the workplace culture, the context of your customers, competitors, industry, and the operating environment.
As a leader, it’s crucial to ask questions that go beyond the surface level of what is happening and dig deeper into why it matters, how other people would perceive the issues and how that affects the situation at hand.
Only when you ask questions that surface that information can you get to the heart of the matter.
Peter Drucker said, “The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn’t said.” This is true whether someone shares the information in a conversation, an email, text, social media post or formal report.
An incisive leader knows how to ask questions that are akin to an archaeological dig. On the surface, you only see the remnants of structures, but as you dig deeper with insightful questions, you uncover artifacts that tell the true story layer by layer.
Like any good archaeologist you should start with the basics:
- Frame your question to get the desired type of response. Open-ended questions encourage deeper engagement and comprehensive exploration of issues, whereas closed questions can be useful for gathering specific data or sifting through mountains of data quickly.
- Use follow-up questions to investigate the underlying reasons, assumptions, and implications.
If you’re feeling more adventurous, you could start a conversation with ChatGPT or another generative AI tool to spark your own inquisitiveness and creative thinking.
Hal Gregersen and Nicola Morini Bianzino surveyed 200 MIT executive education participants from over 30 countries to determine how artificial intelligence has changed questioning patterns, innovation practices, and organisational outcomes. They found engagement with AI led respondents to ask unanticipated questions 94% of the time. The AI addressed the basic what questions, allowing leaders to ask catalytic questions that push people into a state that enables innovative thinking and action.
You may wish to read their Harvard Business Review article if you’d like to know more about how AI Can Help You Ask Better Questions.
