Questions

One of my business partners is a philosopher. His favorite question is “why?”

I’m an engineer. My favorite question is “how?”

Most of the time, we balance each other beautifully. He keeps us from rushing into things, and I keep us out of “analysis paralysis.” This month, as we’ve started to prepare for our business planning sessions, this fundamental difference in the way we think has become even more apparent.

I was ready to take the general strategy we labored over last year and put together tactics to continue to move it forward. The “how”. He was ready to evaluate growth strategies in general. It only took one painful meeting for us to realize we were not on different pages we were in different books.

Now, I’m a big believer in examination and introspection, but I also believe that at some point you need to pick a direction, decide to believe in it, and go for it! The question is “when?” I don’t know the answer to this. Maybe it’s when you’ve tried everything reasonable tactic and have not had success. Maybe it’s proportional. (I find that Pareto applies to almost everything in life, but we’ll save that for another day). Maybe there is no answer.

What I do know is that every time we experience this conflict between “why” and “how” we get a little better and a little quicker at recognizing it. I’ve also realized just how much I value the tension it creates – holding us back just long enough to re-examine our underlying assumptions, and resulting in even more confidence, anticipation, and passion around the company we’re building.