Information must be actionable - the importance of context

Sometimes we ask for information but once we have it we realise that there is nothing we can do with it because we didn't capture enough context to interpret it.

Here are three examples from one organisation:

• An open forum was held to report to staff on some organisational changes and part of the forum was capturing staff ideas for improvement. Ideas came thick and fast and were noted as quickly as possible on butcher's paper for collation and later consideration. When managers later met to consider the merit of the ideas they spent most of their time trying to work out what the ideas meant since there hadn't been time to clarify with staff during the meeting and insufficient detail had been gathered, with most of the ideas having been summarised in less than 10 words.
• A survey was placed on the organisation's website for voluntary completion anonymously by clients. For each question where a client indicated they were dissatisfied with some aspect of the service the client was offered the option of elaborating in their own words what they saw as the problem. Twenty-five clients indicated that in letters not enough information was given explaining the decision. None of the clients elaborated. As a result the information was useless - it wasn't possible to track back to letters sent to those clients to see what they meant since the survey was anonymous and there was insufficient information to determine how the organisation's written communication could be improved. (Ironically, the respondents did exactly what they claimed the organisation was doing.)
• In staff surveys one of the issues which also comes up in staff responses is poor communication by management. Yet senior management still don't know what staff mean when they talk about poor communication: is there too much? too little? is it too detailed? is it confusing? Is the problem limited to specific managers? Or is it a general? What specifically is meant by 'poor communication'? - no one seems to know.

In all three cases, the lack of context has resulted in resources being wasted getting information that doesn't inform and that isn't actionable in any way. Then further resources were wasted trying to mind-read what was meant.

Most of the time it would be better to capture stories. For example in the case of a staff survey, we could ask staff to describe an example of poor communication within the past three months, why they thought it was bad, what its effects were and how it could have been done better. Collecting stories about poor communication would enable us to narrow the definition of the problem into something which we could deal with rather than dealing with a nebulous amorphous 'something' which we could deal with if we only knew what it was.

But even more important is to clearly understand what sort of information will be useful and then properly designing a methodology for getting that sort of information. Survey design is sometimes thought of as a no-brainer, something anyone can do. And that is why so often surveys are a waste of time, money, and effort. Thinking it through at the beginning is more likely to yield a pay off than trying to be a psychic at the end! Use hindsight rather than foresight. If you settle for 'garbage in' then you are also settling for sorting through the 'garbage out' in the hope of finding 'something" useful.

Not a terribly exciting prospect is it?

The Subversive Power of Questions

Since questions point to answers, we must learn to ask the right questions - that is, the ones that point to helpful answers.

~ Roger Schank The Creative Attitude: Learning to Ask and Answer the Right Questions

Questioning is a basic tool for rebellion. It breaks open the stagnant hardened shells of the present, revealing ambiguity and opening up fresh options to be explored.

~ Fran Peavey "Strategic QuestioningManual" (see resources below)


There is no doubt that questions are dangerous.

The higher a person rises in an organisation, the more they have invested in the status quo. The organisation as it is (and as it has been in the past) values (and valued) that person enough to promote them.

However, to question the status quo may appear to the senior manager to question their contribution to the organisation or to raise doubts about the wisdom of their previous decisions.

The best questions open:

• closed doors or
• doors that no-one even knew existed or
• doors that people didn't know were doors or
• doors  that people have ceased to see as doors or
• doors that people don't want to talk about (or some people anyway)

And in the process they may let in a breath of fresh air. Or show the skeletons in the cupboard. Or show that the Emperor really does have no clothes on. Even the (so-called) 'dumb' question can show that something hasn't been understood as well as previously thought and open up new areas for improvement.

Questions reduce certainty - to question is to doubt the existing answer, to say "what if this isn't the case? What if there is a better answer?"

The best questions open up possibility rather than shut it down. They show how things can change for the better rather than staying the same, that maybe things don't have to stay the way they are.

And this is one of the reasons they are subversive and why the better the question is the more dangerous it is for those who hold positions in the status quo. Because a good question also raises further questions such as "Why didn't so-and-so think of that?" or "Why have we been doing this so inefficiently for so long under so-and-so as manager?" or "Why did so-and-so put that barrier to progress in place or maintain it when clearly it was unnecessary?"

And questions are more dangerous than answers. An answer can be attacked logically or factually or in any number of other ways.

But to attack a question is to reveal insecurity about what the question concerns and effectively to justify the asking of the question in the first place.
Strategic Questioning Manual (Fran Peavey)
at The Change Agency website

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