Cutline Speaks

Searching for the questions

posted by Meghan on June 9, 2009

Alan Webber's "Rules of Thumb” continues to hit home with a new lesson - "asking the last question first." In most personal and professional cases, the questions we ask are more important than the answers we receive. But in business, it's not enough to have employees who ask the challenging, simple, and philosophical questions, if you and your team haven't asked the most important question first. What's the point for your exercise/strategy? 

Before our business or even our personal lives can claim "victory" over whatever task we're out to tackle, we must identify a definition of victory. For those of us in PR and marketing, that could mean an increase in users, more press coverage, or stronger message clarity. In regard to start-ups, Alan references a Fast Company article titled, “Business of War” written by Mark Fuller, CEO of Monitor Company with the excerpt stating: 

"Right through the Vietnam War, big companies and the military shared the same approach to strategy. Both labored under institutional dynamics that virtually guaranteed competitive defeat. The terrible irony of Vietnam was that the United States won every battle but lost the war. Most military histories of the Vietnam War agree on the reason for the defeat: the military had no unified strategic doctrine, no clear definition of victory."

That's the lesson: you need a clear definition of victory. As public relations professionals, we need to counsel our clients on identifying clear measures for success and objectives for each campaign, pitch, blog post, etc. We must ask the last question first at every meeting and even more than once as we all know objectives, product news and events change quickly and often. 

Continuing to help our clients answer the right questions will lead both your agency and your client to a successful destination. The most important part to this rule -- don't cheat. Stop yourself and your client from giving a vague answer like, "To make money and make a big difference." Be clear.

Bottom Line- Always have a clear definition of success. Ask the question, "Do you know the point of the exercise?" Until you can answer the last question about what you want to accomplish, you can't really get started. 

Tags for this post: pr