Question or Problem
Somebody asks you a question. What should you reply? Is it the answer to his question? May be. May be not. He may be presenting you a problem in the form of a question. Now, what will you do? Will you explain him about the solution – May be.
Why am I asking you all these? This kind of situation happened with me. And, I assume it happens with everyone. Sometime we are asked questions and sometime about the solutions to the problems. Confusion arises when problems come in the form of questions.
Basically, what is the difference between a question and a problem? The response to a question is an answer. Whereas, the solution to a problem describes the work done, reasons for it and demonstrates the understanding of the methods.
Consider you are attempting a Math Exam, and you face a question (not an MCQ and not a straight-forward question). What will you do? Will you just give its answer? Most probably not, you will provide its solution i.e. you will describe how you reach to the answer, steps to solve it and then you present the answer.
Now, assume you are walking on a road side. Somebody approaches you and asks the way to some place. What will you do? You will simply tell him about the way, if you know. You will definitely not explain him about how you came to know about that way. In this scenario, that person is simply seeking the answer.
We have faced these kinds of problems multiple number of times, and intuitively we know how to respond in different scenarios.
However, in business communication, we tend to neglect this. We receive a mail from somebody asking questions. We tend to answer those questions ignoring the fact – why these question are coming, what is expected - an answer or a solution. It increases the delay in the communication and decreases the perception of our expertise level in other person’s mind.
Another important variant of the above could be that we may know that the given question can have different answers depending on the context, but we take an assumption about the context and give back only one answer. This can also stretch the length of the communication i.e. time to get to the conclusion.
These small considerations help in improving how to answer a query and improve our thinking as well. It forces us to put ourselves in other person’s shoes and makes us think from his perspective. It can make us a better thinker.
Suggestions are welcome :)
Interesting! I think solution doesn’t necessarily mean the entire approach. The difference between answer and solution lies in getting to the depth of the question. Most of the times, question has a problem hidden inside it and the best way to find it is asking the other person “what’s the problem you are trying to solve here”. Without understanding the problem this way, and just giving the answer will simply delay the overall execution.
very important observation!! covering the extent from our day to day life to business problem solving scenarios, from customer support to product design decisions , we face such choices, better work on understanding first before presenting an answer or a solution.