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The Answer to How is Yes: Acting on What Matters

by Peter Block
Berrett-Koehler, 2002

Peter Block is a management “guru” who has seen it all. He has watched management fads come and go. He knows that there is value in each one, but he also sees that the fact they eventually “go” is evidence of flaws. In The Answer to How is Yes: Acting on What Matters, he posits that the problem is not the variety of answers we get to our management problems—the real problem is the questions we are asking.

Namely, we too quickly ask “how” questions. How are we going to do it? How much will it cost? How long will it take? How are we going to get those people to buy in? How have other people done it? The questions are all valid at one level, but Block points out that we frequently jump to these questions as an excuse to not take action. We focus our attention on what works (what might work, what won’t work), when we should, he suggests, start by asking about what matters.

You get at what matters by asking what he calls “yes” questions. Why are we doing this in the first place? What commitment am I willing to make? What is the price I am willing to pay? What is my contribution to the problem I am concerned with? Answering these questions first will help us to ask our “how” questions more strategically. Starting from a place of clarity, commitment, and personal responsibility will get you where you want to go more effectively and efficiently.

If the “yes” questions are more powerful, however, why do we stay focused on how? His explanation starts with four archetypes that guide how we run our organizations. Two of the archetypes are dominant, one is excluded, and one offers the promise of integrating the other three in a powerful way that enables organizations to focus on what matters in a way that really works.

The dominant archetypes are the Engineer and the Economist. They represent the “how” way of doing things. Engineering is about problems and methodologies to solve them. The Economist’s way is about cost-benefit analysis and an emphasis on growth and efficiency. They emphasize control, predictability, measurement, incentives, and barter. Together, they rule the way organizations are managed. On the other side of the fence is the Artist archetype. The Artist is about being creative and emotional, being on the “outside,” and viewing commerce and power with suspicion. When this archetype exists in an organization, it is usually actively resisted.

Block sees a middle path between these two sides, represented in the archetype of the Architect. The Architect cares about both beauty and practicality; form and function. The Architect balances the needs and wishes of the client with his or her own aesthetic values, as well as the professional standards and laws of physics that limit her or his work. This archetype integrates the previous three, thus resolving their unending battle.

In organizations, this translates into the role of what Block calls the “Social Architect.” It is a role for both boss and employee, and it changes the way everyone approaches the work of the organization. It is a role where the “personal, intimate, and subjective qualities of the institution are valued along with the practical, technical, and economic objectives.” It is one that creates more opportunities for open discussion of these issues. It is one that maintains the discipline of asking and answering the “yes” questions in addition to the “how” questions.

Applying the lessons of this book to the management of Associations (or any organization, for that matter), will be difficult, simply because the book challenges some fundamental assumptions about the way things “are” and the way things “work.” It will likely be a very personal application, meaning different things to different people. For leaders, it may mean reexamining the way you talk to each other. It may mean empowering people at lower levels in the organization. It may mean taking the time to identify the right questions to answer in the first place. For employees it may mean letting go of some critical assumptions: like the assumption that your boss controls your work life, or that you must wait to be “in” before you can influence things. For others it may provide guidance during a job or career transition.

Give yourself time to read this book, and time to test out the radical ideas. You may resist the ideas, because the assumptions we have about “the way things are” are very strong. If you can suspend those assumptions briefly, however, you will have the opportunity to experience the power of acting on what matters.