THE IDIOT TEST: SIMPLE IS BETTER

I remember years ago, shortly after I started at a technology services firm, I was asked to facilitate a meeting between our technical team and a supplier. There had been a dispute that had lingered for months, each side blaming the other, and alas no resolution. 

I am not a technical person. For me all technology is magic brought to us by fairy dust and elves. So as I sat in the meeting hearing about "scuzzies on the bus" I began wondering what do unkempt people on public transit have to do with the issue? 

The discussion became increasingly heated, so I finally stopped the conversation and said "Hey, I am not a techie, so 90% of what you have been saying is like a foreign language to me. So can both of you do me a favour and consider me the idiot in the room and bring your discussion down to layman's terms so that I can understand. Because although I am not quite getting what your saying, there seems to be some disturbance to the logic flow. So please, talk slow and clearly"

Obviously some of them thought that by making that statement I was an idiot and I believe there was a bit of eye-rolling, but they acquiesced to my request and guess what? They seemed not to be talking about the same issue, because they were wrapped up in technical lingo that masked the problem. When they brought it down to my level -- aka Technology for Dummies -- the real issue became startlingly clear and what had been a festering problem for months was solved in half an hour. 

We all have smart people in our organizations. Smart people are great, but sometimes they want to build the space shuttle, even if a scooter will do. And they like to talk in lingo, and try not to share the secret handshake. I have seen time and time again where logisticians, technical folk, engineers, lawyers etc., become so enamoured with a complicated approach that they have lost sight of what is truly important. And that is where the simpleton comes in.

Don't be worried about asking others to bring a conversation down to a "common-folk" level. It forces them out of their comfort zone, but they can learn a lot about what they are dealing with or trying to get you to commit to. If they can't talk about it in simplistic terms, then your "spidee" senses should be going off. Whether process, product design etc., you should be able to explain it to someone not in your field of endeavour. 

I have said to potential clients, as well as during interviews for corporate jobs, that the best thing I bring to the table is my ignorance of how they do things. You might not think that this gets me high up on their want to do business with or hire this person but it has worked for me. 

Note, that I said "being ignorant of how they do things", not ignorant of my subject matter expertise. Being able to go in as the three-year old child and ask "why" and then "why" and then "why" again, lifts people out of their acceptance of this is how it's done and may even lift some of them out of their "we've always done it this way" reverie.

Now if we could only fix the problem of unkempt people on the bus!

(note: I'll be away for the next week, so I won't be blogging...see you all on my return and thanks for reading my blog!)