not 
Questions - 3 - Kipling’s honest serving men
Posted by Aphra Behn on February 5, 2007
This post follows on from Questions - 2.
I keep six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.
Rudyard Kipling
These are the ‘open-ended’ questions beloved of sales people; questions which open up the conversation because they cannot be answered with either a simple “yes” or “no”. It should be no surprise that Kipling based his poem on the standard six questions of journalism, he was a journalist for years before the literature-thing took off for him. These questions still form a useful basis for any investigation or analysis, though it helps to understand how each question works. The usefulness of each question depends on the context you are using it in.
Why is immensely powerful. Scientific hypotheses and theorems seek answers to questions which start “Why”. However it can be a slippery tool, leading you into recursive navel-gazing. If you want to uncover a good rock-solid motive for making a change (rather than delving into what caused the problem in the first place) then repeated whys can take you in some very odd directions whereas repeated “what will that give you”s will help you uncover the real benefits.
Compare:
I want to lose weight
What will losing weight give you? - I’ll be healthier
What will being healthier give you? - I’ll live longer
What will living longer give you? - More time on the planet!
What will more time on the planet give you? - More time to do things
With:
I want to lose weight
Why do you want to lose weight? - Because I’m too fat
Why are you too fat? - Because I eat too much
Why do you eat to much? - Because I comfort eat
Why do you comfort eat? - Because I am stressed
It is easy to see that repeating the question “what will that give you” has let us uncover a solid benefit for the responder, a powerful motive for losing weight: they’ve given the same reason three times and as Lewis Carroll said, “What I tell you three times is true”. But repeated “whys” are just driving the conversation round in spiral of self-indulgent pop-psychology and not actually getting anyone anywhere.
On the other hand why can be a ruthless tool for exposing ill-considered assumptions. Years ago small businesses would say “we need a website” and the first professional question to ask them was “why?” The most frequent reason in those days was was “well, everyone says we should”, which was no reason at all. But this exposed the underlying lack of thinking in a way which other questions didn’t. If you asked “what will a website give you?” you’d get “it’ll bring us more customers” which was and remains an entirely groundless assumption, and the only way to even touch the assumption lightly with a fingertip was to ask “how will it do that?” Asking “Why” was a much quicker way to get a grip on the sloppy thinking, hold it up to the light and shake it until some cogency fell out.
Kipling’s six serving men are a good place to start any analysis or investigation, but you need to understand what you want to achieve and work out which questions will get you there. If you have the time, rehearse possible answers in your own mind before you select the question.
