I was watching a story on TV last night on good old Enron. And having done a post recently on responsibility I thought it interesting that the company slogan at one point was Ask Why.
It is often difficult when caught up in the thunderstorm to be able to question things without seeming contentious, confrontational or sometimes silly. I have a friend with a successfull Karate school and he once talked to one of his mentors about changing some process and only got "don’t change it this is the right thing". When we would talk about it he would always feel frustrated and often tested his ideas. What he became good at was not being afraid to say, they were right I better go back to that approach.
That is where Enron could not stop eating their dogfood and realize that they were going off the path. So one lesson is to be open to respectful and productive questioning of why and then experimentation of alternatives, but remember that there are as many lessons to be learned in the process and failure as in success.
