When groups are trying to plan and make decisions together there is a tendency sometimes,and this is especially true for slow groups, to try to make progress from rotten questions. Rotten questions, as we covered in a previous blog post, are those that are old questions have no power to move us into new perspectives and possibilities.
Groups working from rotten questions get bogged down and implode in debate and discussion rather than data. Debating and discussing is the rehashing of knowns that gets us nowhere new.
We bypass the whole debate and discussion implosion by working instead from ripe questions that lead us into action. Action means leaving the room. It means leaving the room of discussion and debate and going out with our right questions to new ways of discovery, research, reflection, learning, exploring and assumption testing with our world as it is. Real data makes decision-making faster and better. It keeps us all on the same page rather than a page divided by debate and discussion which is assumption based. We are divided by assumptions and united by our data.