“How do we get more leads?” sounds like a practical question. It gives a marketing team something to act on: try another channel, publish more content, increase the budget, or change the offer.
But the question already contains a diagnosis. It assumes that a shortage of leads is the main obstacle. If that assumption is wrong, an energetic answer can send the team further in the wrong direction.
I am interested in the pause before the answer: the moment when we examine what the question is asking us to believe.
A request is not always a diagnosis
Imagine a business receiving enquiries but struggling to turn them into customers. More enquiries might help. They might also add pressure to a follow-up process that is already slow, attract more people who are a poor fit, or conceal confusion about the offer.
Each possibility suggests different work. The useful opening question becomes: where does interest stop progressing, and what evidence do we have about why?
This does not require an elaborate research programme before every decision. It requires enough attention to separate the symptom from the explanation. A few conversations, a review of recent enquiries, and a basic picture of the customer journey may be a better starting point than another campaign brief.
Make the question small enough to investigate
“Why aren’t we growing?” is too broad to guide a useful experiment. “Why do qualified prospects stop after the first call?” gives us a place to look.
The second question still does not tell us the answer. Price, timing, unclear expectations, and a weak fit remain possibilities. Its value is that we can now gather relevant evidence and compare explanations.
I find a simple sequence useful:
- Name the outcome we want.
- Identify the step where progress appears to slow.
- List what we know separately from what we suspect.
- Choose the smallest investigation that could change the next decision.
The final point matters. Research earns its place when it helps us decide what to do, what to stop doing, or what we still need to understand.
Let a better question change the plan
Suppose those prospect conversations reveal that people cannot tell which service is right for them. The next experiment might be a clearer comparison and a more focused first conversation. It would be premature to decide that the entire channel is ineffective.
Equally, the investigation might confirm that too few suitable people know the business exists. In that case, acquisition remains a sensible priority. Questioning the brief is useful because it improves the basis for action, not because every initial assumption must be wrong.
There is a practical discipline here: decide in advance what evidence would make you reconsider. Otherwise, “being curious” can become a comfortable way to keep discussing a problem without making a decision.
Keep curiosity connected to action
A different question will not solve a difficult problem by itself. It can, however, reveal an option that the original framing excluded.
When a team asks only how to do more, it tends to produce more activity. When it asks what is preventing the next meaningful step, it has a chance to choose more useful activity.
That is the kind of curiosity I want to bring to growth work: enough patience to understand the problem, enough openness to challenge the first explanation, and enough discipline to turn the answer into something we can test.