7 So What?

In the last chapter, we covered the critical thinking tool why. Another very powerful critical thinking tool, and my favorite, goes hand in hand with why: So what? Its place in critical thinking differs from its conventional use; here, So what? is not a question you ask if you don't care. Rather, you ask because you care a great deal. What you really want to know is, “What is the relevance of this?” or “What if this were to happen?” You're truly asking, “Why is this important?” Although that's a question with a why in it, you're really asking for the so what. However, you must take care when using so what; people could easily misinterpret it as your being a wise guy or insubordinate.

I can remember the very first time I asked, “So what?” A customer care manager came to me and said, “Mike, our call hold time (the amount of time a customer has to wait on the line until a customer service representative takes the call) is down to 15 seconds.” I asked him if I should be happy or sad, and the manager responded that I should be happy.

I asked, “Why?”

The manager explained, “Because we answer calls in 15 seconds.”

“So what?”

At that point, the customer care manager looked at me in confusion. The conversation continued. What was the value of answering the call in 15 seconds, when our nearest competitor took over 60 seconds? Will our customers buy more from us? Will they recommend us? Will we retain them longer? It was costing us a lot of money to answer calls that quickly; could we obtain the same result if we answered the call in 30 seconds? The answer was yes.

Because of what I uncovered in that instance, I began using so what every day. When someone came to me with a problem, I randomly asked, “So what?” I worded it in a very safe way; people knew it wasn't a challenge. It was merely a question to get people to think. That's just what happened: people started to think about the answer to “So what?” just in case I asked the question. When they thought about their response to it, they often figured out what to do—not every time, but very often.

For example, a team was running behind schedule on a project. The team leader said, “We have to tell Mike.” Then they discussed what would happen if I asked “So what?” and they came up with a number of possible actions, deliberating everything from moving some resources around to cutting functionality to working overtime. Instead of coming to me and saying, “Mike, our project is running behind schedule,” they said, “Mike, because our project is running behind schedule, we are going to move some people around. This will put us back on schedule for this important project. By doing this, we'll delay the start of that other new, lower priority project for a week. The ramifications of our delay (the so what) on the other project are virtually inconsequential. That project doesn't have a deliverable date yet, and it was already deemed an ‘as time available’ initiative.”

I thought to myself, “Wow, these folks really thought about the so what,” and replied, “Okay!”

If you're a manager, and you want to affect the positive performance of your group instantly, ask, “So what?” once a day. You will be absolutely amazed, but beware: you really need a genuine interest in helping people to think. Make sure your team knows why you are asking this question; they need to understand that it's not to trap them but to help them. Similarly, if you want to improve your personal performance, ask yourself, “So what?” before you go to someone with a problem, and think about what your response would be if your manager asked you, “So what?”

You ask, “So what?” to stimulate thinking when you or others have recognized a problem. This question generates conversations about importance, interdependencies, value, relevance, business and customer impacts, and cost and schedule impacts—just to name a few.

So What: Your Company or Product

Your company's so what is often called its value proposition. What is your company's so what? What value do you offer your customers? Is it price, service, availability, uniqueness, or all of them? Even if you sell bottled water, you have a value proposition. Perhaps it's the purity, the biodegradable bottle, a unique cap, the price, the distribution, or the availability. Successful products have a very quantifiable so what. No matter how cool or useful a product might seem, you should always identify the so what with respect to the value to the customer when developing it. If the so what is unclear, the product isn't likely to succeed.

Your So What

This is huge; some have called it life changing. What is your so what? What value do you provide to your peers, family, and company? What makes you, you? What skills, talents, and insights do you possess to allow you to accomplish the things you do? Identifying this so what allows you to hone in on the circumstances, problems, and issues to which you can add value. It helps you understand how you can apply your skills in different ways.

If you're happy in your job, one of the main reasons is likely that you are able to exercise your so what. I once gave a series of classes to professionals who were laid off titled “How to Use Innovation and Critical Thinking to Find a Job.” Most of the folks in the class had had healthy and long careers but had found themselves jobless because of the economic meltdown in 2008/2009. People in the class had labeled themselves: “I'm a hydraulics engineer,” “I'm a paralegal,” “I'm an instructional designer,” or “I'm a clothing fashion consultant.” We spent a good deal of time attempting to discover each participant's so what. Take the hydraulics engineer. This guy was most excited when he explained his last job and how he kept the projects, no matter small or large, on task and on schedule. He was able to foresee issues and cut them off before they affected the schedule. Yes, he was a hydraulics engineer, but that wasn't his so what. He was a super project manager. He had a solid sense of organization, order, and how events impacted others. He was also very personable and could get others to be motivated to adjust what they were doing—that affected the schedule. He just happened to be applying his so what, his superior project management skills, in the hydraulics engineering field, but the truth was that he could apply that so what in nearly any field. Therefore, instead of limiting his search to a hydraulic engineering–related job, he broadened his search to super-project-manager-related jobs. This quickly expanded his universe of job opportunities.

What is your so what? What makes you, you? What do you love to do and do well? Whatever it is, it's been with you for a long time. What trait did you have as a kid that you still have—that you're still good at? That's your so what. Think about it this way: when you have a great day at work, you were able to apply your so what. Understanding your value like this can go a long way when looking at problems related to your career, your success, and your happiness.

Getting Started with So What

Here are a few simple places you can use so what.

• Meetings: Have you ever been in a meeting where one individual says something that doesn't seem to be related to anything being discussed? Everyone pauses to acknowledge something was said, but then the discussion continues where it left off. The impression of what was said is it was an irrelevant thought; you, and everyone else, throw that thought out. Remember: Our automatic brain often throws out things it doesn't think is important.

  Chances are that when someone says something in a meeting—however irrelevant it seems—he or she often sees a connection between what he or she is thinking and what is being discussed. The person isn't speaking up just to cause confusion. Instead of ignoring the statement, express your confusion, and ask for clarity. Say, “Excuse me; I'm not quite getting what you are saying. Can you say this in a different way so I can understand what you're thinking and perhaps get an idea of how it's related to the conversation?” If it was a random thought, there won't be a connection. But if it wasn't—and more than likely it wasn't—you've now brought new thinking into the conversation. Instead of everyone throwing out what was said, you've enabled that other person's thought to add value—by asking that person “So what?” (even though you never used those words). Ask, “So what?” in meetings. Although it might take 40 words to ask, it's important to get to the so what.

• When the unexpected or unplanned happens: Many opportunities to ask “So what?” fall into this scenario. Not only do you need to ask why something happened, but you also need the ramifications (so what). Ask, “So what?” about your customer calls, your competitor's new promotion, your project that's running behind schedule, or the increase in rent. You also want to ask it about the good things that happen: if you just got promoted or you face a new opportunity. Asking “So what?” motivates people to really think about what is important, what the consequences are, and how things relate to each other.

  Here's a simple example of the unexpected: one of the key members of your team calls in sick, and it appears she will be out of the office for the better part of a week. Your deliverable is due in two weeks. Asking “So what?” guides you to a conversation about how the missing team member will affect the deliverable, how you might compensate for that, or how your teammate might still contribute despite being sick. So what leads to discussions about who is depending on this person's work, how this might affect your group, and how it might affect those expecting the deliverable.

  When the unexpected occurs, so what generates thought. Because of that thinking, you generate ideas about dealing with the unexpected.

• After receiving the answer to why: After you ask why and get a response such as “Because …,” try asking, “So what?” Again, you're not trying to be a wise guy; you're really asking: “What are the consequences, given that explanation for why? What does that mean to the project, the schedule, our people, our customers, and the costs? What's the relevance? What are we doing about it?”
• When looking at reports, spreadsheets, and data: Are you looking at information and asking, “So what?” What do the data tell you? What's important about the information in the spreadsheet or report? You may have seen project status reports where some items are in green (everything okay), some are in yellow (some issues), and some are in red (problem). Ask, “So what?”; in essence, what are people doing about the red items? How about the yellow items? Is everyone going to wait until the items turn red to do anything about them? Even consider the green items; what's the so what there? Why are things in good shape, and can you replicate the reasons why? Is there anything you should be doing to ensure the green items stay green? Additionally, I've seen status reports pages long and so confusing that I wasn't sure if it was a for your information, a to-do list, a cover your butt, or what. It is really beneficial to see the so what about the status. Are there actions I need to perform, watch, or worry about?
• Lessons learned: Many companies have formal reviews of completed projects, sometimes called lessons learned, best practices, or postmortems. One of the questions to ask about the findings is “So what?” What's the so what about a project that was behind schedule because something wasn't clear? Are you going to change your processes to prevent delays from occurring again or just hope they don't? If the project went really well, figure out why and what the so what—the takeaway, the learned experience—is that will allow you to repeat that success again?
• New initiatives and prioritization: A variation of the use of so what is to ask, “What's the value?” or “What's the impact?” How do we benefit from this new initiative? Knowing this helps you understand how the new initiative relates to the business. If you're a manager announcing a new project, instead of just giving people another thing to do, it's valuable to communicate how this new project will affect the business (the so what) or other projects and initiatives.
• New products and marketing strategies: What's the product's value proposition—its so what? What customer problem does it solve? Is there some unique so what you can identify? Understanding a product's or service's so what, its value proposition, is crucial in marketing to customers and differentiating you from the competition.