1, #91 - What? So What? Now What?

There will be a small group of “What” and “How” questions that you will find yourself using in nearly every situation. Here are a few of them: What are we trying to accomplish? How is that worthwhile? What’s the core issue here? How does that affect things? What’s the biggest challenge you face? How does this fit into what the objective is?

So, what should I do? It’s a question of application and implication. Other questions include: What action are we supposed to take in light of what we’ve just heard? Why does this matter?

What–So What–Now What works wonders when giving a spontaneous presentation, answering a question in a job interview, giving a piece of feedback—you name it. If you go back and review this chapter, you’ll find that I used What–So What–Now What as my organizing schema.

Why section: gets attention, states the problem but does not yet unpack it What section (current stage): unpacks/describes the problem at hand, introduces the solution but does not quite unpack it yet How-To section (coming up): we're beyond "problem" mode and are unpacking the solution (the steps) to solve this problem, but we end with t

“What has to happen?”