Fireside Chat: The Cure for Answeritis

Many creative projects seek answers before sufficiently framing the question. Learn how to protect your problem-solving powers and find solutions outside the office in strange and wonderful ways. Speakers: Steve Almond, Co-Host of Dear SugarRadio + Kat Gordon, Founder, The 3% Movement.

“It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question.” – Decouvertes

In advertising, how often are we handed a brief with a problem and in our desire to get right to the answer, we forget to ask the right questions?

And how often, in order to solve these problems, do we go looking to the typical places for inspiration within our own industry? Well, not today. Kat Gordon, in all her usual wisdom, brought a new perspective to the room, the perspective of Steve Almond.

Almond is an author and creative writing teacher at Harvard's Nieman Fellowship and the co-host of Dear Sugar Radio, a weekly show that offers up “radically empathetic” advice for listeners’ deepest, darkest questions.

Each question comes to the show in the form of a letter (what you might call the brief) and is addressed in a discussion (the kickoff).

Here are a few great examples:

Fed-up Phoebe

One listener who’d been in a five-year relationship with her boyfriend was ready for marriage—he, on the other hand, was not. Despite her speaking frankly with him about her desires, he was hesitant to take the next step for some very non-specific reasons that implied he was just more nervous than resistant to the idea. (Not familiar at all, right ladies?) Well finally, enough was enough. She wanted to tell him it was marriage or the end.

One of Almond’s first observations was, “It’s funny how when a man wants to get married, it’s called a proposal. But, when it’s a woman who wants to get married, it’s an ultimatum.”

In our patriarchal society, both women and men are unfairly forced into a fairytale narrative that really does not match up with reality.

What was more important in answering the question for this listener was really to reframe the question: Why aren’t you asking him?

The Debating Mom

Almond’s next example was about a 30-year-old ambitious professional woman, who was also married and the breadwinner in her household. Then, she learned she was pregnant. What was she to do? Leave the career she loved and worked so hard for? Or potentially sacrifice it all for time with her daughter?

Again, instead of trying to give her an answer or solution, Steve offered up this for consideration: The dilemma of the debating mom shouldn’t be considered the problem. It should never be your ambition vs. your own baby.

Instead, Almond said, you need to reframe the dilemma.

Our ambition and desire to do and be everything at 100% is part of what makes so many working mothers unhappy—and then no one is happy.

It’s not an issue of “either/or”. Almond advises moms to give themselves a moratorium—it doesn’t have to be 5 or 10 years. For example, try staying home with your baby for a few months and see how you feel, if you really enjoy that life. He also encouraged the room to “try not to see it as a binary where your baby is the enemy of your ambition, and your ambition is the enemy of spending time with your baby.”

This all brought me back to when I had my first child. So many people asked me if I’d be returning to work, and I allowed myself not to answer that question. I had time off, I left it open to wait and see how I felt. Going into motherhood for the first time, I had no idea how I might feel. Would I miss work? Would I dread the day my maternity leave was up? Or would I look forward to getting back to that part of myself. There is no right or wrong answer here, just the answer that’s right for you.

A Question of Weight

Almond’s last example was also intriguing. A young man, who was very much in love with his girlfriend, was concerned about her weight gain. He admitted to being a “skinny guy” who was typically attracted to “skinny women.” And while he loved his girlfriend a great deal, her weight was literally weighing on his mind and when he confessed this to her, she didn’t take it well (shocker.)

At first, Almond’s co-host Cheryl Strayed reacted as many of us might have—in defense of his girlfriend. But then it was Steve’s turn to discuss the “question of weight”. He pointed out that men will often weaponize their own insecurities. Noting that, the listener is judging his girlfriend because he is judging himself. Often there are two stories we tell: First, what we tell the public and second, the story inside ourselves. His identity and insecurities as a “skinny man” were inflamed by the idea of his girlfriend’s increasing size. At the end of the day, he can’t change her (and he shouldn’t want to,) but he can change himself.

Amazing.

Dear Sugar’s strategy to addressing a lot of these issues is to not just focus on what happened—but why it happened. To not just focus on the problem itself, but why the problem exists.

So the next time a client brief is staring you in the face, consider all of this before you answer.

Happy problem solving!

Key Takeaways:

• Don’t always rush to answer the brief (in work or life.) First evaluate if it’s asking the right question.
• Whatever happens, it’s important to not just focus on what happened, but why it happened.
• In order to solve a problem, emotions must be considered. People want to be allowed to feel. Give them the time and space to feel.
• Know when to call in reinforcements or other experts. Almond + Strayed occasionally bring in authors, psychologists + others to lend another perspective before rushing to solve a letter writer's problem.