The Question Behind the Question

A client once asked: “Should we hire a head of marketing or invest in paid acquisition?” They had been debating this for three months. The marketing team wanted a leader. The finance team wanted measurable spend. Both sides had compelling data. Both sides were right within their framing. And both sides were answering the wrong question.

The real question was: “Do we have a positioning problem or a distribution problem?” If the positioning was wrong, neither a marketing leader nor paid acquisition would help — they would just amplify a message that was not resonating. If the distribution was the constraint, a marketing leader would take six months to onboard while paid acquisition would produce data in days.

The framing — hire vs. spend — was a false dichotomy. It looked like a real choice. It felt like a real debate. It consumed real time. And it was the wrong question the entire time.

How Framing Creates False Choices

Every question contains assumptions. “Should we build or buy?” assumes that building and buying are the only options. “Should we stay in this market or exit?” assumes those are the only two positions. “Should we promote internally or hire externally?” assumes the role needs to be filled at all.

These assumptions are usually invisible. They arrive embedded in the question, accepted as given, and never examined. The entire analytical effort is directed at comparing the options rather than questioning whether the options are the right ones to compare.

This is not a rare failure mode. It is the default mode. The majority of strategic decisions in organisations are made within frames that were inherited, not chosen. Someone posed the question in a particular way at some point, and every subsequent discussion accepted that framing as the starting point.

The Reframing Discipline

Reframing is not brainstorming. Brainstorming generates more options within an existing frame. Reframing questions the frame itself. It asks: what are the assumptions embedded in this question? Which of those assumptions are verified and which are inherited? What would the problem look like if we removed the inherited assumptions?

This discipline is uncomfortable because it feels like going backward. The team has been moving forward — analysing options, building business cases, preparing recommendations. To question the frame is to question all of that work. It suggests that the effort so far may have been directed at the wrong target. People do not enjoy hearing this.

But the discomfort of reframing is always less expensive than the cost of solving the wrong problem efficiently. A perfectly executed answer to the wrong question produces confident failure. A messy first attempt at the right question produces useful learning. The arithmetic is clear, even when the emotion is not.

When to Reframe and When to Commit

Not every question needs reframing. Many questions are correctly framed. The challenge is knowing the difference.

Three signals suggest a reframing is needed. First: smart people disagree not on the answer but on which option is better. When two competent strategists look at the same data and reach opposing conclusions, the disagreement is usually about framing, not analysis. They are solving different problems.

Second: every option feels slightly wrong. When none of the available choices produce enthusiasm — when the best option is merely the least bad — the options may be symptoms of a mis-framed problem rather than genuine alternatives.

Third: the debate is circular. When the same arguments recur in meeting after meeting without resolution, the loop is not caused by insufficient data or insufficient thinking. It is caused by a frame that cannot produce a satisfying answer because it is asking the wrong question.

In the absence of these signals, commit. Not every decision benefits from reframing, and the discipline of commitment is as important as the discipline of questioning. Seeking a reframe when the frame is correct is its own failure mode — an infinite loop of questioning that delays action indefinitely.

The Option E framework provides the protocol for navigating this boundary. When to reframe. When to commit. And how to tell the difference before the cost of asking the wrong question becomes the cost of shipping the wrong answer.