In the Washington Post’s on-line leadership blog, Ed Ruggero writes about what leaders can learn from looking closely at the current discussions between the Obama administration and the generals running the war in Afghanistan. See the essay here.

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OK, only you can decide if it’s the most important question, but it’s got to be high on anyone’s list.

“What do you want to have happen?”

There are very practical, nuts and bolts applications of this question. To answer it you must think about—and articulate—your objective, whether it’s a sales number you have to hit or a project begging to be broken down into its steps. Answering this question first is an especially good approach for people inclined to jump right in and start doing without first thinking.

The question also applies to how we communicate in the workplace. ,

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When I was a young lieutenant in the Army, deployed to Korea, our unit’s supply system fell behind when we went to the field. The chow wasn’t where it was supposed to be, troops didn’t arrive on time, even the mail wasn’t getting through. (This was back when letters written on paper were important to the morale of soldiers far from home.) The trucks were my responsibility, and there were lots of factors—many of them, like the weather, out of my control—contributing to our poor showing. A no-nonsense senior officer (his first name was Shelby; we lieutenants called him “Bad as Hell-bee Shelby”) told me to get to the bottom of things. I did some cracker-jack poking around; I was all about root cause analysis and getting the right data. I got the numbers on how old our trucks were and how often they were breaking down; I detailed the over-scheduling and overly optimistic time estimates, which led to missed maintenance and tired drivers who got lost on unmarked country roads. I wrote everything down in my spiffy little notebook and reported to the major. He listened without comment or expression, then asked simply, “What are you going to do about it?” ,

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