I recently received a Slack message “What do you think?” with a link to a Notion document.
No context or indication of what this person actually believed. Just a link and a question mark.
I stared at it for a minute, trying to decide if I was annoyed or just tired (probably both).
What this message actually says is: “I haven’t figured it out yet and I’d like you to do the thinking for me.”
That sounds harsh, but it’s true. When you ask someone, “What do you think?” without sharing anything You Do you think you don’t collaborate, but rather outsource? You take all the work you should have done (reading and understanding the doctor, weighing the considerations, forming an opinion) and dumping it on someone else’s lap.
It looks like a question, but it’s more of a task assignment.
And yes, I did this too. We all have that. It feels polite. You invite input! Except that’s not really what’s going on. What’s usually going on is one of two things:
- You didn’t read/understand the damn document, or…
- You have read it and have an opinion about it, but you don’t want to commit yourself to it. What if you’re wrong? What if an older person disagrees? What if you look like you don’t know what you’re doing? It feels safer to formulate it as a question. So you wrap it up in a question and let someone else take the risk.
Both are problematic in the same way, because you are literally creating work for someone else. Now they have to: understand the context, think through the options, make a judgment and put their name on it.
That’s a lot of cognitive work that you have to pass on to someone because you didn’t want to take a stand.
And it slows everything down. How many threads are currently open in your company Slack because of this? Everyone asks questions, everyone waits. Dozens of replies, somehow ending with less clarity than the thread started with.
Let me show you the better way.
Don’t:
“Hey, what do you think of the API versioning approach?”
Doing:
“I’ve looked into this and I think we should go with REST. The team knows, the latency isn’t tight enough to justify gRPC, and GraphQL feels like overkill for three endpoints. I’m going to start next Friday unless you see something I’m missing.”
That second message contains everything:
- A clear one recommendation with reasoning
- The alternatives you considered and why you excluded them
- A term that presupposes approval, unless someone objects
It transforms “help me think” inside “control my thoughts.” People create work. The other respects people’s time.
Some people worry that this will come across as an overstep. As if they are being presumptuous by having an opinion. I used to think this too. It appears to be going backwards.
People don’t want to think for you (what a surprise!). They want to respond to something concrete. Give them a point of view and within two seconds they can say “sounds good” or push back with specific details. Give them a vague question and they have to do a lot of work before they can even respond.
Reducing ambiguity is one of the most valuable things you can do in a team. And one of the easiest ways to do that is to just… say what you think. Even if you’re not sure. Even if you might be wrong.
“But what if I don’t have enough context to have an opinion?”
Then say that. “I don’t have a full view here, but based on what I know I would lean towards X, does that match what you see?” Still a position, still doing some of the work, still much better than a naked question.
A clear position gives people something they can support or oppose. This way, decisions are actually made quickly.
The next time you’re about to say “What do you think?” typing, then stop. Find out what You think first. Write that instead. Include your reasoning, your alternatives, and a hypothesized path forward.
You are not pushy (even in Canada), you do your job.
It feels a little more exposed. Just a little while on the line. But this is what moving forward actually looks like.