A recent post by Chris Barrow from the Business Coaching Company on Bad Customer Service and Teenagers also got me thinking about the ways we go about research/asking questions and who we ask them of.

Chris was looking for information on rental properties and life in Salisbury (UK) and got very little, if any, direction from the "obvious" sources for this information - real estate agents.  He did however get the information he was looking for from a not-so-obvious source - a group of teenagers under a tree.

…  and then just asked them what it was like to live in Salisbury, what it would be like for teenagers and where would be the best places to live.

In 20 minutes they gave me a complete "low-down" on the city, its culture, good and bad points and general advice on how best to integrate the kids.

There are times  as people and as business owners that we go to what we believe to be the obvious source for information, advice, assistance, support, etc., and are often surprised and sometimes dismayed that we don’t get what we are looking for.

If you go to the same places as everyone else you will get the same information as everyone else.  If you are looking for some form of competitive advantage, if you don’t want to follow the crowd, or if you just want the reality of a situation you need to look outside the square and beyond the obvious.

One thing I have learned as a coach is that if you ask the obvious questions you get the obvious answers.

Now if you want to be obvious then go ahead but if you want to be different it is time to do things differently.  You might even want to start a conversation with a teenager.