Asking “so what?” was a core part of the problem solving training at my first job.
It goes a bit like this: whenever a new piece of information or data is presented, the appropriate next question is “so what?”
A former colleague described the question as having two functions:
- Meaning: How do we need to look at it (differently)?
- Action: What do we need to do or decide?
The first challenges us to reconsider our opinions and change our mind. The second says that unless we do something different as a result, we’ll be no better off than if we ignored the new information.
Thinking of “so what?” in terms of meaning and action makes the tool much more useful.