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  3. "Has Enron become a risky place to work?" That was a pretty dumb thing to ask at Enron in August 2001. Risky? The firm was appar

"Has Enron become a risky place to work?" That was a pretty dumb thing to ask at Enron in August 2001. Risky? The firm was appar

admin2020-03-31  19
问题     "Has Enron become a risky place to work?" That was a pretty dumb thing to ask at Enron in August 2001. Risky? The firm was apparently flying high. Its stated goal, which could still be asserted with a straight face, was to become "the world’s greatest company". But that dumb question was the very first line in Enron accountant Sherron Watkins’s famous memo to Ken Lay. The answer was clearly yes, and the implication equally clear: Fix the mounting disaster ASAP. But no one in authority had the courage to follow where that seemingly dumb question led.
    If anyone had, he would have discovered a powerful insight into business success, one that applies to every industry on every continent in every era: Dumb questions lead to smart decisions. We’re talking about the dumb questions of organizational life, the ones no one will ask in a meeting because they sound heretical or disrespectful or just ... stupid. The dumb question is none of those things. Instead, it can cut to the heart of the matter, posing a blunt challenge to someone or something—an authority, a policy, the established order.
    As an example of how penetrating such questions can be, and why they’re so difficult to ask, consider the most famous dumb question in all of business, created by Peter Drucker more than 50 years ago: What business are you in? If you ask that question as an ordinary employee at your company, the response would not likely be welcoming, and the odds would be long against your even getting to ask, let alone get answered, any of Drucker’s famous follow-ups.(How’s business? Who are your customers?)Yet for decades companies paid Drucker impressive sums to visit them and ask those questions. So here’s another insight into dumb questions: They’re asked much more easily by outsiders.
    Can you risk asking dumb questions? Can you risk not asking them? Which will you regret more? You know the answer. So here’s how you do it. Don’t apologize in advance or allow as how this is probably unimportant or say any of the other things that sap the dumb question of its power. Just step up and ask it. The shorter the better. Don’t be intimidated by the stunned silence that follows. Wait it out. The payoff is on its way. In that brief eternity, you’ll understand more acutely than ever why dumb questions require courage. Just remind yourself that if they didn’t, they wouldn’t be worth asking.
From the first three paragraphs, we learn that______.
选项 A、it’s more difficult for outsiders than insiders to ask dumb questions
B、dumb questions are usually asked by dumb people
C、though dumb questions aren’t easy to ask, they can be useful
D、most people don’t need courage to ask dumb questions
答案C
解析 属推断题。本文第一段以“在安然公司工作有风险吗?”引出主题——听似愚蠢的问题。第二段给dumb question下定义，认为dumb question能带来明智的决定。这些问题听起来愚蠢，但却能击中问题的要害，对权威、政策及已经确立的制度提出挑战。第三段末指出局外人提出dumb question更容易一些。所以答案推知为C。
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