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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

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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.
The author cites the example of Peter Drucker in order to______.
选项 A、show who finds it easy to ask dumb questions
B、introduce Peter Drucker
C、explain dumb questions in detail
D、demonstrate that employees don’t know much about the company they work for
答案A
解析 属推断题。本段首先指出这种听似愚蠢但很有穿透力的问题很少有人问，然后通过Drucker的例子，说明往往是旁观者更能提出这样的问题。所以A项正确。B项错在把用来说明问题的例子当目的。本段首先承接上段以Drucker的例子描述dumb question，而后一个转折提到虽然如此许多公司因此而高薪雇用Drucker，得出结论外人更加容易提出dumb question。前面的描述是为后面的转折而做，故C项错误。D项说法太绝对，而且不是目的。
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