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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  9
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 main purpose of the text is______.
选项 A、to demonstrate how the collapse of Enron could have been avoided
B、to help businesses avoid problems by having people ask dumb questions
C、to define and identify dumb questions
D、to encourage companies to hire consultants(like Drucker)to ask dumb questions
答案B
解析 属主旨题。本文首先以安然公司会计师听似愚蠢的问题为例，界定了愚蠢问题的定义及其作用，并指出旁观者更能提出这样的问题，为公司献计献策。由此可以推知写作目的是为了建议公司听取听似愚蠢的问题，以帮助公司避免问题的出现(即答案B)。A项涵盖范围太大(安然公司倒闭的原因很多)。C、D都只是部分具体内容，并非整篇文章的写作目的。
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