InformationWeek

In these turbulent business times, when stocks of companies that have never earned a nickel of profit can surge 15 points one day and plummet 25 points the next only to rebound 30 the following day, answers come by the truckload, creating along the way an explosion in experts and an absolute deluge of answers.

I swear I've heard all of the following in the past few days: "The market is too volatile. ... It's the threat of war in Yugoslavia. ... It's uncertain foreign currency exchange rates-that's certain. ... It's cyclical. ... It's good for the economy. ... Short-selling is the real barometer. ... It's bad for the economy. ... When baseball season starts on a day when the temperatures in the host major league cities average less than 54 degrees, the market always does the green-apple two-step 16 days later. ... It has no effect on the economy. ... The market is self-regulating. ... Internet stocks are the problem. ... The market needs to be regulated more tightly. ... Thank God for Internet stocks. ... Who needs profits anyway-the new economy is built on the belief that growth is everything, and damn the cost."

Answers. Questions. Ironically, right now, Eckhard Pfeiffer probably has a whole lot of the latter and very few of the former. I think Compaq should require the next employee who says "We're the world leader in sales of PCs" to attend Comdex, stand in the registration tent, and read out loud, without any breaks, the transcripts from the recent impeachment trial. Why not say it's also the leader in PC cabinets? Or F7 function keys? Or Intel Inside stickers?

Admittedly, I have hindsight on my side, but here's the point: People who manage technology in business-that is, all 400,000 of you readers-buy lots of PCs, and you have to know that your vendor is reputable and all that. But is there something strategic about being the biggest seller of PCs? Does that make Compaq a better enterprise partner than, say, IBM or Hewlett-Packard or Dell? Is that what a $40 billion company wants to be known by at the onset of the age of electronic business, when the Internet and the Web are transforming every aspect of business? Is that the message to put out there after boldly acquiring two vendors of high-end systems whose capabilities were to be the heart of Compaq's future?

This issue is surely not just about Compaq; it's about all of us. And only a tin-plated knucklehead would read about what's going on at Compaq, cluck his tongue patronizingly and say, "Boy, that'll never happen at my company." Look at your own business-do you still make decisions based on metrics and objectives that are patterned after what you did a few years ago? Do you still view strategic planning (whatever that is or has become) as something separate and detached from the operations of your business? Do you regard corporate culture as some touchy-feely silliness that only lazy companies engage in? Does your IT organization report to the CEO or to the CFO? Why? Next year, will your spending on back-office systems and projects grow at a faster rate than your expenditures on customer-relationship services and products?

When you think about competition, is it the same tired old bunch of five or 10 that have made the list in the strategic-planning exercise for the last several years, or have you taken

a scary but potentially life-saving look at the new breed of highly unpredictable competitors that intend to use IT combined with a lack of historical baggage to saw you off at the knees before you even know they've broken the skin? When you go out and talk

to customers about what they really want, do you ask them the same set of tech-centric questions-or do you dig as deeply as possible into how you can help them innovate, expand their business, and increase profits?

I've talked in this space recently about the Age of Ambiguity in which we find ourselves. Part of the survival guide for such a time is having the willingness to question ourselves-our goals, our objectives, our strategies, our positions, our ways of thinking-relentlessly and fearlessly. It's not second-guessing, and it's not being unwilling to stake out and hold a position; rather, it's the only way of evolving in a world of stunningly rapid and pervasive change. Indeed, in a time when answers are everywhere and are worth probably even less than what we pay for them, the key to real innovation and success lies in the questions we have the courage to conceive, answer, and act upon.