Welcome to the Tigers' Den

February President's Message

An Interesting Question

One of the key elements of the Tiger Bay Experience is the well-done question.  One of the legendary questioners of our Club is the venerable James Gillespie.  While I don't have an official count, I would take it on faith that he possesses more stuffed Tiger awards than any other Club Member in history.  I have asked him, as a special guest columnist, to recount his thoughts on how Members should craft a question:

Tiger Bay speakers and questioners range from excellent to mediocre or miserable. Tiger Bay members need to improve their questions in order to achieve a higher level of quality, consistency, relevance and toughness. After all this is one of a member's key roles in serving Tiger Bay and perhaps your own ego. This statement is a suggestion to guide members in asking questions that count and make a difference.

The question preface refers to BITING analysis and RAKISH questions, but this isn't a model of clarity when your asking and ranking questions on a scale of 1 to 5 and your focus is the QUALITY AND SUBSTANCE of the question. Naturally there is some subjectivity in ranking but these guidelines may help temper that influence.

The purpose of Q & A format is to hold our speakers accountable for their actions (past and present), words and attitudes, whether expressed at Tiger Bay or elsewhere. There is an element of making the speaker squirm a bit due to the question. THIS IS DONE BY ASKING A CONCISE, POINTED AND PROBING QUESTION WHICH FORCES THE SPEAKER TO AVOID A YES OR KNOW ANSWER AND THINK ABOUT THE ANSWER. The question must be tough, understandable, substantive rather than crude, defamatory, simplistic or a puff question if questions are to be reasonably ranked. The question must TEST and TRY the speaker.

To judge the question you must listen to the wording, guile and intricacy of the question, whether obvious or obscured.

Your judgment of the question rests on the question asked and not who asked it, how the speaker responds (except when the answer is clearly evasive), how the audience reacts or if the speaker says that is the toughest question or the winner. It is your judgment and it must be independent.

Attention to the wording makes sure a specific issue or point of view confronts the speaker - key words in a question are might (which raises the issue of possibility), should (which raises moral/ethical issues) and could (which suggests mere possibilities). The three words help frame the quality and difficulty of the question.

The question must require the speaker to think or be forced to think about a clear topic, issue, problem or the like.

There are at least three types of questions experts recognize:

Definitional - generally not too difficult

Empirical - facts lead to comparisons and explanations of causes and predictions

Evaluative - call for opinions or justifications of opinions (good type question for Tiger Bay)

Some experts say a question should be no more than 20 words, should be clear and meaningful and not a free floater or a multiple choice and not encourage wishful thinking. Your question should advance our knowledge and insight if it is successful.

I hope some of this statement is helpful. Go forth and have at it, but ask a single question and not a multiple one.

Jim Gillespie, Past-President, 1987

Another interesting question I often hear is "Why should I become a Member?"  While the key aspect of membership is the ability to ask a question, another is a lower lunch cost.  However, while your Board of
Directors has remained set on keeping Member lunch cost stable, we recently were required to respond to growing lunch costs by increasing guest lunches by $5.  This measure will help ensure the Club does not begin subsidizing guest lunch costs, while reinforcing a key Membership benefit: lower cost lunches. 

See you in the Den!

Rob Eschenfelder, President

What’s all this about a “Fang & Claw?”

Perhaps the most appealing benefit of membership is the ability to participate in Question & Answer sessions with our speakers. The coveted "Fang & Claw Award" is presented to the member at each meeting who "slashes through pretension and prevarication" with the toughest question of the day.

Tiger Bay Past President and Board Member Beverly Mitlin (R) won the Tiger at the January 25th luncheon held at the St. Petersburg Marriott for asking Congressman Bill Young (L) why a healthcare compromise cannot be reached.