Sir, where are you from?

I was in Delhi for work a couple of months back, staying at the Radisson Blu Marina in Connaught Place.

I ordered a cup of tea in my room.

When it arrived, I took one sip and said what most of us say without thinking about it. "The tea is not good."

The gentleman who brought it was lovely about it. "Okay sir, let me fix it."

He took it back. A few minutes later he was at the door again. "Try this one."

I tried it. It was the same tea. Or close enough that I couldn't tell the difference.

I said it's fine, don't worry about it. And I meant it — he had gone back twice, and I wasn't going to make an issue out of a cup of chai.

Sarbjit Singh, the executive chef, happened to be around. He saw my face.

He walked over and asked me something I wasn't expecting.

"Sir, where are you from?"

Not "what was wrong with the tea, sir." Not "let me send you another one."

I told him I'm based in Bengaluru, but I'm from UP.

Then a few more questions. How much sugar I take. How I usually drink it at home. None of it in a feedback-form voice — it felt like a normal conversation, the kind you have with someone while waiting for a lift.

He said he'd send another cup up to my room.

Out of pure curiosity, I followed him to the tea counter. I wanted to hear what he would say to his team.

It took him about ten seconds.

Milk. Strong tea. Don't overboil it. A little cardamom and ginger.

That was it. Four instructions. Nothing secret, nothing complicated, nothing that isn't already in the kitchen.

The chai that came up to my room was exactly the chai I wanted.

I've been thinking about that cup on and off since June.

The first gentleman heard a defect. Something was broken, so he went back and made it again. When that didn't work, he made it again. Same tea, more effort, faster.

The chef heard something completely different.

He understood that "the tea is not good" almost never means the tea is bad. That kitchen makes the same tea a hundred times a day and most guests are perfectly happy with it.

What I actually meant was — this is not the tea I know.

You can't fix that by remaking the same cup. You can only fix it by finding out which tea I know. And that question is about me, not about the tea.

We keep running into the same thing at work.

"This is not good." "This feels clunky." "I don't like this flow."

We hear a defect report, so we go and fix the thing that was named. Sometimes that's exactly right. Very often the sentence is only a symptom, and the actual requirement is sitting one question behind it — and that question is usually about the person, not the product.

The chef found it in five seconds, by asking something that had nothing to do with tea.

Most of us would have run three sprints.

Thank you for the chai, Sir.