“He who has a why can bear almost any how.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
When I recently saw this at a hotel, it struck me how being given the reason made the request so more personable.
By offering the ‘why,’ it gives you clarity, acceptance and understanding, yet so often we don’t. We just ask, tell or request.
If we want to promote collaboration and engagement, we need to make sure we’re creating opportunities for people to understand and process the ‘why.’ Why is this? It creates room for questions, ideas, knowledge sharing, and helps certain pieces of a puzzle come together.
Bust those silos
So often our environment is made up off invisible silos because others simply don’t know where they fit in to the overall process. If everyone was made aware of the part they are playing in the grand scheme of things, it would help bust those silos.
So why don’t we?
There are many reasons why we may not give the why, such as:
- We believe it would take up too much time
- People don’t need to know. Wrong – who are we to decide what people need or don’t need to know? Transparency always wins with humans.
- They know already. It’s amazing how this is not so, and because people don’t know what they don’t know, they won’t know, and you won’t know, what you think they already know unless you ask them if they know. Phew.
Giving the why helps us make sense of something and allows for critical thinking. If we’re told to do something without being given the opportunity to understand why, we may not feel congruent with it, and therefore may not give the commitment or buy in to it that is needed.
So from now on, make a conscious effort to give the why.
For example:
- ‘Can you get this done by COB ….. because the marketing department have requested it as they have another couple of big deadlines looming.’
- ‘Can you help keep an eye on our new staff …… because we want them to feel supported at this critical stage, as this is when we tend to lose them.’
- ‘This month’s target is non negotiable, it needs to be hit …….. because our performance this month is being followed closely by head office for expansion plan reasons.’
- ‘Keep these toilets clean ….. because you know you like to have a nice clean loo to greet you, well guess what, others do too!’
This works a charm with kids too of course – they’re known to ask the ‘why’ question in overdrive, which forces you to question why things are done that way. Let’s be conscious of creating the opportunity to give or ask for the why from now on, and open up that much needed understanding and critical thinking.