On Favoring ‘Why’

I assume most of you, as a student, studied the 7 Ws – when, what, why, who, where, whom, and how (funny, the last one does not start with W). We have been using all these question formatters all our lives – but, have you ever favored one over the other?

Last August, I went to Ethiopia (I am originally from there) and did get a chance to catch up with my friends and relatives. I was out of the country for close to two decades. Eager to know about my life in the US, they have asked me different kinds of questions such as how is life in the US? How I overcame homesickness? But, one of my friends that I grew-up with asked me why I chose to live in the US. Why I did not come back to Ethiopia after my studies in the UK? This question took me off-guard.

‘Why’ is always fascinating to me and also, I assume, to other people especially kids. If you have kids, you know what I am talking about. Let’s see some scenarios on where we use ‘why’ and how crucial it is. Suppose, at work, some kind of change is to be implemented that may impact many people. If you are the leader of change, you should have a conceptual clarity on the need for the specific change and be able to communicate the reasons to those people affected by the change. When you are communicating the need for change, start with the ‘why’ of the change. People more often start with the ‘what’ of the change and get directly to how the change is going to be implemented. People, especially professionals, crave to know the impetus for change. Once they understand the reason, it will be easier for them to go along with the change or even to participate in implementing the change. If they are part of the change process, that means they owned the change. Remember, people support and stand by a solution that they have contributed to or helped create. For this to happen, it all starts with understanding the ‘why’ of the change.

Toyota uses the ‘Five Whys’ (5 Whys - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) approach to get to the bottom of a problem – root cause analysis (RCA). I found this excellent example involving Jeff Bezos of Amazon finding a root cause of an accident. He only asked few questions (whys) to get to the bottom of the incident and of course to the solution - see Jeff Bezos and Root Cause Analysis.

There are many cases and scenarios where we can discuss the benefit of answering ‘why’ – but, I hope you get the idea. The point is - in order to answer the ‘why’ of something, you need conceptual clarity. Answering ‘why’ needs thorough thinking and clarity in your reasoning. If you do not have any clarity in your answers, you should expect more questions to follow. Watch out of people that provide a quick and closed answer for a ‘why’ question. Such answers as – ‘Because I want to’; “It is not a democracy’; ‘Because I saw it in my dream’; and so on are very shallow. If you have a boss that is not capable of answering your why questions – run away from him/her.

I threw or blabbered some ‘wording’ to my dear friend to the question that he asked me - why I chose to live in the US. I realized how difficult is to answer the ‘why’ question without conceptual clarity. I also wonder how good all the answers were to the other questions from my family and friends - thinking that I might not answer the 'why' question.

Why do not you try to ask yourself some kind of why question – like, why do you choose to work for the company you are working for now? Are you sure of your answers?

Currently Reading: Pragmatic Thinking and Learning: Refactor Your Wetware (Pragmatic Programmers) by Andy Hunt.