“Why” is one of the most powerful words we use.
As a single word, used by itself, “why” is one of the most powerful things we ever say, and is always a question. In our early years as a child we used that frequently, as a means to gain knowledge and understanding of our world. We used to ask it until it irritated the heck out of our parents to the point that they pulled out the trump answer “because (I said so!)”
In his paper “The Art and Architecture of Powerful Questions”, Eric Vogt, founder of Interclass, a consulting firm in Boston, says that in terms of the architecture (I read hierarchy) questions that ask “why” are more powerful than How and What, followed next by where, which, when and who. All of those rank above closed-ended questions, that is, questions that require a simple answer, such as yes or no, and can cut short a dialogue. So re-framing a question to include “Why” moves it up in terms of power.
Looking at this from a practical standpoint in the workplace, asking why something happens causes us to re-think what we do and how we do it. IF we seek to answer the question honestly. I believe that while asking why evokes the opening of the mind, there are other questions asked more often that cause us to become emotional and turn into “duck and cover” situations. The “who” question is often the first one asked, and if not specifically “who was responsible” the conversation generally seeks to find that first. When people think or feel that the conversation is really about finding fault then open and honest dialogue is diminished.
Think about it – we human beings always want to know who was responsible for an action, particularly if the action wasn’t a positive one. But if we ask “Why did this happen?” we ultimately end up with more information which leads to the right corrective action AND will lead us to who is responsible. On that journey of seeking “why” we may find out that the person responsible did it the right way for the context of the situation and that other forces such as processes and management may actually be the culprit. The next question is then what do we do to change the process and when do we implement it?
Bart Gragg
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