“Why and which?” Rachel repeated. We had been talking about planning. Come the first week in January, Rachel had to present her 2011 plan to the rest of her management team.
“How did you approach this plan last year?” I asked.
“I’m not sure, seems like we just got the group together and set some goals for the year.”
“Interesting. And, how did that work out?”
“It’s funny,” Rachel said. Her eyes wandered to the ceiling. “We never really looked at them again, until last week when I started thinking about 2011.”
“Did you accomplish any of the things you set out to do?”
“We knocked a couple of things off the list, but I have to tell you, some of the stuff didn’t even matter. It was really kind of vague.”
“So, why did you create the plan?” I asked.
“Because we were supposed to,” Rachel replied.
“So, you never really asked the question –why-?”
“Maybe, you are right, that is the first question.”
Planning is a funny thing. Sometimes it’s useful, sometimes it’s pointless. It depends on how it’s done.
It depends on how it’s done and why it’s done. That’s why “why” is the first question.
Not asking why is surely a sign of a disengaged employee. It is vital you ensure your team understand the context of the tasks assigned to know why they need to be done, to know why there part is an important contribution to the organizational effort.
Rob, thanks for leading us to that next step. Once we have determined “why,” the manager’s role is to set the context for the task assignments. Pretty tough to set that context when we haven’t answered the question, “why.”