There’s a story about a mother and daughter making pot roast for dinner. As they prepared the dish, the mother cut off on both ends and placed them on top of the roast. The young girl looked at her mother and asked “Why do we always cut the ends off of the meat and put them on top?” Mom thought about it for a minute and finally said; “I don’t know that’s just how my mother taught me.” A moment later, she picked up the phone and called her mother. “Mom, why do we cut the ends of the pot roast and place them on top of the meat?” She heard a chuckle on the other end of the line right before her mother replied, “I don’t know why you do it but I did it because the pan was too small”.
This is an old story but it proves a point. How many times do you simply accept the way things are done is because they’ve always been done that way? If you don’t question the status quo things stagnate. Growth requires change; however, not all change results in growth. Before change can be meaningful you must know what needs changing and one of the best ways to understand the” what” is to understand the “why”.
I’m talking here about a deep down understanding. Don’t ask why one time and think you’re done. Take a look at these examples to see what I mean:
Example 1 [incomplete understanding]:
Person A: We need to schedule 3 hours to rearrange the supply room
Person B: Why?
Person A: Because the boss wants us to.
Person B: OK
Example 2 [complete understanding]:
Person A: We need to rearrange the supply room
Person B: Why?
Person A: Because the boss wants us to.
Person B: Why?
Person A: Because people are complaining that they can’t find things so we just keep reordering them. The boss is concerned that we are overspending our supply budget every month to buy things we already have. We need to make things more accessible to fix this. The supplies are here, they’re just stowed away in the cabinets and no one can find them easily so he wants us to rearrange things.
Person B: Maybe we need to take the doors off of the cabinets instead of rearranging the whole supply room. That should take about 20 minutes instead of 3 hours.
Person A: Great idea – We can try that first and see if we really need to rearrange everything. I’ll see what the boss thinks about doing that first.
This is a very simplistic scenario but the first example happens every day in organizations. I suggest that you answer each “why” with a “because” and question each “because” with a “why”. Eventually, your critical thinking skills will lead you to a “because” that (a) you can no longer question, or (b) leads you back to the original “why”. At that point you will have reached the AHA moment that drives the lasting, meaningful change you seek. Then, and only then, can you answer other questions that allow you to plan the change: Who will do it? When will it get done? What do you need? Where will it happen? How will it happen? But it all starts with “Why”.