Shakespeare was Wrong. The Question is “WHY?”

photo credit: amboo who?

“To be or not to be…”  I memorized that whole monologue in high school.  Parts of it I can still recall, but there is another question I can’t forget.  “WHY?”

When asking “to be or not to be,” the follow up question to this is, “to be what?”  Before we EVER talk about ‘what’, we need to talk about ‘why’.

A very wise man once taught me over and over again, “Teach the WHY’s.  The WHAT’s will automatically follow and will be instinctively deduced.”

When your ‘customers’ come to you and say WHAT they need, ask them WHY.  It will, most assuredly, throw them off (and very often, make them a wee bit irratable).  But it MUST be asked.  If not, you have a lot of THINGS with no real substance behind them.

If someone says, “We need a wiki” or “We want to blog.”  Ask them WHY.  Don’t say, “Oh, OK.”  They may have a very good reason.  But good reasons are not enough, unfortunately.

I remember when my eldest son was in nursery at church and he bit four other young’ns.  I could have said, “Dr. Dentist, please take out his teeth.”  Why?  My motivation was good, but my mode of resolution was bad.

Your people may come to you with a bad what, with a good why, and YOU may help them come up with a better what.