Knowing ‘Why’

My good friend Dr Amy Silver recently wrote an article titled, “You don’t need to know why”. It really got me thinking. I’ve always held that knowing the ‘why’ behind something is critically important. Knowing 'why' gives greater adaptability. If something changes, and you need to change a plan or act quickly, knowing 'why' makes it much more likely that what you do next will still be taking you in the right direction.

'Why' also empowers teams to be more autonomous. If the 'why' is clear, a leader can be less focused on the detail and leave that in the hands of a competent team.

Amy is a very experienced Clinical Psychologist, who works with teams for high performance. Her article was about patterns of behaviour and mindset which get in our way. Lots of people want to know 'why' the pattern exists. What happened to create it. Amy says that can be useful to explore, but takes time, and isn’t necessary for changing the pattern. That’s what got me thinking.

Exploring and establishing ‘why’ takes time in any endeavour. Sometimes we don’t have time. In pressured situations requiring a rapid response, there won’t be enough time to convey 'why' to a team. Some people are quite happy to act without knowing the bigger picture too. Those on your team who say ‘Just tell me what needs doing and I’ll do it’, are quite happy with clear direction without the bigger picture. Others find it very hard to act unless they know 'why'. Trying to get them to act faster without a ‘why’ just slows things down.

If knowing 'why' will be critical to success in a pressured situation, ideally we’d take the time to establish it well in advance. This could be a big picture overview, fundamental principles, or a set of priorities that aid decision making and action. Trying to establish these in the heat of the moment rarely works well.

And if the 'why' is not particularly important, Amy’s bigger question was not 'why', but ‘how much flexibility have we got in the moment?’. And I reckon there’s times where that would get us to effective action quicker than exploring 'why'.

What do you think? Is knowing 'why' always necessary for you or a team?