Finding the “why” of your employees is critically important in order for you to get the most leverage out of their talent and ability as they help you build your company — whether you have 10 or 10,000 employees. Finding the why and connecting their why with their job or the work that they do in your company, and then helping them to identify that, get clear about that, and live that out in their life — both within their work in your company or also within their life, and how one should support the other. This is an ecosystem that can provide you with long-term internally motivated employees by finding their why.

Why are they working at your company? Why are they doing the work that they’re doing? What is the purpose of their job? Are they clear about it being a vehicle for them to achieve the things that they want to achieve in their life? Have you helped them draw the connection between their job and and their big “why”?

This is an area where you have to start asking these questions — even in the interviewing process when you’re onboarding somebody. Why are you here? How do you see this as a fit? How does this fit into your life? How does this fit into the big “why” of your life? And then, support them in that.

So “why” is a great question. It’s a simple question that can dramatically improve your employee engagement with all your employees. It’s a conversation that you’ll always find fruitful in managing, supporting and leading your team. If they understand there “why” then you can communicate better what the company’s “why” is and then you can correlate or connect the two of those together. When people get clear about their “why”, they gain confidence. They get committed to the task. They have a sense of courage that takes them to a new level and performance.

Everybody’s looking for an edge in business. And one of them is finding the “why” of your employees, of your team, of your managers, of your leadership. When you can do that and connect the “why” for them personally with the “why” for the company, then you’ve got something! That is what we call an unfair advantage in the marketplace because your people are internally motivated with the big “why” being the secret sauce of your advantage. Overall your competition.

We look forward to hearing what you’re finding when you’re asking “why” questions. Let us know because we’d love to talk to you about it.