Everybody’s looking for an edge in business. One way to have the advantage over everyone else is to find the “why” of your employees, team, managers, and leadership. Use this to show them how to connect the “why” for them personally to the “why” for the company. If you can do this, then you’ve really got something special! We call this an unfair advantage in the marketplace because your people are internally motivated; with their big “why” being the secret sauce. This is an advantage over your competitors.
Finding the “why” of your employees is critically important in order to get the most leverage out of your people’s talent and ability as they help grow the company. It doesn’t matter how many employees you have (10 or 10,000). You create an ecosystem that can provide you with long-term internally motivated employees by finding their why.
Most people come to work because they have goals and dreams in their life that they want to achieve. By finding the why and connecting their why with their job or work that they do in your company, you show them how one supports the other. This is just one of the things that we do when we introduce The Dream Employee into a company. As you help your employees to achieve their personal goals and aspirations, this creates a better work environment because they know you care about them.
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 their big “why”?
This is an area where you have to start asking these questions — even in the interviewing process when you’re on-boarding somebody. Why are you here? How do you see this job as a fit in achieving your personal goals in life? What part does it play? Do you understand how your job can help you achieve your hopes and dreams and the big “why” of your life? When you know their “why”, you can then support them in it.
So “why” is 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 their “why” then you can communicate better what the company’s “why” is and then you can correlate and 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 of performance.
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.
