Monday 12 September, 2011
When employees start to ask, "Why are we doing this?" in
order to connect the work with a reason, a culture of "Why" begins to
emerge. "Why?" is the question that gets people thinking about the best
way to do things and the reasons for doing them. It's engagement and
innovation in embryo.
Why "Why?"
We don't usually picture supervisors and managers hanging out in "war rooms" conjuring up new operational strategies. Most of the time they're in tactical mode, making sure everyone is doing what they are supposed to be doing and running interference to keep things operating smoothly. In a typical workplace it's considered the nuts and bolts of executing. In this mode, employees rarely ask, "But why?".It may be because things have always been done that way, leaders don't tolerate questions, or nobody thought to ask. And sometimes just doing what we're supposed to be doing seems to be what we need to do. However, if you want an organisation where employee innovation is more than a catch phrase, "But why?" may be the most important question ever asked.
"But why?" you ask. Ah! See what just happened? You wanted to dig deeper to find out for yourself how relevant that statement was. If it doesn't make sense to you, you won't see much reason to apply it. If it does, you will make a decision about how, and to what extent, you'll use it. It's no different for others in the workplace. When they ask questions, just like you, they're looking for deeper meaning than what they get from responses like "that's how it's always been" and "because that's what the boss wants".
Digging deeper
It gets even better when the question shifts from why the boss wants it to why it matters. When employees want to know how the work is relevant, they're usually looking for greater purpose. They want to be part of something bigger than a set of tasks they get paid to perform. They want to feel like their work lives have more meaning than that.So they ask. They're beginning to think like stakeholders and feel ownership or responsibility for the group's success. They start asking if whoever made the decision about producing the report or doing the work a certain way really thought about all the possibilities and the business case for doing it. Since they're responsible for their contributions, they want to be part of the process for figuring out what the team should do to get better results.
Igniting the spark
A great way to start building a "Why" culture is to make a big deal out of why questions from employees. Encourage questions by providing lots of information when answering them. Better yet, ask staff your own why questions to help them learn more about the business. Begin including staff in discussions about how to tackle challenges. Ask them why they think a decision was made and who would be able to give them answers.Try to do it publicly in staff meetings or other places where employees can experience how you react to and support questioning. Anticipate "Why?" questions and start providing answers even before the questions get asked. Even though "But why?" may become so repetitious it develops into the local office joke, helping employees to find answers and continue asking might be just enough to turn that joke into a driver of workplace engagement and innovation.
Trying it on for fit
Analyse how you are at work by asking yourself three questions about how you responded to recent workplace situations:- Did you accept things as they were or what you were told without asking "Why?"
- Did you ask questions to understand how decisions relate to business results?
- Did you drill deeper with questions about how people made decisions about the situation, and what those decisions were based on in order to get at fundamental reasons for what people are doing and why?
Source:ceoonline.com
No comments:
Post a Comment