When Robert F. Kennedy adopted the cause of civil and human rights for the poor and excluded from society's mainstream, he paraphrased the playwright George Bernard Shaw with these words: "Some men see things as they are, and ask, Why. I dream of things that never were and say, Why not? That thought encapsulated Kennedy's quest for equal rights as well as echoing the convictions of his younger brother, Ted, the long-serving senator.
The Kennedy boys were born to privilege but raised to challenge the status quo. Democrats do not have a lock on embracing new visions. It was Ronald Reagan who looked at relations between the U.S. and USSR and envisioned a different reality. He broke with the engagement and containment policy of the State Department that held the peace during the Cold War. Reagan used his communications, backed by military buildup, to crack the monolith of Soviet hegemony. Less than three years after he left office, the USSR dissolved.
A Potent Word One of the most powerful words in the English language is why. When asked as an interrogatory, why has the power to change assumptions, preconceptions and mindsets. It has the power to initiate change as well as the power to affirm the right course. It is a word that should be used frequently but with great care. When used the proper way, it can be one of the most effective tools a leader can employ. And it's totally free.
Why is a word favored by those not satisfied with the way things are. These individuals tend to be inventors, entrepreneurs, scientists, social capitalists and politicians. By nature, they are catalysts. Inventors and entrepreneurs wonder about alternatives using why to provoke thought about what might be and try and quantify it as a product or service. Scientists use why as part of the scientific method that begins with a hypothesis and ends with proof. Engineers use why as a means of diagnosis: what happens and why. Social capitalists and politicians alike use why to question assumptions about the way organizations and governments serve their constituents. For all of these types of people, why becomes the trigger word for invoking alternatives as well as beginning the process of bringing people along to alternate points of view.
How To Use the Power of Why When used appropriately, the word why can enable people to look beyond themselves, to consider alternate points of view and to begin to change their own notions about self and others.
Here are ways leaders can put why to work.
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Burst preconceptions. People with restless imaginations, be they scientists, inventors or explorers, are forever peeking behind preconceptions with questions beginning with why. For two millennia, learned men believed the sun rotated around the earth. Copernicus asked why that was so and proved the opposite. Christopher Columbus challenged the notion that the earth was flat; why not reach the Far East by going west from Europe? He was partially correct, but in the process discovered the New World.
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Question assumptions. One of the most often heard replies to a why question is this: "It's the way we always do it." One entrepreneur inventor who did not accept this assumption was aviation pioneer William Boeing. It was said of him that he would sink any number of "dry wells" if he thought he was drilling in the right field. Minor setbacks did not deter Boeing, nor would he let it deter others. If the assumption was sound, he ploughed ahead.
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Raise the stakes. Why questions can elevate the playing field. Take Bill Parcells, a winning football coach with three different organizations. When he takes over a new team, he uses the why word to instill a winning attitude, as in, "Why can't you do this?". Like Vince Lombardi before him, Parcells raises individual expectations and thereby raises the expectations of the whole team.
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Enlist support. All organizations, especially those undergoing change, need the support of everyone. By giving honest and defined answers to employees' why questions (why do we need to do this, why is this way better, or why can we stay the same?) leaders can inform people and begin the process of rallying them to the cause. Harley-Davidson did just this when it was undergoing its transformation to a customer-driven and employee-owned business.
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Identify new challenges. Asking why will often point to roadblocks. One of the reasons Jimmy Carter has been so successful as an ex-President is that he has continued to asked why questions about human and civil rights: Why must children go hungry? Why must competing parties fight in the streets instead of through elections? Why must people suffer river blindness when there is a simple and inexpensive cure? Questions like these led Carter around the world pushing his humanitarian agenda, for which he was awarded in Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.
Inherent in the word why should be hope. A leader's responsibility is to instill hope, not to hide the truth or to sugarcoat present difficulties, but as a way to encourage people to consider alternatives. You can promise hard work and hard times and hard challenges ahead, as Winston Churchill did for the British people in the Second World War, but you must give them something larger than themselves to believe in, too. For Churchill, it was nationhood and national character; for leaders of companies, it is the power of organization and the benefits of its products and services.
Why can propagate hope by raising the possibilities of alternate solutions to current problems. Instead of making current problems worse, leaders can encourage people to ask why as a means of encouraging them to find new and better ways of doing what they do and, in the process, add value to the process, product or service they provide. All of this emerges from a sense of why.
Use With Care
Why is a powerful tool for a leader to use but it should be used with discretion. Overuse can lead to unpleasant consequences.
For example, the manager who always asks why to any request or any issue risks trivializing the power of the word itself (as well as becoming extremely annoying). Too many whys will turn people off; they will feel that they are being questioned rather than their ideas. As a result, they will cease communicating to the manager, effectively cutting him or her off from information as well as relations with the team, a disastrous situation for any manager.
The power of why can also be turned inward; leaders need to question their own preconceptions and assumptions. Mother Teresa was someone who relentlessly questioned her beliefs, wondering at times she was doing God's will. If so saintly a woman as Mother Teresa can ask the eternal why, then leaders everywhere can look inside themselves.
When used correctly in the right situations, why has the power to get people to ask their own whys. They may discover new things about themselves as well as their work that will benefit their ability to grow as individuals and as contributors to the organization. Which makes why such a potent word. Its strength derives from the power of individuals to make a positive difference.
John Baldoni is a leadership communications consultant who works with Fortune 500 companies as well as non-profits including the University of Michigan. He is a frequent keynote and workshop speaker as well as the author of six books on leadership; the latest is How Great Leaders Get Great Results (McGraw-Hill). Readers are welcome to visit his leadership resource website at www.johnbaldoni.com.