After fifteen years interviewing workers, the speaker found people crave meaning more than instructions. Leaders focus too much on how to do things and skip the why. Try this week: cut two how conversations, add two why conversations, and watch what changes.
We tend to go crazy on the idea of how. Here's how you do it. When we're teachers or trainers, here's how you do it. Here's how you do it. Oh no, no, here's how you have a crucial confrontation. Here's how you have a crucial conversation. Here's how you do it. Here's how you do it. And we lose sight on why. Why are we doing it in the first place? Why does it even matter? Why is it significant? And my experience over the last 15 years of interviewing people about their work is people are yearning for that sense of why. So my one Recommendation to you is next week when you go back to your offices, especially if you have any nominal authority over other people, have 2 fewer conversations about how and 2 more about why, and I think you'll see an uptick in performance.
