Richard Milligan realized in 2013 that he knew his own goals but nothing about what his team wanted. He started asking each person "What's your why?" Most were confused. Years later, Simon Sinek's ideas made purpose-driven questions normal in workplaces.
What is a question that leaders should be asking either themselves or others?
There was a moment for me, this is like 2013, so I had been leading for about 11 years inside one industry, and I had this moment where I began to become clear that I didn't really know what the people on my team wanted to accomplish. I was really clear on like what I wanted to accomplish, but I I wasn't really clear in what the people on my team wanted to accomplish. And so I can go back to 2013. I began asking a question to people, which was, what's your why? Like, what motivates you most? And one of the things I found is that people were actually confused by the question. I think now we are, you know, we're now 6, 7 years removed from that moment. You've got someone like a Simon Sinek who's written a book about why. I think we see it being used more in terms of culture and books today than it was 6 or 7 years ago. But one of the things that I struggled with was like, how do I get people clear on like, what do they want to accomplish? What's important to them?
