Give your communications the power of the Why – three reasons not to focus on the what

Earlier this week I had an experience that made me stop in my tracks. I realised that not only did people at a networking event ask me the wrong question. I also gave the wrong answer. I put my What before my Why.

Rather than asking “why do you do what you do?” they asked me “what do you do?”. And rather than saying, “well the What is important, but I’m going to give you my Why”, I just went on auto pilot and said: “I do strategic marketing consultancy and run workshops using the LEGO® Serious Play® methodology.”  

So why is this important? Why should we all focus on the Why and put the What in its place?

An honest Why gets engagement

I’d wager that most of you can answer the question “what does your business do?” The phrase “I am a strategic marketing consultant specialising in building brands and creating snazzy brand guidelines” comes all to easily to my lips. But does this make you want to engage in a conversation with me? I doubt it. 

But if you said, “Mark, why do you do what you do? I’d probably say “I believe strongly in the power of excellent communications to make a difference.” Now surely that’s a phrase that would make you want to continue that conversation. An honest appraisal and expression of why I go to work every day. 

Why should I engage with you and your business?

A realistic Why makes sense

Some might say that my Why is a bit waffly, and a bit pie-in-the-sky. And perhaps there’s an element of truth to that. But my Why is also honest and realistic. It gets to the heart of what I do. I get very frustrated by poor communications and marketing. And that’s a frustration borne out of knowing what a bit more thought and effort could produce.

So when looking into your Why keep it relevant, honest and realistic. Don’t claim that you believe in the power of your restaurant reservation app to change people’s lives. But do say your company believes in anything that takes the stress out of an everyday situation. 

Be ambitious to just the right amount. 

Understanding your Why makes marketing so much easier

Raise your hands anyone who has sat down to write a headline for a newsletter, some copy for an advert or the opening page of a brand book and not known where to start. Me! Well, in my experience, by taking the time to explore your Why helps this process no end. 

If you know what you stand for then you know what motivates you. And if you know what motivates you then you can communicate this with passion. And if the passion is genuine then your customers will believe you. And if you can build it or write it in simple language, then you’ll have so much more time for everything else. 

Use your Why for efficiency and creativity

The moral of this story? I’m convinced about the power of the Why, and my Why is more important than my What. So the next time someone asks me what I do, I’m going to be brave. I’m going to say “well, thanks for asking what I do. But I’m actually going to start with Why I do it.” And see if that makes a difference.

Unleashing your true passion and skills – introducing a small exercise that could really help you make a positive change to your relationship to work.

Hopefully, you enjoy your job. At least some of the time. And if I asked you which activity at work you liked the most, I’m assuming you could tell me with only a little thought.

But what if I asked you to be more specific and pinpoint the exact MOMENT during that activity when the light goes on in your eyes? Have you ever thought about that? 

What are the exact moments during your favourite work activity where you feel a little extra joy, fully attentive, and have a sense of being really present? Stop reading for a moment and think about it.

Understanding the moments that get us firing

This is a question that I have asked myself, asked members of teams I’ve managed, and which I ask during one of the workshops that I give. I find the question to be an excellent way of getting to the root of what truly motivates us. By zooming in on these small but vivid moments, we can shed some of the associations that are connected to a particular activity. The moments that people come up with are often generalisable. By finding them, you can start to design them into more of your activities, both at work and outside of work.

An example or two

Say that you are a digital designer. When asked what you like doing, you might reply that you enjoy designing. When you dig deeper, you find that what you really, and more specifically,  enjoy, is problem-solving with others, keeping your artboards organised, or testing your designs on real users and seeing how they react.

Here’s another example. Maybe you are a manager and say that you like leading people. Fair enough. Again we dig deeper and find that the moments that you really savour are things like creating order out of chaos, asking questions that help people come unstuck, or when you create and give a presentation.

For each of these answers, you can dig even further. Let's hone in on giving presentations. You like giving presentations, but which part of that activity? Is it crafting a message, adapting to the reactions that you get from your audience, answering questions afterwards, or what?

Following the clues
All of these answers are clues to what motivates you. When you have a more precise idea of what you enjoy, without a lot of unreflected baggage about work roles and work tasks, the next step is to find ways in which you can have more of those peak moments. 
What is one of my own moments? Having spent more than 20 years working as a designer, people probably think my answer would revolve around creativity, perhaps coming up with new ideas or solving problems. Sure, I like those things, I like them a lot, but one of my peak moments, funnily enough, occurs when I run my workshop about motivation. 

It happens at the very moment when I see the light go on in people’s eyes as they identify some of their peak moments. I know, this is terribly meta. But I am not trying to make a cute point at the end of this little essay. There is a real and profound joy for me at being present when someone discovers something useful about themselves, something that they can quite easily and immediately start to apply to create positive change. I also savour the fact that such a small thing can have such a broad impact.

Being busy being busy – why busyness can sometimes mean avoiding the awkward thing on your todo list

It’s time for honesty. Who has recently either said the phrase “I’m just really too busy right now” at work? Or heard it said by a colleague or a friend? 

Or even feels, having read this first sentence, too busy to read the rest of this blog? 

Google’s Dictionary [I was under too much pressure writing this blog to find a different source] describes busyness as being “the state or condition of having a great deal to do.” And it’s true that we all in business often appear to have too much to do. 

I’ve had the privilege over the recent years to work and interact with a large number of individuals working in companies over a wide variety of industries. 

And one thing that has often struck me during a workshop exercise such as “describe your role at work”. People are very very very busy. All the time. 

Understanding the root causes of busyness

But are we workers really as busy as we claim? Is this actually always the case? Because I've been wondering whether being busy is actually a state that we sometimes enjoy, appreciate or find satisfying.

And so perhaps the question us busy people should be asking is actually this.

Why do we all have ‘a great deal to do’? Is there just too much to do? Or, could it be [he whispers] that sometimes the collective we sinks back into the routine of being ‘too busy’ in order to avoid doing some of the things on our lists that we don’t want to do. 

Perhaps because they are hard / boring / new / challenging [delete or add more as appropriate]? 

Too busy to stop being busy

Maybe I’m being over dramatic here. Too sarcastically British. But I think it’s important that we ask ourselves this question from time to time. For, if we’re all too busy all the time, how will we ever find the time to work out a way of stopping being too busy? 

Now, I’m not going to pretend that I have the answers or power to help with this right here in this blog. Changing business culture, enabling you to get more resource to help with tasks, working effectively through delegation or just communicating more effectively is definitely too much to expect here.

But what about doing a quick experiment? Take 30 seconds to consider the reasons why you’re always so busy. And perhaps think about what might allow you to change this. Maybe there’s a simple action that would change things for the better. 

And if you think someone you know might enjoy this blog. But that they’re likely to be too busy and would never find time to read it. Well. What can I say? Perhaps it’s a good place to start.