The Most Important Question of All

In all of my years of consulting, there is one question that I ask my clients. 

About 20% attempt to answer it.  Of that 20%, 20% of that group does a good job of answering it well.  The rest do their best and I commend them for trying.

The other 80% either say “because” (which is a non-answer), get frustrated by the question or simply don’t try to answer it at all.

It is a complex question after all, although deceptively simple in appearance.

If you can’t answer this question in regards to your personal and professional life, then little alarm bells should be going off in your mind.

If your organization cannot answer the question, then the organization is in trouble.  You may not see it yet but it is coming.

The question is:

Why?

Seems like a simple question and yet when I put my strategy hat on and guide clients, it seems that this question gives them the most difficulty.

Consider these sample questions:

Why do you or your organization do what you do?

Why do you believe you are the best at it?

Why do you or your organization find areas of challenge and yet human or corporate ego doesn’t allow a simple request for help to be made?

Why don’t you REALLY do what needs to be done to achieve personal, professional or organizational success?

Can you answer the question of “Why”?

When you find that  your personal or professional life or perhaps the life of your organization seems to be stuck in a quagmire, can you honestly answer the question?

Do your answers stand up to close scrutiny?

If they do, good for you – you are on your way to eventually wrestling your challenges to the ground.  It may not be easy, but your eye is “on the prize” and this will keep you focused and moving forward.

If your answers do not stand up to scrutiny, take some time to explore this space.  Preferably allow someone to objectively guide you through this exploration.  This keeps your exploration honest and authentic and has the best hope of producing a better result.

If you can’t answer this question, you are only pretending to be moving closer to your personal, professional or organizational goals.

You will indeed get somewhere – it just may not be what you hoped for.

Why would you want this to happen?

Why would you allow this to happen?

Why indeed?

In service and servanthood.

Harry

For my detailed blog about “The Most Important Question of All”, please click here.