Why Know Your WHY?
Knowing Your WHY strengthens corporate culture, employee engagement and deepens connections with ideal clients, customers and investors
Discussions abound on how to fortify employee engagement. Awareness of the critical need to place employees and team members “in the right seats on the bus” has been heightened. Companies strive to create not only external raving fans, but impassioned, raving employees as well. Given recent trends and statistics, it is no surprise that organizations are placing a concerted effort on beefing up engagement.
Gallup states in their most recent State of the Workplace report that 70% of all employees are indifferent or actively disengaged, and that each “actively disengaged” employees costs an employer an average $25,000 per year. SHRM, (Society for Human Resources Management), estimates that bad hires cost up to five times their annual salary. Forbes cites an average annual turnover rate of 33%, with nine out of ten people leaving because of attitude.
Concern with these statistics is well founded. Again according to Gallup, it literally pays, in a big way, to be in the top 25% of “Engaged Companies.” Those that achieve this top quartile realize: 37% less turnover, 48% fewer safety incidents, 41% fewer product defects, 21% higher productivity, and my favorite: 22% higher profitability. Whether a given business or organizational leader is paternal and nurturing, or, conversely, dispassionate and bottom-line oriented, these numbers should be motivation enough. Leaders need to source, bring to their organizations, and institutionalize sure-fire ways to increase engagement.
Recently, I have been introduced to, and have become a huge proponent of, a novel approach to increasing both internal and external engagement. The “Know Your WHY” movement that is making great headway and producing consistently positive results as it spreads across the country and the globe. The secret sauce is that it is based on the way each individual in a business, organization, or team is hardwired.
So what is a WHY?
To paraphrase Ridgley Goldsborough, serial entrepreneur, prolific author, world-class speaker, and KnowYourWHY co-founder, I offer this explanation:
Your WHY is so profound it changes the way you see yourself and others. It changes the way you relate to the people around you. It is what people rely on your for. It becomes your unique gift.
From the moment you learn to talk, the most recited word in your vocabulary is “WHY?” You want things to make sense – you want the world not to seem like one big question mark.As you mature, you move from questioning why the sun comes up to an absolute need for answers to essential questions such as: Why are we here? What is the point?
At the root of it all, we crave a “feeling”, a feeling that equates to successful living and successful work. We need to know that we matter, our work matters, our existence matters. And in this “feeling” lies the magic, the hard-wiring, the coding that guides our every decision. Because when we find the behavior that gives us that “feeling” of success we repeat it over and over again—inside and outside of work. It becomes WHY we do all that we do.
Finding your view from the inside is what “Discovering your WHY” is about. Your WHY is what makes your special and different. It’s how you operate. It’s your gift.
My WHY Story
Through my own personal WHY Discovery, I now understand that I am wired to create a greater impact: to take a larger number of people and organizations to their maximum potential. Knowing my WHY has transformed me both on a professional and personal level. Simply stated, the WHY has become the lens through which I see just about everything.
As such, working with each of my client’s individual WHY’s has become a foundational, inextricable element in my Compellications™ (Compelling Communications) coaching. Colleagues, clients and workshop audiences immediately see value in working within this framework–and this appreciation only builds as their understanding of the WHY, and of themselves, deepens. I am now devoting much of my energy toward “making the world a better place one WHY at a time.” As a communications professional, I am ecstatic about the WHY—it’s a game changer!
Why the WHY Matters to your Organization
Your WHY enables you to inspire others. When you realize your unique gift and are validated for bringing it forward, it empowers you. You gain clarity and confidence because you can see both where you have been and where you are going. You can clearly articulate your vision and create a unified culture, with all members pulling in the same direction.
When you discover the WHY’s of your team members, you understand how to best to motivate and communicate, individually, with each of them. You know how they tick. You have the intelligence to place them in (or move them to) the “right seats – in seats that will motivate them to excel. When WHAT they do is aligned with WHY they do it, they become impassioned, committed employees and form empowered, highly functional teams.
Knowing your WHY takes you to becoming an inspired business. Inspired organizations create brand alignment and powerful messaging. Inspired companies direct their communications toward targeted segments where their messaging will resonate. ‘
When you identify and express WHY you do WHAT you do, people sign on. They buy into your cause. They buy into you. They become raving fans.
Every individual and every organization needs to know their WHY. Inspired organizations live it on a daily basis. It yields internal engagement – increasing productivity and profitability. It produces brand alignment, increasing wallet share.
Your WHY is what makes you unique and special. It’s worth taking the time to step back and figure it out.
Beth’s gift to you is a Complimentary WHY Discovery for you plus one other colleague, client or significant other. Please mention this article!