Why the wise ask why?
In the long-distant past, I’ve had the dubious opportunity to teach people how to use either a computer or some sort of computer application. Quite often, when explaining how to do something, I cringe inwardly as the student starts writing down each and every step. Their goal, of course, is to use these written instructions to complete the task on their own. The problem is that they are seldom faced with the exact same task again. Their written instructions are useless to them, unless they know why those specific instructions were appropriate to that specific task.
Writing down every instruction is the syntactical approach to learning. It attempts to place every task into a separate little box and then capture the specific sequences of actions necessary to complete it. This strategy has its place. If we have to use a complicated device on infrequent occasions to complete the exact same task each time, then a written list of instructions is the solution. An example is learning how to turn off a complicated alarm system.
The problem we face is that most of the tasks we need to accomplish on a daily basis differ from day to day. They shift, they vary, they change and mutate. And, therefore, any list of instructions, instead of helping us, can often make things worse. We know the solution to this problem; we’ve known it since we were old enough to speak. We need to know why things work the way they do. This is the contextual approach to learning.
As children, our most commonly asked question, designed to help us understand how the world works (and not just drive our parents crazy – although that was fun), was the loaded question, “Why …?” It was closely followed by the other questions: “How?” – “Who?” – “Where?” – “When?” (Reporters expanded this list with “What?”)
I don’t know if those questions – especially the question of “why” – are hard wired into our brains; but, it would not surprise me if some extremely expensive psychological study discovered this to be the case. All children, without exception, ask “why.” We all did so until our teachers and parents lost their patience and stifled our curiosity by responding with “Because I said so!”
“Why?” is the first step to wisdom. It is possible to perform highly complex tasks by rote, with no knowledge of why we’re doing what we’re doing; but, the moment something unexpected happens, then we’re lost. Once our written script fails us, then we have none of the knowledge necessary to help us create a new one. On the other hand, if we know “why” we were doing what we were doing, then we at least have a chance of figuring out what to do in new circumstances.
Despite this attempt by the adults of our childhood to relegate the question “why” to the list of seven questions we must never ask in public, we all still have this inherent need to know the “why” behind any command or instruction, especially if we’re being asked to change.
Despite the hundreds of books written on the subject of change (and the many change articles that have littered my column over the years), we all decide to change using the exact same process.
The process is exceedingly simple; it has to be straightforward, so that all of us can use it.
Step 1 – We become aware of “something.”
Step 2 – We ask ourselves if we should be concerned about that “something.”
We do that by following a predictive sub-process:
(i) If I do nothing in response to this “something,” what happens? We then decide if the result is acceptable or unacceptable.
(ii) If we deem the outcome acceptable, we do nothing.
(iii) If it is unacceptable, we decide that we need to do something. We don’t know what to do yet, but we’ve accepted that something needs to change in order to counteract the unacceptable outcome.
Step 3 – To the best of our abilities, we examine our alternatives.
Step 4 – To the best of our abilities, we narrow those alternatives down to a single choice.
Step 5 – We implement that choice.
Now, a list of five steps and a sub-process of three steps might “look” complicated, but it isn’t; each phase flows naturally from one to the other. This is exactly the process we follow when we place our hand on a hot stove and then decide whether or not to move our hand away from the heating element. It is also the exact same process we follow when we decide whether or not to buy a new car, build a new road, or quit a job.
In short, this process is the answer to the question “Why should I change?” – and it is crucial to our willingness to embrace a change. It is what determines, for us, that a change is necessary. Without an understanding of the thought process involved in getting to Step 5, we are naturally extremely reluctant to embrace the choice identified in Step 5.
When we express our belief that the most important aspect of managing change is communication, it is the reasoning inside this process that we must communicate. When we “resist” a change by asking “Why should we change?” it is the reasoning outlined above that we want to understand.
This isn’t an unreasonable request; it’s that instinctive need to understand that we all possess and that we do everything in our power to fulfill. The need to understand “why?” is one of those rare things we all have in common. Recognizing that common need and fulfilling it isn’t a complicated MBA management strategy … it doesn’t take a lot of time or a lot of money to learn this strategy; it’s just common sense. And, we thwart the need to know “why?” at our own peril. MW
as published in Municipal World, January 2016
PETER DE JAGER has a passionate obsession fascination with this thing called Change. If you’d like to inject some of that obsession passion into your organization’s change management thinking.
