From the course: Holding Your Team Accountable

What's your team's "why"?

From the course: Holding Your Team Accountable

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What's your team's "why"?

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- Why is your team a team? What work do you need to accomplish that's better suited for a team to work together collaboratively on, rather than tasking each individual to do their own thing? Should it even be a team? I'm not asking these questions to be rhetorical. Understanding why your team exists is fundamental, and even if you have solid answers to why you exist, it's important for your team to go through the exercise of defining your purpose. You may have heard of the five why's as a strategy for root cause analysis. You use these questions to get to the core of a problem so that you can address its underlying issues. I like to use five why's to explore a team's purpose. You could facilitate a discussion around this for your team at your next meeting. Start by asking each person to write down: One, why is your team a team? This isn't an existential dilemma, but ask them to bottom-line this. In only one sentence, why are you a team? Your follow-up question is: Two, why is your work important? Once they've written down their answer to question number two, you can ask number three, so why is that important? At this stage, team members might become defensive thinking you're personally asking them why they're valuable to the team. Take a moment to explain, that understanding your role in the bigger picture matters. You probably see where this is going. Question number four is why is that important? With the that being whatever was discussed in the answer to question three. Our fifth question is another why. Number five, why does that matter? Here you're focusing on the why that was answered the fourth time. Typically, by the time you've gotten down to the fifth why you've defined the essence or the main reason your team matters. You've essentially just asked the question, why, five different times. Now that everyone has answered their why's, have each person report out what they wrote down. You can keep track of this on a board or in your notes. Make sure you indicate where you see overlaps in the answers you've heard. It's also a good idea to keep a record of the departures. There may be people on your team who have wildly different ideas about why you're a team and why your work matters. Drilling down to an agreed upon purpose, or why for your team, will help to get everyone in alignment. Having a broader understanding of why your team is important also helps to put your work into perspective and can make people feel appreciated for their work.

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