Asking Why
By Bob Plankers on Feb 26, 2007 in People Stuff, System Administration
Seth Godin has a post about answering “why?” sorts of questions, concluding with a great line:
“The single most efficient (and lowest cost) technique for improving your operations is answering the why questions! You should embrace these people, not send them away.”
Last week I had a customer ask me why my team has a policy to do something a certain way. My response was “you know, I know why we did it in the past, but it doesn’t make any sense now.” The simple question of “why?” prompted a policy change.
I always try to answer “why” questions with a truthful answer. If I don’t know why something is the way it is I find out. I hate argument by authority answers like “because it’s our policy.” I will never leave an answer at that. Sure, sometimes my explanation of why we do things a certain way doesn’t go over well, but then the customer and I can have a productive discussion to sort it out.
As a system administrator, what do you do when someone asks you ‘why?’
Can everybody on your team answer a “why” question? If not, do they feel comfortable passing that question to someone else who can answer it?
Why not?
Homework: at your next team or group meeting let everybody ask one question of the rest of the group, about anything work-related. If you run out of time pick it up again at the next meeting. If a question cannot be answered designate someone to figure it out.
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3 Comment(s)
By Robyn Tippins on Feb 26, 2007 | Reply
Of course, that would be assuming that people actually cared about ‘why’ and not just about meeting timelines and number goals. LOL
By Gunjan on Feb 27, 2007 | Reply
:-) i love the idea of asking ‘Why?’ – Sometimes we get so involved in what we have to do that we forget why we were doing it in the first place…
By Bob on Feb 27, 2007 | Reply
Yes, it does assume people care, but if people don’t care then it’ll be hard to do anything, including keep your customers. :-)