{"id":129,"date":"2017-11-29T04:39:40","date_gmt":"2017-11-29T04:39:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dhunterdigital.com\/?p=129"},"modified":"2018-01-01T21:46:17","modified_gmt":"2018-01-01T21:46:17","slug":"the-power-of-why-equipping-your-team-to-succeed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dhunterdigital.com\/index.php\/2017\/11\/29\/the-power-of-why-equipping-your-team-to-succeed\/","title":{"rendered":"The Power of &#8220;Why&#8221; &#8211; Equip Your Team To Succeed!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As a manager do you find it hard to get your personal deliverables done because you team needs so much support from you? Are they constantly asking for direction or what their next step is?<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps the issue is that you are telling your staff \u201cwhat\u201d to do instead of discussing the \u201cwhy.\u201d Let me explain\u2026<\/p>\n<p>As a manager and leader my strength comes not from myself, but from my team.\u00a0 My team gives me leverage, if I allow them.\u00a0 The best way I have found to do this is to discuss the \u201cwhy\u201d of the situation with them: why this task is needed, why it is critical to the big picture, why particular outcomes are favored.<\/p>\n<p>Why?\u00a0 Why take the time to do this? It takes time and emotional energy to discuss \u201cwhy\u201d with people.\u00a0 It is faster and more efficient to just tell them \u201cwhat\u201d to do.\u00a0 But here\u2019s the issue: while telling your team \u201cwhat\u201d is quicker in the short term, it is slower in the long term.<\/p>\n<p>The old adage goes \u201cgive a man a fish and he will be hungry tomorrow, teach a man to fish and he will eat forever.\u201d\u00a0 The modern corollary is \u201cgive a man a task and he will need direction again tomorrow, teach a man why he is doing a task and he can do it more quickly and autonomously tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Here are some reasons \u201cwhy\u201d this approach is good:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Capacity: your staff can act more autonomously (that famous \u201cempowerment\u201d) which gives you more capacity<\/li>\n<li>Speed: your staff doesn\u2019t need to wait for your direction or approval.\u00a0 They move quickly because they understand what needs to be done and what great outcomes are.<\/li>\n<li>Quality:\u00a0 my direction may be wrong or sub-optimal.\u00a0 If my team truly understands the problem then they may propose a better solution than mine. Without context my team will deliver what I asked for, not what I needed.<\/li>\n<li>Motivation: the team is more engaged because they are empowered and have more meaning, they see their importance in the big picture.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Don&#8217;t tell people what to do, tell them why\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As a manager do you find it hard to get your personal deliverables done because [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":163,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[8,5,6,7],"class_list":["post-129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-leadership","tag-empowerment","tag-leadership","tag-management","tag-motivation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dhunterdigital.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dhunterdigital.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dhunterdigital.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dhunterdigital.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dhunterdigital.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dhunterdigital.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":143,"href":"https:\/\/dhunterdigital.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129\/revisions\/143"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dhunterdigital.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dhunterdigital.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dhunterdigital.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dhunterdigital.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}