‘How?’ not ‘Why?’

We’ve been trained from an early age to ask the ‘Why?’ question; it’s a great question to ask in so many areas, and rather surprisingly, a disastrous question to ask of much of life. 'Why?’ is often used as an opportunity, unfortunately, to find who is to blame, it focuses on the past of the problem and needs to be replaced with the much more useful ‘How?’ question. The ‘How?’ question focuses instead on solutions, on the future, on what action we need to take.

Look at this example: ‘Why do I never have enough money at the end of the month?’ This use of ‘Why?’ is predominantly a complaint, looking at who is to blame; it focuses on the problem and on the past. The ‘How?’ question, ‘How can I have enough money at the end of the month?’ is far clearer. It provides a much more interesting conversation; one that moves towards resolving the problem, looks at the future and creates action.  So the next time you find yourself asking ‘Why?’, check and see if it could be more usefully replaced with a 'How?' question - 99 times out of 100 it can be!

Hopefully you can begin to see from these simple examples the incredible value of knowing the '10 Questions' – my experience of working with some of the world’s top performers is that any plans or projects you have will be much more successful and easier to achieve if have these questions in your toolbox!

Phil Parker