The Word That Will Make You Win

I always considered the gods of industry untouchable. Men and women part of a pantheon so far above rivaling their greatness almost seemed impossible.

Until I started asking this one word.

It's astonishing how a small word can bring some of the greatest entrepreneurs and C-suites to their knees. It's a word they openly enamor but secretly fear.

That word is "why".

But why, well, why?

Because it solves a problem made by social etiquette. Most people seem to be uncomfortable with confrontation. Let's imagine the following scene: an idea is presented during a meeting. Because confrontation feels uneasy, no one speaks up, even though most think the idea is horrible! The problem is that this behavior leads to much worse outcomes down the line. I call the people who don't speak up the nodders. Whenever someone says something, as ridiculous it may be, the default reaction is agreeing in the form of nodding.

But then this one person speaks up.

This one person is part of a group of people who are comfortable with upsetting someone. They aren't bothered by it because they understand only the idea is attacked, not the person who had the idea.

Just like the nodders, these people also have a name. I call this group the The Challengers. The nodders call the Challengers something else: freaking annoying.

Because the Challengers lead the charge to reason with this one word as their spear: why.

Why is the boogeyman of ideas. Yet it's also one of the greatest assets one can have. Because it gives you a reality check when you've fallen in love with your ideas. Romeo and Juliet is a great romantic tale, not a manual for designing solutions. Also, their love lasts about five days before they decide they can't live without each other. That's more than double the time it should take you to kill a bad idea. Don't Romeo-it-up. If the results come in and they're not as good as you thought, walk away from the idea and straight back to the drawing board. Don't go looking for a problem for your solution.

Just one caveat: sometimes, the best thing to do is throwing everything I just told you straight into the bin and go for that crazy idea of yours, even though you've almost why'd it out of existence. Yet asking why is still a great litmus test and will help you to make your crazy idea more likely to succeed.

Asking why is uncomfortable. It's an idea-destroyer. But ideas need to be stripped down so they can be built up in something useful.

Don't overcomplicate it. If the right path hasn't shown itself yet, one simple compass is always ready to roll off your tongue: ask why.