The Inner "Why"

Even before our beers arrived, Abe launched in to his frustrations with Brett, who is leading his inventory team. “Two consecutive yearly inventory counts have yielded poor results, and it is not due to a lack of effort,” he said. Brett approached last year’s underwhelming results by hiring a second inventory employee to double check the daily inventory counts. This approach provided nominal improvement on this year’s inventory, but results were still not in line.

"Following this logic", Abe went on to tell me, "Brett has employed a third member of his staff to triple check the daily counts of the two current warehouse employees who were already counting each item in the warehouse." He had implemented this new process in preparation for next year’s count, expecting a more accurate count.

Brett’s mantra, “more eyes means more accuracy.”

My only response was a line of questions.
As it turned out, it only took three to make progress:

1) Do you have the “right” person for the job (meaning, does Brett have the competencies necessary to be successful)?

Abe said, yes.

2) Does he have the right (and adequate) tools/training for the job?

Abe, again, said yes.

3) Does he have the right motivation and inspiration to do the job?

With a puzzled look on his face, Abe said, “I think so.”

I had seen this puzzled once before, I knew it meant we were making progress.

“Would you say Brett wants to have perfect inventory counts,” I asked?

“Yes, ” Abe said again, still puzzled.

“Is Brett motivated by a fear of not having accurate counts, or by an internal desire to achieve excellent results? Do you know why Brett works for you?”

Abe looked pensive. I continued,

“What if Brett was motivated to ensure there was never an item missed in an inventory count, not because he feared getting a ‘talking to’ (or worse, getting fired), but rather because he cared about accurate inventory and was motivated by his own desire for excellence? Would he still need to spend payroll on three employees to count the same items 3Xs?”

Abe finally took a sip of his beer , and his face relaxed. “I have some work ahead of me digging to the bottom of Brett’s ‘why’ don’t I,” he said with a sigh. I nodded and said, “and when you do, you may find Brett is in fact not the ‘right’ person.”

More often than not, it is a motivation issue rather than a skill issue. It is the internal “why” that puts us off course when it is either misaligned or missing altogether.

More on the inner “why” in this
TED talk by Simon Sinek