The Genius of "Why"

I teach against blind obedience. I don't believe in it. I teach the following:

If you don't know why you do something, you can be tricked into doing anything.

If you know why I want things the way I want them, you'll be the agent that I can trust when I'm not there.

When you lead, tell your people to ask when they don't understand. If you always do that and your explanations are good, when there's no time to explain and you tell them that you'll need to explain it after the fact, they'll trust you and get it done.

Blind obedience gets you things like Nazism, Soviet Socialism and radical Islamism.

This assumes that you can explain why you want what you want. If you are the leader, you also must be the thinker. Your thinking must be thorough and defendable. You must have it boiled down and sliced and diced so that learning it is intuitive and persuasive. You must be articulate and inspiring.

When you can be that person, people will rally to action at your call. Even when they are tired or uncommitted they will take up the work. Peer pressure will become an instant ally instead of an omnipresent enemy. Your subordinate leaders will spend less time herding cats.

"Why" is important. "Why" is the root of all Science and Philosophy. The "why" is ultimately proven in the math; the physics, the chemisty, and the psychology; the calculus, the statistics, and the probabilities of action/reaction.

As John Mellencamp sang: "If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything"

Before standing for something, be sure to know why you are investing in it