I recently watched the 2005 documentary Enron: The smartest guy in the room. What struck me more this time was the tagline “Ask Why”, yet it appeared more like “Why, Ask Why” in the animation.
Most organizations promote “yes” men and women. They want people to just agree and move on. Part of this is that we lack a mechanism to challenge conventional wisdom or leadership opinion. While this is dangerous on a few levels, it also stiffles innovation and ultimately performance potential.
- When was the last time you found a new way to value a customer?
- When was the last time you found a way to measure process improvement on a key process?
- When was the last time you specifically assigned a trusted advisor to attack business assumptions?
- What happened to the last really good change agent in the organization?
All to often we answer requests with “yes, we can do that” when we should on occasion ask “why do you want to do that.” We need to break old molds and challenge ourselves to create a culture of action, a culture of 5% better everyday.
PureStone Partners LLC 