I love to tell the story of Juliano. His father, Julio, was the manager of a hotel on the Adriatic coast of Italy that my family visited several times. Julio then purchased a hotel of his own near Rimini (not far away).
It was there that I met his young son, Juliano. The kid was maybe 5 years old and spoke very little English – just what he had picked up living in the hotel with many English guests.
Juliano followed my brother and I everywhere. If we played table tennis, he was watching. If we went to the beach, so did he.
He followed us with one word, repeated constantly: “why?”
Why were we going to the beach?
Why were we going to play each other?
Why?
It’s a great question and not always easy to answer, and I didn’t want to dismiss the cute kid out of hand.
He made me think – a very important activity.
Why is a great question for practitioners to ask.
Why are you doing that? Why aren’t you doing this?
Why are you performing that reconciliation?
Why are all your direct reports in this meeting?
Why are you selling that product?
Why are you managing cybersecurity in-house?
Why are your top salespeople given the best customers?
Why are your freight costs so high?
Why is your scrap level this high?
Why are you getting so many product returns?
Why do you use different software solutions in different…
