The Importance of explaining “Why” before “What” when we need help
As a human being, we always need help from other people. From our families, colleague, subordinates, managers, or business partners.
Usually, we always start with “what” when we want to ask other people a favor.
For example:
B: “Hey Andrew, can you please help me to make the video for the tech team?”
A: “Sure, but may I know what the video is for?”
B: “Cool man, it’s for our tech career fair next month”
A: “No problem”
Did you see something weird? Everything seems pretty normal and polite. The person said “please” and “help”.
If we analyze the conversation, the person starts with “what” first (can you make a video), and then after that “why”.
People see this as a normal situation. But, the truth is, it’s a problematic situation in our day to day conversation with other people.
Because people what to know the “why” first, before “what”.
Now, try to remember, have you ever got an order from your mom, teacher, lecture, or manager to do something and your first response was “Why should I do that?”.
In the book Start with Why, Simon Sinek said: “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it”
If we know that starting with “why” is that important, why don’t we do it? The answer is because it is not easy. It takes more effort to think and find a reason for our “what”.
In this article, I want to share my experience in applying this methodology on my personal & professional life. Here are some points I want to discuss with you.
Why we need to start with “why”?
As I mentioned earlier, before telling you what you need to do to apply this method, I’ll start with why we need to start with why.
First, according to science, one way to motivate people to do something is the power of the story. “What” is not a story, it’s a command. But, if you start with “why” you tell the background, you make the people understand more.
For example, I have an issue with my water faucet in the bathroom. You need to manually turn it off if not, the water will keep flowing. My partner usually forgot to turn it off. So, I want her to remember it.
Instead of telling her “Hey dear, don’t forget to turn off the water once you ready”.
I explained turning the water off makes my water bill cheaper in the previous 2 months, and after that remind her to always turn the water off.
The results? She got the message, no defensive arguments, and she always remembers to do it.
People are far more likely to accept a change if we understand the reason for it.
For example, we will be so angry if we stuck in a traffic jam for 30 min without moving. But after we know that it happens because of a terrible accident and we see the victim laying down in the street, our emotion turns from anger to pity.
Second, people will react favorably if we make them feel that we consider them honest, upright, and fair.
Dale Carnegie in his famous book “How to win friends and influence people” explained 1 principle on how to make people like you, it is “Appeal to the nobler motives”.
Here he explained that before you ask other people to do something, explain the motives, and explain how this activity has a strong correlation with that person.
He also mentioned that people are far more interested in themselves and their own problems than they are in us and our problems.
So, the next time you want to ask something from other people, remember that oversharing your problem with them will not help.
What are the benefits of starting with “why”?
It will drastically make people like you more, want to hear you, and at the end want to help you.
In December 2016, I sent an email to my CEO.
I wanted the company to buy a camera, a microphone, and a tripod. At that time, I was just joining my company for 3 months. It sounds quite impossible, but I just dare myself to hit the send button.
The email explained to him that we’ve created some videos for a company, but the quality is not good because we used a smartphone and old cameras. So, I ask, if it’s possible to buy a new camera. I also explained why we need to invest in it, what are the benefits from the company point of view. I also share detailed camera prices and options.
The results? It only takes him 30 minutes to reply to my email and approved the request.
The other example, I need help from my friend in English content writer team, to make an English subtitle for a behind the scene video project that I did with some e-commerce in Indonesia.
Currently, the language is in Indonesia. We have 4 videos. Each video’s duration is 3 to 4 minutes. She will need to listen to each of the videos and write down the translation in a word file. This task has nothing to do with her job. She didn’t get any bonus or points of helping me with this. But she agreed to help me with this project.
In the email, I explained the background of the project and also explained honestly why she is the best person to do help with a project.
So, the next time you want to ask people to do something for you, be it your family, your colleagues, your manager, or your client always start with why.
Before You Go!
- I am a content marketer based in Kuala Lumpur. If there is anything I can do for you, ping me in my LinkedIn
- You can check some of the work my team and I did here → Forbes: Get 200+ free Top News Media Publication in 8 Months
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