Why-How-What: the best agenda for strategy discussions

Many organizations are in the process to redefine or set their vision or strategy. New organizations need a strategy as a communication tool towards investors or potential customers. Existing organizations need to reconsider what they are doing due to changes in their environment. There are many ways to come to a strategy: from open discussions to filling in business plans. The Why – How – What framework, by Simon Sinek, is the framework I would recommend to most groups. Here is a short introduction of the framework.

The vision and strategy of an organization is not something an external consultant can write: it is meant to inspire people, starting with the management team, and therefore it is wise to define the strategy with the people who should get excited about it. Defining a strategy, be it for a small project or for an entire organization, is thus a people process. So how do you involve an entire team while keeping the discussion structured?

Simon Sinek and the Golden circle
Simon Sinek is an inspirational speaker who is most famous for his “Start with why” philosophy. In a TED talk in September 2010 he explained a discovery he made three and a half years ago. He calls it  “probably the simplest idea”: to explain companies, not by what they make, but by the reason why the company exists. He changed the order of the strategy questions and made it “why – how – what”. If you have 18 minutes, I strongly recommend to watch this talk.

Typical companies explain what they do, how they do it, and why you should buy it. For example you make cakes, you make them sweeter, and people should buy them because they taste nice. This is a typical sales pitch, but not one that will convince, let alone inspire, people.

Simon discovered that it is better to do it the other way around. For example, Apple does not start with telling people they make computers: their pitch is that in everything they do, they challenge the status quo. Apple believes in thinking differently. How they do it is by making products with excellent design. What they make are computers. By changing the order, the pitch is much more inspiring. People do not buy what you do, but why you do it. Accidentally, this also explains why Apple is able to move into new markets: the customers of Apple who understand why they buy Apple do not only buy computers from Apple, but also MP3 players, phones and tablets.

Simon calls the why-how-what framework the golden circle: the why of each organization is central.

Using the framework in discussions
The why-how-what framework is one of my favourite frameworks for strategy sessions with 3-20 people for the following reasons:

• You need an agenda. Without an agenda, meetings become chaotic and difficult to summarize.
• Three agenda points is enough. It is hard to go with a group through a ten point agenda. And if you have ten points, chances are not all points are important
• Start with the goal, not with the means. It is good to separate the strategic choices (where do we want to go) from the more operational ones (what is the most effective way to get at X). This avoids unnecessary tension during discussions.

Why – By starting with why, you ask the participants to think first about the overall goal you want to reach as an organization. Because this is abstract and long term, there should be more consensus: people should be able to agree where we want to go, even if we disagree about the best way to get there.

How – Once this consensus is reached, you can start a discussion about the how: what are the properties or differences you want to make. For instance, the main reason why people start thinking about Apps is that they want information to be always available, immediately. This is the how that can make a difference. During the discussion, you can choose a set of how’s that your organizations wants to use to achieve the why.

What – Finally one can think of the ‘what’s. This discussion should be more pragmatic: there can be a lot of disagreement, but that is ok. You can simply decide to test the suggested actions that look promising. For instance try out both a website and an app and see which one fills in the how’s best.

Photo Simon from Jane Garland

About the author: Sieuwert van Otterloo (twitter: @entreprenl) is cofounder of research and advisory firm Inbys. He gives advice about innovation, startups and software.