Why Bother?

JESSIE WILDE, DEPUTY PROJECT DIRECTOR, HOUSING FESTIVAL

Honestly, why?

We can’t really make a difference, can we?

The money hungry machine which drives the nation in which we live will just keep churning with more politicians talking talk and more policy makers installing red tape making it just a little harder each day to make a positive difference. So, what’s the point?

The world is burning, the people are losing jobs, no one can afford to buy petrol let alone a house, or an eco house… so why even try?!

Well that, I think, is the question… why?

Why do we do what we do?

There is a great TEDx talk by Simon Sinek called ‘Start with why’ talking about the difference between what, how and why things are done. As he says, we all know what we do, some of us even know how we do it, but do we know why we do it (generating profit doesn’t count, he says, that’s a result). An excellent communicator he talks his audience through the importance of knowing the why and, in that way that all TED talks do, he leaves his audience feeling inspired and different and ready to make changes in their life and working patterns…

…for all of about 10 seconds before the next email slides into the inbox from that irritating person in department x who just does not seem to understand the question – or they’re being deliberately obtuse and work avoidant!

Practically though – when we think about the ‘TED inspiration’ in real life, in the day-to-day world of trying to build more affordable housing – how does this actually make a difference?

Why even bother asking why?

We all know there’s a housing crisis, we all know we need to save the planet, and the bees while we’re at it. And we’ve all got jobs to do in order to do our bit, so why waste valuable time asking existential TED soundbite questions when we could be working hard to build houses?

Because knowing ‘why’ actually affects what we do and how we do it.

We’ve all been in those conversations where someone tells you something as fact, you ask why, and the response is ‘well we’ve always done it that way’. I heard tell of an audit of a large organisation once who was recording all the travel for their thousands of staff – turned out it was a practice developed in WW2 that linked to ration provision that was still going… because no one had asked why. The council involved knew what they were doing, and even refining how they did it to make it more efficient – but no one asked why – no one thought about the purpose.

This may be a fable, or an over exaggerated version of a truth, or perhaps it’s an exact retelling of a situation – I don’t think I’ll ever know – but for most people reading it you can probably relate, even on a small scale to something your organisation does something that is mildly (or majorly) akin to this.

So ‘why’ is essential.

Let’s bother to ask why!

Let’s not shy away from the inconvenience, or of offending people, or creating more work – because if the why is there and is legitimate, nothing is lost. If it isn’t, we might well uncover something that unlocks the very thing we’ve been trying to achieve.