I realized, once more, after doing my Clifton Strengths assessment, how tight I am to the question Why?
I have in my top 5 strengths, Context and Restorative.
Context (no.1 strength) means:
You look back. You look back because that is where the answers lie. You look back to understand the present. From your vantage point the present is unstable, a confusing clamor of competing voices. It is only by casting your mind back to an earlier time, a time when the plans were being drawn up, that the present regains its stability. The earlier time was a simpler time. It was a time of blueprints. As you look back, you begin to see these blueprints emerge. You realize what the initial intentions were. These blueprints or intentions have since become so embellished that they are almost unrecognizable, but now this Context theme reveals them again. This understanding brings you confidence. No longer disoriented, you make better decisions because you sense the underlying structure. You become a better partner because you understand how your colleagues came to be who they are. And counterintuitively you become wiser about the future because you saw its seeds being sown in the past. Faced with new people and new situations, it will take you a little time to orient yourself, but you must give yourself this time. You must discipline yourself to ask the questions and allow the blueprints to emerge because no matter what the situation, if you haven’t seen the blueprints, you will have less confidence in your decisions.
Restorative (no.4 strength):
You love to solve problems. Whereas some are dismayed when they encounter yet another breakdown, you can be energized by it. You enjoy the challenge of analyzing the symptoms, identifying what is wrong, and finding the solution. You may prefer practical problems or conceptual ones or personal ones. You may seek out specific kinds of problems that you have met many times before and that you are confident you can fix. Or you may feel the greatest push when faced with complex and unfamiliar problems. Your exact preferences are determined by your other themes and experiences. But what is certain is that you enjoy bringing things back to life.
Paraphrasing someone (Niky Minaj if I am not mistaken :))) VA VA VOOM…After doing my profile, I understood why I love the root cause analysis.
I prefer the 5 WHYs methodology, so simple and yet so effective for problem solving: when a problem occurs, you go to the root cause by asking "Why?" five times. I like to use the 5Whys of Xmind or, for more collaborative processes, I use Miro.
I also enjoy the old fashion manner of using a pen and a paper. This is most probably my favorite way as I love drawing and creating visual representations of the problem that I try to solve. Extrapolating, according to Robert Dilts:
Humans are avid map makers.
Humans are also very visual. Neurologically it comes from the neo cortex (our third brain in development) that has the capacity of making visual constructions. It is also responsible for our “imagining”. It helps us building visual maps/representations. What we can imagine and effectively visualize we can make it real for ourselves. For example, think about a time when you felt the most confident in yourself, what color did you wear that moment? I can bet that you would remember.
We use the right brain when we are visualizing, imagining who we want to become, or a future, a project close to our heart, or a dream coming true. We just need to make sure that our “inner project manager”, the left brain, does not come up with all the reasons of why we will fail. Balancing between the two it is crucial for our healthy functioning.
I digressed.
So, asking Why? is good for problem solving situations...Activates the left side of the brain and keeps us focused on what created the problem how we can overcome it.
Asking the Why? question is equally good to use to check for the value or for the importance of a situation/statement/desire/wish- Why is it important?
In this context, it activates the right brain and helps us finding resources in ourselves and increases our level of awareness.
Why? is a learning question in both cases. It helps us grow and develop as humankind.
It may be also a good question to learn how to unlearn: Why do we do the thigs we do in the manner we are doing it? It may reveal some very old patterns, behaviors, believes that we need to ditch so that we can evolve.
Sincerely,
O