You see it everywhere, not just in business–how to accomplish, how to sell, how to use the formula to solve the math problem.  What’s missing is why.

Procedure…Goal…Expectation. Is it necessary to know why?

Does it make a difference in sales…production?

It’s not that we need to ask the question why for our every move, but to ask the why of our actions as a whole.  We may ask why we are in engineering, food service, software development, retail, education…but perhaps what is even more relevant–why is what I am doing important to me? To others?

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I helped run an academic conference hosted by the Society for Interdisciplinary Studies of Social Imagery a couple months ago, and in the process attended a lot of the sessions. One of them particularly intrigued me. The speaker explained his research into learning techniques and described how traditional classroom learning is not very effective because it defines ‘passing’ but does not reward improvement appropriately. The analogy he used was with sports. If a very unskilled baseball player has a .15 batting average and through work doubles that average, he is praised highly for that improvement and is considered a good player. But if a very underachieving student makes a 20% on an essay and then works hard and doubles that score, he is still failing and gets no praise. Think how much better your worst employees would be if they doubled their job performance. Would they be the best employees in your organization? Maybe not, but I bet they’d become very good employees. This speaker at the conference advocated achieving this improvement by rewarding progress, instead of just for reaching a particular goal.

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We’ve all heard about the importance of communication in business. Good communication skills are pushed in classrooms, reiterated in workshops to improve business performance, and sold by vendors in almost all disciplines as the one change that will fix your problems. The reason for this is simple: it really is important. Of course you probably figured I was going to say that, but let me explain before you roll your eyes and decide I’m selling something.

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Being right may seem to be the ultimate attainment in business and personal achievement. Yet, standing on the lofty mountain of rightness may find one …alone.

Where does right get you?

Right is an ambivalent word, full of innuendos, connotations, and meanings. It is, most assuredly, overused. However, despite its diverse meanderings in our language, it remains a potent force in communication as well as an integral part of cultural philosophy.

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