Start With Why
Why…
- Why?
Because the WHY gives meaning to a subject. - Why does a subject need meaning?
Because the meaning defines the value of the subject. - Why is the value of a subject important?
Because the value of the subject motivates people to pursue it. - Why would people be motivated to pursue a subject with value?
Because people want to use their talent on the subject with the value that they agreed to. - Why would people want to work on a subject with the value they agreed to?
Because people value their time and want to work on something worthy of their time.
The real reason you should always start with why is people want to understand the value of the work to know they did not waste their time.
Setting a Goal
When building a product, we will involve many stakeholders. Engineers, investors, managers, sales, and marketing have their daily responsibilities. So when they find out you have a new initiative, they will hope that their extra attention will be worth their time. Providing the Why clearly and confidently will help unite the stakeholders and help you achieve your objective (a building that product BB!).
“WHAT A MINUTE, uniting the stakeholders to a single objective? Isn’t that what a GOAL supposed to be!?”
That’s correct! A Goal should help stakeholders understand the REASON we are achieving the Goal. A Goal should make the problem clear to our stakeholders. A Goal should be the final decision maker when deciding if we should build the product. The Goal should only be crafted after the 5 Why’s exercise. Because in doing so, we will find the deepest issue in the problem that we discovered, and the product should solve for THAT deepest issue for the target audience. Many managers often discuss the practice with 5 Why’s, but not many companies built the culture to practice it. The organization that actually practices the 5 Why’s eventually become successful.
Practice as Larry and Sergey!
You have probably heard of Google’s famous 24 hours Cafeteria in their San Mateos, Silicon Valley. But do you ever wonder Why? Let’s imagine you were Larry Page and Sergey Brin back in 1999. You are preparing to scale up your fast-growing company. But then you ran into an issue with hiring top talent. What should your Goal be?
Which one of the below statements would you set as your Goal?
- To attract the top talent by providing the best salary and time-bound equity.
- To help our employee to build high-quality products and attracts more users.
Some of you may think that the first Goal sounds more like a Smart Goal and should be the correct choice. But it failed to describe the Why. It may be easier to perform and execute the Goal, but it will fail to motivate stakeholders to help you achieve the Goal.
But the second goal is to help our employees build high-quality products and attract more users. It is the underlying reason to attract top talents. We discovered this reason by going through the 5 why’s exercise:
Here’s my 5 Why’s breakdown!
- Why does Google have an issue hiring top talent?
Because they are a startup company. - Why do startups have a problem hiring top talent?
Because a startup company doesn’t have the best compensation and has an image with instability. - Why doesn’t a startup company have the best compensation and have instability?
Because a startup company has limited funds for its employees, it might run out of money. - Why does a startup have limited funds and might run out of money?
Because high-quality products require a lot of money to hire top talents to build. - Why does a startup need a high-quality product?
Because a high-quality product attracts more users.
Solution Crafting Time
By finding out ultimately, Google wants a high-quality product that takes time and money to build, eventually attracting more users. So they crafted a series of solutions that will achieve this goal:
- Hire talented engineers and dev ops that can build a high-quality product.
- Hire talented product managers that help engineers discover the why in building products.
- Raise top dollars from successful VC to provide high salaries to new hires and gain credibility in the startup from the industry leaders from the VC.
- Provide a high amount of equity compensation that will vest in 4 years, so engineers will have to stay the entire 4 years to guarantee this increased amount of money.
- Every continuous year, provide additional 4 years of vesting equity so the engineer would have to lose a lot of money if they decide to quit.
- Create comfortable office spaces so the employee can focus on the work in front of them.
- Hired a full-time masseuse that is free for the employee to relax.
- Set up sleeping pods for the employees to rest when they feel tired.
- Provide in-office gym and shower station.
- Provide a 24 hours cafeteria that keeps the engineers hungry in their heads, never hungry in their stomachs.
Do you know what is the company today? It is Google… (Jack Barker reference from Silicon Valley show, not a mistake! Scroll all the way down of this article to check out the product of the week!)
The second goal helped us to understand Google doesn’t only need to hire the top talents. They need to keep the talented engineers to continue producing high-quality products, which will require a bunch of work. Providing a comfortable workspace allows them to stay at work office more. Most Silicon Valley housing and food are expansive, and if they work at Google, they can literally LIVE IN THE OFFICE. What else would you do when you are stuck in the office? You’d work more and do so willingly because the only thing that makes sense in an office is to work.
The equity would also tie you down in the company. If Google provided you $40,000 in stock in the first year and vest in 4 years. You’d get 25% every year. But as soon as year 2 comes, you’d get another $45,000 in stocks that will vest in 4 years… If you decided to leave the company after 1 year, you will actually lose $75,000 ($40,000 — $10,000 + $45,000) just by leaving. Not a good deal!
If you opted-in with the first response, your solution could easily be solutions 3 and 4: Pay a lot for talents. But in reality, Google did not use the first Goal. Instead, they executed the solution I listed above to help the employee build high-quality products and attract more users. Google is now one of the biggest companies in the S&P500. Some of their products are essential in our daily life. (Google Search Engine, Google Maps, YouTube, etc…)
My point is if you settle with a smart goal that is easier to execute, you may not discover the underlying problem that you are solving, which in terms not gonna be able to provide the right solution to your problem. So START WITH WHY, actually, start with 5 WHY’S, is the correct way for you to begin building your next product.
Product of the week
Silicon Valley is a hilarious sitcom created by the HBO team. It involves some jokes that any tech-loving human being will find funny and teaches some important lessons to us. Themes like ethics and friendships before money and success are common in many episodes. I enjoyed watching many episodes of it! Here’s one episode that I reference in the Google Example above. You can check out the episodes from the HBO MAX subscription. Enjoy!
