Why 'The Why' is Important?

This article is the outcome of my introspection on various professional and personal perspective. I truly believe in the philosophy of sharing and giving back, so sharing this article.

In early winter days of November 2015, I was on my Ducati (the Honda Activa) with my daughter on the way to her school, teaching her basics of maths. I told her that you know one plus one equals two, she asked why not it is three or one itself. This was the first WHY of her that perturbed me (many may have the answer but frankly I didn’t have the answer). I couldn’t answer but was happy that she was interested in WHY because I always love finding reason for whatever I do. It is not necessary that you always get the answer but the pursuit drives in you the passion and infuses DOSE in its own ways.

Now the question must be in minds of audiences is ‘How this personal blog is relatable to a professional website like this one?” Believe me, there is a huge correlation. STOP IT HERE! If it bores you because thereafter you can’t.

You know Human Brain has two parts 1) Neocortex and 2) Limbic Brain. The neocortex is outer part and limbic resides inside as core of the brain. The intention is not to teach biology as myself don’t know much but to highlight the biological correlation of WHY-HOW-WHAT we do.

The neocortex controls language and consciousness and is involved in higher functions such as sensory perception, motor commands, spatial reasoning, and conscious thought. It interprets facts and figures understand the logic/rationale. Google Baba says that neocortex grows with time and age and fossil records of early mammals show they were much small compared to present of same species.

The limbic brain is part of the brain involved in our behavioural and emotional responses, especially when it comes to behaviours we need for survival: feeding, reproduction and caring for our young, and fight or flight responses. In other words, this part does not process language or reasoning but is the genesis of Emotions, Feelings, and Values, which supports the neocortex and helps in decision making. The limbic brain further has two sections as the Hippocampus and the Amygdala. The limbic brain is nurtured by education, upbringing, culture and circumstances we experience till a certain age, though it grows subsequently as well, however, with marginal growth.

I am sure you all must have heard of DOSE (i.e., the abbreviation of Dopamine, Oxytocin, Serotonin, Endomorphins). These are important chemicals generated in the body to support brain growth and important for the efficient and effective functioning of Brain.

• DOPAMINE: The “consciousness” chemical. It is chemical in your brain that affects your emotions, movements and your sensations of pleasure and pain. It sends the signal to other nerve cells. It plays a role in the motivational component of reward-motivated behaviour.
• OXYTOCIN: The “emotion” chemical. It is also associated with empathy, trust, sexual activity, and relationship-building
• SEROTONIN: The “happy” chemical, because it contributes to wellbeing and happiness. It is thought to play a role in appetite, the emotions, and motor, cognitive, and autonomic functions
• ENDOMORPHINS: The "feel-good" chemicals because they can act as a pain reliever and happiness booster. Endorphins are chemicals produced naturally by the nervous system to cope with pain or stress

These are the chemicals which are generated inside the brains which dictate why we do, how we do and what we do? DOSE prevents you from various psychogenic issues and energizes you, motivates you and influences you, releases emotions in you.

Enough! I am not gonna read it, you must be thinking. Believe me, I also thought the same to stop writing further but I couldn’t. 

What is ‘THE WHY’?

According to me, it is the pursuit to seek the answer to whatever query you comes from your observations, experience as it shapes your limbic brain. It helps to nurture the limbic brain and perhaps the key reason why psychologists, Vedas, and our culture suggests infusing ‘Values’, ‘Good practices’, ‘Good habits’ during childhood. All these things are part of lifelong learning but the rate of acceptance slows further. But this is the limbic brain that shapes our behaviour or influences our behaviour.

‘Why’ is the purpose, cause, and belief we carry in our personal or professional life. It is your limbic brain that instigates Why in you and in turn if you instigate Why in others, this helps to motivate them, encouraging them.

Why is analogous to planetary motion where the planets revolve around the sun and derive its gravitational pull and source of life from it. It is the core that drives the surroundings, always. It is inside out which motivates others to follow. It is the Why which in our Vedas has been defined as ‘Finding Truth’ of life and makes many living austere life and become sage/saint.

Mahatma Gandhi was not the only leader who faced the atrocities in South Africa and was not the one in whose time, Britishers started ruling and degrading Indians of their dignity. However, he was among the one who raised voice against and it is ‘the Why’ that motivated him to start his freedom struggle, which was joined by many across the country and also inspired outsiders like Martin Luther King in his fight against racism in the United States of America. 

Why The Why is Important?

I can recall a few Why of Mahatma Gandhi as ‘Why I can’t sit in the first-class seat of the railway when I have a ticket of first-class?’, to me this was the first ‘Why’ which lit the flame in him which eventually turned into fighting for many ‘Why’ added subsequently. It is the Why which everyone else felt associated and made their own Why. Imagine the power of ‘Why’ which made them bear the brunt of atrocities of Britishers and yet adhere to the principle of non-violence. It is the Why we must remember, Mahatma Gandhi and many such others which makes us feel privileged us today to enjoy freedom.

This makes me feel clear that if you know why you do anything, ‘how’ is something you will figure out and eventually, you will get ‘what’ you want.

Another example to recall is of Apple Inc and their ‘Why’ which made them what they are today. Apple’s way of marketing is “Everything we do, we believe in changing the status quo, we believe in thinking differently” this drives them figuring out their ‘How’ ‘they way we challenge the status quo by making our product beautifully designed, simple to use and user friendly’ and eventually this results in their ‘What’ ‘it happens that we make computers’. This is contrary to others who start with What they have, how they do it and remain mostly clueless of Why they do it. This makes Apple venerable and ahead of times always.

I can quote an example from my professional life, I asked my team to prepare a DPR and compilation of electricity open access charges across and remain silent thereafter. They didn’t raise any question as to why I want it and you know the outcome they came to me was really awkward and then I explained why we want to do this and I was amazed by the quality of the outcome.

I live with a personal dream of “Connecting Malaviyans Across Globe” (i.e., Malaviyans is named to all those who graduated from Madan Mohan Malaviyan University of Technology erstwhile campus of MMM Engineering College Gorakhpur) and the Why for me is ‘I wish to nurture the unique bonding and family feeling among us across batches to make this largest connected and engaged alumni fraternity’, because ‘I believe as fraternity we are the best when it comes sharing empathy, bonding and trusting each other’.

Many amazed at how people respond to me or allow me to meet knowing the fact that we never met earlier neither know each other nor worked together, answer to those is because they also want to live with the same dream of connecting to those who shared same bonds and part of same alma mater and this hidden feeling makes them associated or allow to meet not only to me but also to others who just happen to share the same breed as Malaviyans.

In another example of ‘Why’ which made a huge success is of the USA and the person who raised the Why of the Civil Right Movement was Martin Luther King. Martin Luther King raised a question of ‘Why there should be a human-made law which differentiates humanity when God made everyone equal?’ and this is the Why which made other feel associated and they made this as their purpose and eventually turned into greatest struggle of ‘Civil Rights’ and people joining structure it how to do it to get what they wanted – abolishment of racism.

Another example I researched was of the Woman Suffrage Movement in the USA. Elizabeth Cady Stanton who started a Woman Suffrage Movement in the USA believed in “Why the Woman should not be having right to vote” and this led to a movement which eventually granted suffrage rights to the woman in the US.

it is worth noting that those who started didn’t even enjoy the suffrage in their lifetime but it was their Why which was worth fighting for and this is what leadership is expected to provide. Raise Why among others and rest everything will follow.

I can recall from my own experiences that whenever I was posed with the answer to why I have to do something, this empowered me with tremendous motivational force to do whatever I do and even I don’t know, I try figuring out how to do it to achieve what is desired. At the same time whenever it was told only what is required, this makes me little motivated to do. I experienced that most of the team discontent and poor performance is due to the fact team lead doesn’t explain the Why to their team members.  I feel awful when team leaders refrain giving reasons to Why subordinates need to do and just instructs them on What they have to do and What they want because this infuses lack of trust and also makes the Why of them die slowly and steadily and the team after sometime is not known for skills and knowledge but for sycophancy as this is the only skill to survive.

I felt fortunate to much of my early professional life which nurtured in me the Why. VK Sood, Ramandeep Singh, Anirban Banerjee, Kapil Sharma, Vivek Mishra, Ghanshyam Thakkar, Akhilesh Awasthy, Raghav Kanoria, are few who always gave the reason to my Why, which helped me push my limits in my professional life. To me, they are great leaders and irrespective of the fact whether they get leadership position or not but they are always led me.

The leader's role is to reason the team to achieve or in short instigate ‘Why’ in them. I believe Why releases the DOSE and is important for all of us as it critical for the proper functioning of the brain and feel happy and grow in our personal and professional life. I am nothing but the answer to my Why and the wish this remain till life ends.