Find Your Why: a practical Guide for Discovering Purpose for You and Your Team pdfdrive com

Prepare for Your Session
It’s an honor to have been asked to take on the role of
facilitating a Why Discovery workshop. We recommend a
few things to ensure you’re fully prepared for the workshop.
In addition to reading this chapter, you should also look at chapter 3, which
explains the Individual Why Discovery process. You won’t follow the steps in
that chapter for this specific workshop, but the more familiar you are with the
foundations of the discovery process, the more equipped you will be to lead the
tribe through it. If you are willing and time permits, before undertaking the Tribe
Why Discovery, we suggest you practice by taking a few individuals—
colleagues, friends or acquaintances—through the individual process.
Before you get to the Why Discovery process itself in chapter 5, there are some
important tasks that you as the facilitator—or someone assisting you from within
the organization—need to perform:
Invite participants
Schedule enough time
Find the right setting
Set up the room in advance
Invite Participants
The Tribe Approach requires at least ten to fifteen
participants but can accommodate as many as thirty. If you
go above that number, you need a very experienced facilitator, someone who is
skilled at keeping large groups on task; otherwise, the process can become long,
unwieldy and messy. So if you’re new (or even newish) at facilitating this
process, limit your group to a maximum of thirty.
Why no fewer than ten? It’s the job of the participants to generate stories that are
a diverse representation of the organization as a whole. Remember, we’re
attempting to capture a universal statement that, in its nature, will resonate with
all members of the organization. We’re trying to articulate the WHY; that is, if

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we revisit the tree analogy, we’re trying to establish the foundation (the roots and
the tree trunk) upon which all branches and nests sit. If we end up with too many
birds on one branch or on one side of the tree, it’s likely that we will accidentally
articulate the WHY of a subculture or of a single branch or nest. The end result
will be that when they hear it, every bird in the tree may not feel they belong. No
matter the size of your organization, make sure to have a cross section of all of
its parts.
The exception to the “minimum of ten” rule is an organization with fewer than
ten people. In this case, those ten people represent the entire tree. Everyone in
the organization is involved in multiple aspects of the business, and the group
usually has exactly what they need to articulate the organization’s WHY.
We find that Tribe Why Discovery sessions are most successful when the
majority of participants share two characteristics: zeal for their jobs and
reasonably long tenure in the company. Participants who have worked at the
company for a long time will have more stories and experiences to call upon.
And if they’ve been around long enough, they will have seen the company go
through good times and hard times, when it was operating at its natural best and
when it faced its biggest challenges.
Even though they may have fewer stories to share, you may choose to invite a
few new employees to participate. Hearing the stories, learning some of the
folklore and getting to know their colleagues in a more personal way often
catalyzes their sense of belonging and boosts their pride in the new job. They
have a special insight to offer: since they recently joined the organization, the
reason they chose to do so is presumably still fresh in their minds. New
teammates can also share objective insights that may be less obvious to someone
who has been working at the organization for years.
The other key quality to look for in participants is passion for the company. You
want as many zealots in the room as possible. These aren’t necessarily the top
performers, though some of them may be. The zealots are the ones who “get it.”
The ones who regularly sacrifice their time and energy to make the organization
better. The ones who care most about the company. The zealots represent the
company at its best.

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If for political or other reasons you also need to invite some nonzealots, that’s
okay. The process is objective and these few “misfits” will likely not bias the
results. In fact, sometimes they fit in better than expected because the workshop
helps them share the reasons they love the organization. But even if it doesn’t, as
long as they are in the minority, the process will work as designed.
Finally, if you are doing a Tribe Why Discovery for an entire organization (as
opposed to a subgroup), we recommend that you choose participants who
represent a cross section of the company—individuals of different ranks from a
variety of departments or divisions. This will ensure that the WHY you uncover
is truly the organization’s WHY and not a WHY nested within it.
In our experience, the ideal number of participants for a Tribe Why Discovery is
twenty to thirty. A group this size can generally draft a Why Statement within
four hours. Figuring out just how many people you’ll need in the workshop to
get the best results requires trusting your gut.