Great writers, Toyota and young kids tend to have something in common. They’re obsessed with the word “why?”.
Almost to the point of annoyance.
But in business, where you’d assume a certain level of curiosity would be richly rewarded, asking “why?” often gets you branded as a bit of a disagreeable troublemaker. A sceptic. A blocker. Which is ironic, given that entire companies have collapsed, gradually then suddenly, precisely because not enough people asked, “Hang on, does this actually make sense? Remind me why we’re doing it like this?”
Naturally, this felt like good territory for our next Sidebar chat.