
A wonderful piece by Charles Davies called “Why Your Purpose is a What not a Why”
Charles makes a pretty compelling case of getting rid of a hefty portion of business jargon captured in terms like: mission, vision, goal, outcomes, etc. and replace them with one simple word: What
They all attempt to capture the same thing: what we do. The only thing that changes is the timeframe we’re referring to. Two additional terms allows us to traverse various timeframes: Why (to what end?) expands the timeframe, and How (by what means?) shrinks it.
You can navigate the stack from any starting point moving either up (longer timeframe) by asking “Why?” or down (shorter timeframe) by asking “How?”.
An example from my current domain, demonstrating the edge cases:
What: Enable all children to reach to reach their full potential
How: By making the best education the most affordable one
How: By creating a networked school system with a strong network effect
How: By building a digital platform which enables progressive education practices
How: By creating a capability for educators to perform in-line, competency-based assessments (rather than rely on standardized tests)
How: By building a feature that enables an educator to capture a student’s work in real-time
…
What: Build a feature that enables an educator to capture a student’s work in real time
Why: To create a capability for educator to perform in-line, competency-based assessments (rather than rely on standardized tests)
Why: To build a digital platform that which enables progressive education practices
Why: To create a networked school system with a strong network effect
Why: To make the best education the most affordable one
Why: To enable all children to reach their full potential