Why Way Do Framework

WhyWayDo is a simple but powerful framework, developed by Salple, for deliberately designing your culture so that it contributes to achieving your strategic goals. WhyWayDo helps everyone in the company focus on “what matters most”.

Why

“Why” is an articulation of your purpose. Why does your business exist? To discover this, tap into your founding story. Challenge yourself to imagine how your customer’s lives are changed by what you do. A well-crafted, intentional purpose becomes a guide for every employee. It means that when prioritizing effort and making decisions people can ask themselves “does this advance our purpose?”. In a time of rapid change, this allows people to make decisions with certainty within their area of influence.

Way

“Way” is your behavioural operating system. It should articulate the 3-6 values that are most important to how you operate when your organisation is at it's best and the behaviours that operationalise those values. Your values should reflect both your DNA (who you are now as a company) and your aspirations (who you need to be to advance your purpose). Harrison analysis of your team’s behavioural preferences can help identify seeds for your values.

Do

“Do” is an expression of your strategy. It includes a Shared Ambition that is co-created with your employees. The Shared Ambition is the high-level articulation of your strategy. It’s a short sentence or paragraph that describe the common goal your company is aiming for in the short to medium term (typically 2-3 years) as you pursue your purpose (the Why). “Do” can also includes strategic goals for teams and individuals that support the Shared Ambition and advance the purpose. A good framework for this is Objectives and Key Results (OKRs) popularised by Intel and Google. The advantages OKRs have over Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are that they are more adaptive to real-world changing circumstances and they incorporate the concept of failure as a pathway to learning, which encourages innovation.

Using WhyWayDo

In WhyWayDo, the “Why” and “Way” components will rarely change. The “Do” component however will change over time as the strategy unfolds. Key to the technique is to deliberately consider the “Why” and the “Way” every time an objective for an OKR is written or the key results are updated. Ask, how does this objective advance our purpose, and bring our shared ambition to life? And then consider how each value contributes to achieving it.

WhyWayDo is captured as a Culture Code for your company. The best Culture Codes are co-created with all staff having the opportunity to be involved. This ensures that everyone understands the strategy and their role in bringing it to life, as they advance your purpose. This is what creates true employee engagement.