{"id":4554,"date":"2016-10-19T19:57:41","date_gmt":"2016-10-20T02:57:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/?p=4554"},"modified":"2016-10-19T19:57:41","modified_gmt":"2016-10-20T02:57:41","slug":"the-what-the-why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/2016\/10\/19\/the-what-the-why\/","title":{"rendered":"The What &#038; The Why"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Everyone, a friend once said, is always asking the same thing over &amp; over based on who they are. The words change, but the underlying question for each tends to be the same:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Project managers are always asking, \u201cAre you <em><strong>efficient<\/strong><\/em>? Are you effective?\u201d<\/li>\n<li>Artists &amp; product managers are asking, \u201cDo you <em><strong>get it<\/strong><\/em>?\u201d (What game are we playing, and how do we keep score?)<\/li>\n<li>Engineers are always asking, \u201cAre you a <em><strong>moron<\/strong><\/em>?\u201d (Did you consider this, think of that, etc.?)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I thought of this on Monday as Buddhist nun <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Thubten_Chodron\">Thubten Chodron<\/a> spoke at Google. Instead of evaluating the <em>what<\/em> of things (what did you accomplish, create, earn, etc.), she emphasized weighing the <em>why<\/em>. What is your intention? Is, for example, a charitable contribution really driven by love of others, or is it meant to stroke your ego?<\/p>\n<p>I can\u2019t claim any deep insight here, but I was struck by the parallel &amp; by the wisdom\u2014in life &amp; in work, especially PM work\u2014of pursuing <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/5_Whys\">the Five Whys<\/a>. Hmm; more thinking to be done.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" title=\"NewImage.png\" src=\"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/INewImage-12.png\" alt=\"NewImage\" width=\"599\" height=\"398\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Everyone, a friend once said, is always asking the same thing over &amp; over based on who they are. The words change, but the underlying question for each tends to be the same: Project managers are always asking, \u201cAre you efficient? Are you effective?\u201d Artists &amp; product managers are asking, \u201cDo you get it?\u201d (What [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4554"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4554"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4554\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4555,"href":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4554\/revisions\/4555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jnack.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}