Voor Nederlands, klik hier.
This is a question people often ask me. It is different from a WHY session for individuals. In this article, I am sharing how we facilitate WHY sessions for organizations, what you can expect, how to prepare for them, and how they can benefit your organization.
The session is based on the book “Find Your WHY” by Simon Sinek and our own experiences.
Who is a WHY session for?
The WHY session is for groups who share common interests, occupations, or goals. This can be a business or a not-for-profit organization. Simon Sinek calls it a tribe. There can be groups, teams, or departments within an organization with their own ‘nested’ WHY.
A quick refresher: What exactly is a WHY?
The WHY of an individual or an organization is a contribution and its impact (on the world). It is always actionable, positive, and infinite. The WHY is not about what you do (your actual work), what you want to do, or how you do this (your values, your beliefs). It is about WHY you do things and has a strong connection to your feelings and emotions. These are generally harder to express. This makes a WHY so powerful.
A WHY is discovered, not created. It’s who we are and not what we want our organization to be one day in the future.
You can find examples of WHY statements from individuals and organizations here and here.
A WHY Statement is different from a purpose, a mission, or a vision.
->Reading tip: What is the difference between Purpose, Vision, Mission, and your WHY?
The goal of a WHY discovery journey
A WHY discovery journey aims to understand how your team contributes and what impact it has on the organization and the world. You and your team will articulate a common purpose: the reason you do what you do is to give people a sense of identity and belonging.
What happens when your organization knows its WHY
It will help you to simplify things. As a result, all your future actions will be more effective, powerful, and authentic so that people (both future colleagues and your target audience/clients/prospects) are more likely to follow you. The reason is that your WHY has deeper, more emotional value. This will resonate better with the right people.
It can help your team be more productive and innovative, achieve better retention rates, and maintain higher morale. Also, it will help to have more successful onboarding programs with new employees.
Warning: It might inspire other groups or the whole organization to find their WHY.
How to organize a WHY discovery session
Ideally, reserve up to six hours for a WHY discovery session for organizations. If an organization consists of fewer than 30 people, all can attend. If the number of people is larger, select 30 people from across the organization. Include people of different ages, genders, and people who have been with the organization for different lengths of time. Also, include the founder or leader, and invite people who are enthusiastic to discover the WHY.
Of course, the session will include plenty of breaks. The room should be big enough for all participants and facilitators to create breakout groups in different parts of the room. The participants shouldn’t be disturbed (by work). Therefore, an off-site location would be ideal. Here are some suitable and special venues.
Preparing your team for success
It is helpful that the founder or leader knows their own WHY, but it is not compulsory for an organization to discover its WHY. Read this article for more information about an individual WHY session.
To prepare for the session, we will discuss expectations, practicalities, the different roles, and the number of participants in advance.
We will prepare an email to invite the participants to help them prepare for a successful session.
What happens during a WHY discovery session
Although individual sessions can be done online, group discovery sessions should always be in person. For groups larger than about 20 people, we do the WHY discovery session with two facilitators. The reason is that two pairs of eyes and ears see and hear more than one person can, helping identify recurring themes, which is of great value in drafting a powerful WHY statement.
After setting the context and explaining the WHY to the participants, we will run the WHY process. The leader or founder plays an important role in setting the context. The participants should know that their input is greatly appreciated and supported.
We focus on telling stories in subgroups of when the team was working at its best. Stories of the organization’s contributions to others and the impact they have become clear. There will be multiple rounds in which participants tell stories.
Each subgroup will draft a WHY statement based on recurring themes in the stories (contributions and impacts). This is the purpose, the cause, or the belief of the organization. The candidate WHY statements are presented to the larger group. When all agree on a candidate draft statement, this will become the draft WHY statement. This is done at a fast pace to avoid semantic discussions. A WHY statement must feel good rather than sound perfect.
Keeping the WHY alive: the role of WHY Champions
Comparable to the “conversation of possibilities”, we will invite volunteers to be WHY champions. They will refine the draft WHY statement to ensure it’s actionable.
When a WHY doesn’t emerge (yet)
There may be no draft WHY statement because participants do not agree on the right wording that fits the feelings. That is okay.
The WHY discovery process will typically generate a lot of energy. We will allocate enough time to discuss how participants can put the WHY into practice to keep up that energy—the WHY champions will play an important role in keeping the WHY alive.
The follow-up: from discovery to activation
The follow-up session usually takes place within a month of the WHY discovery session. The goal is to make other organization members who were not present at the first session enthusiastic and to have them take ownership of the organization’s WHY.
This session will take up to 4 hours. Do invite everybody, but make sure that it is NOT mandatory.
During the follow-up session, participants will share stories of how they discovered the WHY statement without sharing it. This will be done in the second part of the session, where it becomes clear that it was discovered rather than being created.
It is possible that some attendees do not ‘feel’ the WHY statement. If most people feel this way, then you might refine it.
The goal is to inspire others with the WHY statement.
Next, a “conversation of possibilities” is held in subgroups to explore new opportunities and generate ideas (WHATs) aligned with the WHY.
This will help make the WHY more alive. People will become enthusiastic when they talk about it and relate it to their own experiences. They will discover what they can do to bring the WHY alive.
Our WHY comes from our past, but its value and promise lie in the future.
—Simon Sinek
Ready to discover your organization’s WHY?
Do you want to discover the WHY of your organization so that you attract the people who believe what you believe? We can facilitate the WHY discovery sessions in Dutch, English, French, and German. Contact us today for a FREE intake session.
What is the WHY of your organization? How did you discover it? Let me know in the comment field below. The other readers of this article and I are looking forward to reading from you!
Thank you for reading up to here & sharing this article with your colleagues, friends, or family. You are welcome to copy parts of this blog if you state the source. And please SHARE this article with your network on Bluesky, Facebook, and LinkedIn by pressing the buttons below so that they can also benefit from this article about the WHY discovery journey for organizations. You can copy parts of this blog if you state the source.
Have you seen an error in this article? Let me know! I am grateful!
Source:
–Find your WHY, Simon Sinek
Update: The original article was published on January 28, 2022, and updated on October 31, 2025.
