Tell Me Why Learning

Tell Me Why Learning is a methodology for accurately and effectively acquiring and transferring expertise...for building a global expertise warehouse…and for establishing an Innovation and Continuous Improvement Process.

Tell Me Why Learning revives the method we all used as children to learn from our parents. In those formative years, we asked our parents Tell Me Why to discover and to learn more than at any other time in our lives. We started at zero... we learned the languages spoken in our homes... we learned social skills... and we learned everything we needed to start school. Unfortunately, we stopped asking Tell Me Why when we started our formal education. And there is a good reason for that. Can you imagine a classroom full of five year olds all asking one teacher Why? It simply is not practical. But a classroom is not the real world and if we want to once again learn at accelerated rates, it is important that we ask – Tell Me Why.

Companies have focused on documenting and teaching "how" tasks are performed since the early 1900s. “How” was essential in the industrial age particularly for assembly line manufacturing. But we are no longer in the industrial age, and to a large extent "how" has been automated or at least well documented and taught. We are now in a knowledge based economy and according to McKinsey and Company over 70% of the jobs created in the United States since 1998 require expertise. This means that companies should be focused on documenting and teaching “why” each task is accomplished. “Why” provides expertise and leads to creativity and innovation.