When We Learned Each Other’s WHY, We Started Becoming a Better Team

By Mark Bittle, Founder & CEO, Connectionmark™

There is a moment in growing a business when you look around the room and realize you have brought together some extraordinarily capable people, and you are still trying to carry too much of the business yourself.

I have spent much of my life connecting people. I remember their strengths, struggles, and potential. When I see how two or three people could accomplish something together that none of them could accomplish alone, I get excited.

But bringing talented people into the same room is not the same as building a team.

That became clear during a recent Connectionmark executive retreat. We examined how to grow from a business dependent on my relationships and judgment into a leadership ecosystem that shares responsibility and makes better decisions together.

One of the most useful things we did was look beyond our titles and learn more about each other’s WHY.

We knew what people did. Did we understand what drove them?

Most business owners can describe the roles on their team: operations, client relationships, finance, and business development.

We build teams around experience, skills, and job descriptions. Those matter. But they do not explain why a problem energizes one person and frustrates another, or why two people with good intentions approach the same decision differently.

Through WHY.os, we explored three connected questions: Why are we motivated to do what we do? How do we naturally go about it? And what can others expect from the contribution we make?

I do not see an assessment as a box to put someone in. People are far too complex for that. I see it as a starting point for a more interesting conversation.

When people begin to explain what drives them, we can stop making so many assumptions about their intentions.

We shared a WHY, but we did not all think alike

One discovery stood out: every member of the group had Contribute somewhere in their WHY.os results.

Despite our different backgrounds and approaches, the desire to make a meaningful contribution was a common thread.

It affirmed something I had sensed about the people around me.

But the more valuable insight was what it did not mean.

Sharing a motivation to contribute does not mean we will agree about what needs to happen next. One person may contribute by challenging an assumption. Another may make sense of a complicated conversation. Another may simplify a process, notice a risk, strengthen a relationship, or find a better way to execute.

Imagine one person asking, “Why are we doing it this way?” while another wants to settle on a plan. They might see resistance or impatience. With curiosity, they might see two people trying to help in different ways.

That recognition does not eliminate disagreement. It makes disagreement more useful.

We also noticed that Clarity and Right Way were not represented as primary WHY.os characteristics. That does not mean we lack clarity or standards. It means even capable teams must deliberately invite perspectives that do not come naturally.

The question became less about whether we had assembled the right résumés and more about whether we were creating the conditions for different strengths, and missing perspectives, to be heard.

Synergy begins when we stop expecting everyone to operate like us

My WHY.os reflects Contribute, Mastery, and Challenge. I enjoy learning, seeing patterns across industries, and questioning the first available answer.

Those tendencies can serve a strategy conversation well. They can also create challenges if I assume everyone else wants to explore the same level of detail, at the same pace, for the same reasons.

I often see connections between people or opportunities quickly. So I explain them. And soon I may be interpreting the opportunity, deciding the next step, and following up with everyone.

It may look like I am helping. Sometimes I am. Other times, I am unintentionally making myself the bottleneck.

Learning more about the people around me helped reinforce an important leadership lesson: they do not need to become better versions of me. They need the opportunity to become more effective versions of themselves.

That requires me to listen more carefully, make expectations clearer, and trust people to use judgment that may be different from mine.

At Connectionmark, we have been using a simple phrase: Clarity before Commitment.

It means giving someone an outcome to own, plus the context and authority to decide how to get there. Understanding their WHY can help us recognize where they thrive and how to support and hold them accountable.

This is where synergy becomes more than a nice word. It is the possibility that one person's strength makes another person's contribution more effective, and that the combined result is stronger than either effort alone.

The decision before the decision

Our work at Connectionmark centers on Applied Decision Intelligence: strengthening people’s ability to think through decisions before committing to action.

The retreat made me think about the decision before the decision in a new way.

Before deciding what to do, perhaps we should ask who needs to be involved, whose judgment will improve the outcome, and what perspective is not yet represented.

If a team has a disagreement, the first question does not always need to be, “Who is right?” It may be, “What is each person trying to protect, improve, or accomplish?”

That shift encourages us to stay curious longer. It also creates room for healthy challenge, thoughtful execution, and genuine ownership.

A retreat does not magically produce a high-performing team. We still need clear responsibilities, follow-through, performance conversations, and trust. Understanding motivation opens the door; it does not replace leadership.

But we left with a better language for understanding why we sometimes see the same situation differently. More importantly, we had an opportunity to use those differences intentionally as we continued building the organization.

You do not need an assessment to begin this conversation with your team. Start by asking:

• What kind of work gives you energy, even when it is difficult?

• When you challenge an idea or hesitate to move forward, what are you usually trying to accomplish?

• What do you wish your teammates understood about how you contribute?

• Whose perspective do we tend to overlook before making an important decision?

Listen to the answers. Then look at how you assign ownership, conduct meetings, and respond when someone approaches a problem differently than you would.

One of my aspirations for Connectionmark is to build the kind of team people want to belong to: one where expertise matters, differences are respected, and people have the opportunity to grow while helping others succeed.

I am learning that we will not get there simply by bringing more capable people into the room. We will get closer by understanding the people already in it and creating space for them to contribute.

So here is the question I am asking myself, and I would encourage you to ask it too: Do you really understand what motivates the people on your team, or do you only understand what you have hired them to do?