A few weeks back I was speaking with a business owner who’s having a tough time figuring out which direction to take.
She’d tried a few improvement plans before - but they’d fallen flat and hadn’t managed to gather momentum. Not because what they were trying to achieve was impossible… but because her team couldn’t see HOW they were ever going to get there. They couldn’t visualise it so didn’t believe it.
That conversation turned into a really powerful reminder of the importance of being clear on three simple things:
👉 WHY – the purpose. Why are we doing this? Why does it matter?
👉 WHAT – the goal. What are we actually setting out to achieve?
👉 HOW – most crucially the roadmap!!. How, step by step, do we get from where we are now to where we need to be? This is where the “magic” happens
Most leaders think they’re clear on these, but often one is missing — and that’s where things fall apart.
In this owner’s case, she’d been great at explaining what she wanted done and why it mattered. But the team couldn’t see the how. Without it, the plan just felt abstract, unachievable and out of reach.
Once we broke it down into small, sequential steps — the kind of steps everyone could see themselves contributing to — the mood shifted. Suddenly the goal felt real, and the team believed they could do it. That belief is what gets momentum going.
The order of the three can often depend on your role though:
For a corporate team on the receiving end of a Head Office initiative, the WHAT is often already set from above - so leaders have to put extra effort into explaining the WHY and the HOW.
For a business owner the WHY often comes first - reconnecting with the purpose that started it all.
But here’s the thing: whatever the order, you need all three.
The WHY motivates.
The WHAT gives clarity.
The HOW makes it believable — it brings the plan to life.
When those three align, you don’t just have a plan… you have a team that believes it can deliver it.
