How three guided conversations forge a powerful shared team WHY

When a mid-sized tech firm faced leadership turnover, morale dipped and projects stalled. Their new VP of Product realized they’d never clearly articulated why the team existed beyond quarterly metrics. She called a workshop and divided twenty members into three groups. First, she prompted each group to share stories when they’d been “the best version of themselves” at work—moments of peak pride around shipping features that solved real user problems. Each group wrote down short tags like “saved a frustrated customer” or “simplified a complex process.”

Next, someone extracted verbs—“to simplify,” “to solve,” “to empower”—and they voted on the top five. Then the VP asked, “What impact did that action have?” Team members talked about joy, confidence, loyalty and efficiency, jotting those effects on the board. Finally, they split into two subgroups to craft WHY drafts. One group proposed “To simplify complexity so that people feel empowered.” The other offered “To solve real problems so that users succeed.” When they presented both, the combined team riffed until they landed on “To empower users so that they achieve their goals.”

That new WHY became their North Star. Projects aligned with it got priority, performance reviews referenced it, and even hire interviews began with “How do you empower others?” Within two quarters, user satisfaction and team engagement rose in tandem. The VP’s structured approach to shared storytelling had fused a collective purpose from genuine experiences.

Imagine you’re guiding your team: first, host a story circle where everyone shares a peak-moment tale. Capture those contributions. Then ask about effects—what difference did it make? Finally, challenge two subgroups to draft a concise WHY “To…so that…” from the top themes. Present both and then fuse them into one clear team purpose. Try it next Monday when you’re kicking off a new sprint.