Why to always ask the ‘Why?’ question

WHY, why, why? It’s a question we at Healthcare Skills Training International are asked – but not nearly as often as we would like.

Most people – delegates on our courses or potential clients interested in our training and education programmes – seem familiar with WHAT we do.

If not, they ask: “What is it that you do?”

The answer we provide is simple – we are an approved education centre in the UK delivering a range of online, virtual and classroom-based externally validated, competence-based professional qualifications to the healthcare industry and medical profession.

But rarely do they ask us WHY we do this.

Then there’s the HOW. Another simple answer – our professional healthcare qualifications are delivered online and in both virtual and classroom settings by experts with the defining knowledge in their field.

Again, they don’t ask WHY.

And, yet, WHY underpins everything we do at HC Skills – it’s what makes us who we are; it defines our professionalism; it is WHY we are chosen by some of the biggest and best-known companies and professional associations to deliver education and training packages of the highest quality.

So WHY is it that:

• Our qualifications are accepted by all Credentialing schemes?
• They are externally validated, competence-based National Occupational Standards?
• Our internationally recognised courses set the standard in the healthcare industry?
• All our courses and qualifications are compliance-driven and meet the legal requirements of hospitals and the medtech profession?
• They are fully accredited and validated and fulfil legal and regulatory requirements as well as meeting the criteria set by professional bodies and other stakeholders?
• Our internationally recognised courses set the standard in the healthcare industry?
• Delegates on our courses become appreciating assets for their employers?

Our inspiration comes from TED Talk speaker Simon Sinek, who spoke of the Power of Why after identifying a pattern in the way great leaders and inspirational organisations operate.

He said that every single organisation on the planet knows WHAT they do, 100 per cent. Some know HOW they do it. But very, very few know WHY they do what they do.

So why is WHY so important? Being “why-centred” allows you to work in the opposite way to everyone else and be unique, inspirational and innovative.

Sinek explains that the human brain has three main components. The first, our Homo sapien brain, our neocortex, corresponds with the “what” level. The neocortex is responsible for all of our rational and analytical thought and language.

The middle two sections make up our limbic brains, and our limbic brains are responsible for all of our feelings. It’s also responsible for all human behaviour, all decision-making but it has no capacity for language.

In other words, people can understand information like features, benefits, facts and figures. It just doesn’t drive behaviour.

When we can communicate from the WHY, we’re talking directly to the part of the brain that controls behaviour, and then we allow people to rationalise it. This is where gut decisions come from.

So what defines us? What is our WHY?

It is this: we aim to guarantee the future of patient safety and the integrity of medical standards through credible qualifications that meet all relevant legal, ethical and professional standards. This is WHY we exist.

We can discuss that WHATs and the HOWs of our programmes and qualifications at length.

But this WHY – answered – is all you need to know about HC Skills International.

Through post-graduate diplomas, certificates and professional awards, we have helped:

• Practising medics (surgeons, physicians, all medical practitioners)
• Pharmacists
• Nurses
• Medical device company representatives
• Pharmaceutical company representatives
• Regulatory personnel in companies that manufacture, sell or place medical devices on the market