At a large manufacturer, an employee had a habit of climbing several levels of abstraction whenever a task was assigned: “Why does this workflow exist?” “Why is the company in this business in the first place?”
Heard in isolation, that sounds almost executive.
Manager: “Please migrate this data.” Employee: “Why do we need to migrate it?” Manager: “Because we are replacing the system.” Employee: “Why replace the system?” Manager: “Because it is aging.” Employee: “Then, fundamentally, why is our company in this business—” Manager: “THE DATA.”
That is not a reconstruction of the actual conversation. It is a deliberately exaggerated sketch.
But the tension is real. If a front-line employee stops at first principles every single time, work can freeze. If executives never ask first-principles questions, the company can spend millions automating nonsense.
The issue is not the word “why.”
It is who is asking, what authority they have, when the question must turn into a decision, and whether anything gets shipped afterward.
0. First-principles questions are necessary upstream
BPR, strategy, investment, new business and organizational design all depend on questioning the current state.
- Is this task necessary?
- What is the customer actually paying for?
- Why are there three approval layers?
- Before digitizing the workflow, can we delete the workflow?
- Why are we still in this business?
These are legitimate questions.
If nobody asks them, digital transformation can become the impressive achievement of moving a terrible process to the cloud and making it terrible faster.
So “Why does this workflow exist?” is not inherently a bad question.
It is often exactly the kind of question strategy and management should ask.
1. But a company is not a philosophy café
The next step matters.
A productive pattern is:
Why? → research → hypothesis → options → decision → execution
A destructive pattern is:
Why? → what should be → but fundamentally → however → at an even deeper level → meeting over
Depth of thought has value. But if thought never becomes an output, the organization experiences it as a permanent queue.
CEOs also ask “why?”
They just eventually have to say:
“Stop this.” “Allocate the budget here.” “Put three people on it.” “Test it next month.”
Asking CEO-like questions is not the same as doing a CEO’s job.
2. The dismissal case was not simply “asked too many why questions”
This distinction matters.
In a Tokyo District Court case decided on August 21, 2025 and reported as the AGC case, the employer was described as having spent roughly nine years changing assignments, changing duties, providing guidance and offering special support.
The court at first instance upheld the ordinary dismissal, citing serious problems with job capability or suitability and conduct that damaged workplace cooperation.[1][2][3]
Secondary case summaries also describe missed basic deliverables, blame-shifting, emotional or aggressive behavior, unauthorized absence, abusive remarks toward coworkers, posting nonpublic personnel information, and unauthorized filming or recording.[4]
So the structure was not:
“Employee questions corporate purpose” → “Instant dismissal.”
That would be a completely different story.
First-principles thinking must be separated from performance, discipline, trust and cooperation.
3. “Maybe planning would have been a better fit” is plausible, but not magic
It is reasonable to wonder whether someone who constantly questions workflows might fit better in planning, strategy or BPR.
People who can ask “Why does this process exist?” can be very useful in improvement work.
But in this case, the court was reported to have considered years of assignment and duty changes.[1][3]
So this does not appear to be a simple story of one bad initial placement that the company stubbornly refused to change.
A transfer can solve a skills mismatch.
It cannot automatically reset deadlines, trust, information handling, attendance or interactions with colleagues.
Changing the job title to “Strategy” is not a factory reset.
4. Winning arguments is not the same as having decision rights
Someone can be excellent at debate.
They can expose weak assumptions. They can identify contradictions. They can ask, “Isn’t that premise wrong?”
Those can all be intellectual strengths.
But inside an organization:
being able to make the stronger argument and having authority to decide what gets executed
are different things.
That does not mean employers can dismiss people at will. Under Article 16 of Japan’s Labor Contract Act, a dismissal lacking objectively reasonable grounds and social acceptability is treated as an abuse of rights and is invalid.[5]
So the employer’s decision itself can be reviewed by a court.
In this case, the Tokyo District Court upheld the dismissal at first instance.
The employee appealed. A union notice stated that the first Tokyo High Court hearing was scheduled for February 2, 2026.[6]
As of October 2, 2026, the reliable public sources checked for this article did not establish a final appellate disposition, so this article does not describe the dispute as finally concluded.
5. The real waste is when thinking never becomes a deliverable
“This task makes no sense.”
Fine.
The waste begins when that insight becomes endless discussion.
Today, AI changes the equation.
You can ask:
“Infer the purpose of this workflow.” “List the risks of removing it.” “Create three options: keep, partially redesign, fully redesign.” “Map stakeholder impact.” “Turn this into a five-minute proposal for my manager.”
Now the same “why?” feels completely different.
Instead of:
“They stopped again.”
the manager sees:
“They questioned it and brought options.”
The advantage of AI is not that people no longer need to think.
It is that people who think too much can convert thought into usable output much faster.
6. One tiny rule prevents “all talk, no output”
If you love first-principles questions, adopt one rule:
Every objection must produce at least one next action.
Not:
“Do we even need this approval flow?”
But:
“I think it may be unnecessary. I’ll check three months of rework data and bring two alternatives tomorrow.”
That is the difference between being the office philosopher and being the person who improves the office.
A stronger loop is:
- Ask the question.
- Gather facts.
- Reduce the space to two or three options.
- Identify who has decision rights.
- Propose by a deadline.
- Execute after the decision.
- Measure and question again.
Skepticism and execution are not enemies.
Question before the decision, move after the decision, question again after the results.
7. If organizations are unbearable, building your own business is a real option
If the core problem is, “I want to decide for myself,” entrepreneurship can be a legitimate path.
You can decide to stop a product, change a price, switch customers or rebuild the service without asking a boss.
That is real freedom.
But the boss does not disappear.
The boss reincarnates as the market.
Employee: Manager: “That is not useful work.”
Founder: Market: “Nobody is buying that.”
The market is faster. It usually does not write a thoughtful performance review. It simply sends a notification called zero revenue.
So entrepreneurship is not merely for people who like thinking freely.
It is for people who can think, build, ship, observe rejection and change direction.
8. “Nine years of salary, just move on” is easy to say from the outside
An outsider can look at the story and think:
“Nine years at a large company.” “Salary received.” “Experience gained.” “Just move on.”
But for the person involved, losing a nine-year position can affect career identity, relationships, finances and life plans. Litigation adds another layer.
The situation can be structurally funny while still being personally heavy.
Those two things can coexist.
And public descriptions of behavior do not justify guessing about anyone’s mental health or diagnosis.
9. CEO potential shows up in conversion, not in the question itself
“Why is this company doing this?”
That does sound like a strategy meeting.
But executives are paid not only to ask questions.
They must decide:
- what to stop,
- what to continue,
- who owns it,
- how much to spend,
- when to decide,
- and what to change when the bet fails.
So the more useful formula is:
problem discovery × decision-making × execution × correction
If problem discovery is 100 and everything else is zero, the company still does not move.
If nobody ever asks why, the company may efficiently execute the wrong thing.
The value is in the combination.
10. Conclusion — keep the “why,” but turn it into something deliverable
“Why?” “Is this really necessary?” “Can we change the premise?”
Keep those questions.
They matter upstream.
Just give them a deadline.
Research. Create options. Take them to the decision-maker. Execute the decision. Measure. Question again.
Then you are not “the person who always asks why.”
You are the person who improves systems.
And if the organization’s premises are fundamentally incompatible with how you want to work, building your own business is an option.
You get the freedom to question anything.
In exchange, the market performs the final review with absolutely no concern for your feelings.
Questions can be free. Outputs still have to ship.
References (6)
- Rodo Shimbun, AGC case (Tokyo District Court, Aug. 21, 2025) rodo.co.jp
- Institute of Labor Development Research, Labor Case Journal No. 168 roudou-kk.co.jp
- JEED, Elder, June 2026 jeed.go.jp
- ALG legal case commentary xn--alg-li9dki71toh.com
- Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, employment contract and dismissal rules mhlw.go.jp
- Union Chiyoda, appeal notice ameblo.jp
