Great Leaders Keep Asking Why

Taiichi Ohno, the Japanese industrial engineer responsible for the Toyota Production System that revolutionized the manufacturing industry created a groundbreaking process for problem-solving. It is used by the most innovative individuals and companies worldwide. He developed a technique called The 5 Whys. This technique can be used to find the root problem in any situation. The general premise is that it takes at least 5 Whys until you get to the actual reason a problem exists.

Let me give you an easy example of this in a recent coaching conversation with a client.

Me: What challenges are you facing now that you want to fix?

Client: I am always late to work, which puts me behind on my workload. I just need to be more disciplined to get up earlier, I guess.

Me: Why are you typically late to work?

Client: I always seem to sleep through my alarm.

Me: Why do you always sleep through your alarm?

Client: I guess it’s because I go to bed too late and never get enough sleep, so I don’t hear it.

Me: Why do you go to bed too late?

Client: Not sure…wait, now that I think about it, I am always working into the evening to get stuff done for my work.

Me: Why do you stay up late working on tasks for your job at home?

Client: There is never enough time in the day to get it all done, so I have to take it home.

Me: Why is there not enough time at work to get all your tasks done?

Client: I sit between operations and sales and am always caught in the crossfire of meetings and challenges.

Me: What if we moved your desk so you didn’t have to get distracted constantly?

We moved his desk near the corner of the open office space, and almost overnight, he stopped taking work home because he could complete it in a full day’s work.

The original problem this client stated was being late to work. When I first asked, “Why,” he said it was because he slept through his alarm. I could have stopped there and said, “Well then, you need to get a louder alarm and stop sleeping through it.” But that wouldn’t have solved the root problem.

The problem wasn’t lack of sleep; the real problem was a lack of clarity with his schedule and workflow because of where he sat. I could have easily stopped short of the root issue and just worked with him to get to sleep earlier, but he still would have been overloaded with work and probably wouldn’t sleep well knowing he had unfinished tasks hanging over his head every night. I asked five whys before we began to see the cause of his lateness.

Let me give you another simple illustration of the 5 Whys:

Problem: You were driving to work, and your car broke down.

1st Why?: The battery died.
2nd Why?: The alternator stopped functioning.
3rd Why?: The alternator belt broke.
4th Why?: The alternator belt was well beyond its useful service life and had not been replaced.
5th Why?: The vehicle was not maintained according to the recommended service schedule.

Solution: Fix the root cause of the problem by implementing a maintenance schedule for the vehicle in accordance with the recommended service schedule.

Throwing solutions at acute symptoms rather than chronic issues is a waste of time. Great leaders always dig deeper than others. They keep engaging the problem until they have uncovered the issue. They keep asking questions until they truly engage the root. Albert Einstein once said, “If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on the solution, I would spend the first 55 minutes determining the proper question to ask, for once I know the proper question, I could solve the problem in less than five minutes.”

The first step in going to the next level is figuring out what is keeping you from getting there. Engaging your challenges causes you to clearly know what you are dealing with in order to overcome them.

Remember to always lead with questions and keep asking why until you hit oil!