Welcome back! Now that we’ve thoroughly covered strategic planning and it’s immeasurable importance, we’re moving on. This week we are discussing The Five Why’s and their importance in interoffice communication, effective leadership, and overall quality management.
In the quality management disciplines you learn The Five Why’s:
When asking “Why?” 5 times, by the time you get to the fifth “Why?”, you understand the root cause of the problem.
We often focus on the symptoms instead of what’s really causing the problem. Asking “Why?” gets us past the symptoms and to the root problem; in business this is extremely important for productivity and morale.
Let’s take a common problem we run into at work: someone is not completing their work on time. Others affected by this may be mentally preparing the stockades for a good thrashing. We assume the worst and rarely get to the root cause. As a leader, it’s your responsibility to uncover that cause so you can guide your employee towards success.
For example:
- They might not be completing their work on time because they are overloaded.
- They are overloaded because they can’t say no when someone asks for something.
- They can’t say no because their direct manager says that every request is a priority.
- They can’t determine the actual priority because they were not effectively trained to do so before they were hired.
In reality, the problem is often more complex than just assuming a person is lazy. There are many factors that come into play. When you have the opportunity to find the root of a problem using The Five Why’s, you are bettering yourself as a leader, your employee in question, and ultimately the business that benefits from a more productive workforce.
Next week we’ll cover multiple ways to ask WHY without making your employee become defensive or feel attacked.
Until next time,
Doug
Don't miss last week's blog all about strategic planning!