The power of questioning: Ask “Why?” Five Times

As we have worked on fortifying our teams this month, I have suggested you invoke the power of great questioning, digging into the root cause of your present team behaviors as the way to better understand the progress you will need to make for the improvements you want (i.e. to get ‘the lay of the land.’)

Today I offer you a newly edited article that had previously appeared on Talking Story with Say Leadership Coaching. At the time we were studying a book by Laurence Haughton, one I feel should be part of every manager’s library if our noble profession IS their calling.

The article speaks of something I consider an Essential Managerial Skill. Great managers learn to Ask “Why?” Five Times. There are two reasons this is an EMS for me:

1. Asking good, persistent why questions uncovers root causes below your every-day radar. It will also reveal automatic pilot and sacred cows, busy-work and unproductive comfort zones.
2. Asking good, persistent why questions creates higher-quality and more inclusive dialog in the workplace. It piggybacks well with the Daily Five Minutes® in getting everyone more comfortable with talking about anything and everything – when we are Working with Aloha, no discussions are off limits!

When we had talked about this at first printing, Timothy Johnson, author of two books, and Chief Accomplishment Officer of Carpe Factum, Inc. added this point of significance:

“This is such a great idea, since many people want to jump right to solutions. When I hear the phrases "we need" or "there's a lack of" I start the 5-why-routine.”

Timothy says that “Carpe Factum” is the Latin equivalent of “Seize the Accomplishment” and I love that he did so for us!

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Does form truly follow function?

This reminder to ask “Why?” was one of the many treasures mined from my memory banks when I had the good fortune to read Laurence Haughton’s book, It’s Not What You Say, It’s What You Do. How Following Through at Every Level Can Make or Break Your Company. I’ve tried to commit the Five Whys to habit in every new job I take on in management, for as Laurence explains in his book,

“[The Five Whys] is one of the simplest methods for looking below the surface. Taiichi Ohno, creator of the Toyota Production System and a pioneer in the continuous quality movement, believed that if managers wanted to start with a clear and accurate assessment of any company problem, they had to ask “Why?” five times before creating a solution.”

Basically, you start with one why question, and you take your cue from that answer to ask the next why, following each all the way to the root cause.

Here’s a best-work-life ‘Imi ola example:

Why is on-the-job the way (form) we’ve been choosing to train new staff (the function)?
Possible Answer: We tag team the orientation and training which happens in HR first, and we run lean and mean, so by the time we get a new hire, we’re usually anxious to put them to work.

Why are you so anxious?
Possible Answer: We’ve been working more projects than we can handle with the staff we have.

Why are you taking on so many projects?
Possible Answer: We don’t say no. When new business is there, we grab it.

Why are you so focused on new business versus repeat business?
Possible Answer: We have to be. It would be better to work with fewer customers, but our repeat business rate isn’t high enough to sustain us.

Why isn’t your repeat business rate high?

As you can see, if we had asked only the first question and stopped, we may have gone off on a tangent with the training issue, which actually is a result of a probable-issue with product and service delivery to customers.

However I also chose this example as one that still begs more questions — perhaps many more than the first five. In these instances, you want to watch body language carefully: are you frustrating people because you were so willing to go down a rabbit trail (the issue WAS training, and you leap-frogged over it), or are their eyes widening with possibilities they had not thought of before?

Set a goal to ask the Five Whys as a new habit. It will create better focus for you, so that you are working on the right problem or issue, and not spinning your wheels. And not only is spinning your wheels less productive, it gets interpreted by your staff as, “Good grief, my manager still doesn’t get it.”

Here are 5 more why questions to stir some thoughts up once you have a particular work function come to mind for further exploration and innovation:

• Why do we do it (whatever the function is) this way?
• Why have we accepted this (the traditional, or precedent-comfortable form)?
• Why haven’t we been bolder, or taken a different route? Can, and should we innovate?
• Why do we perceive certain obstacles? Exactly what are the risks?
• Why not tweak it somehow, experiment, or run a new pilot? What more can we learn?

Can you suggest other good Why? questions you have found helpful in seeking the best possible form for your work?

Footnotes and a few related articles which may be helpful;

1. An interview with author Laurence Haughton: Ho‘ohana Community, meet Laurence Haughton.
2. An article that was the basis of a previous value of the month study on the value of ‘Imi ola makes the form—function connection: ‘Imi ola; Form and Function.
3. Also from the Talking Story archives, with more of a focus on the needs of our customer: Asking Great Questions; Art or Skill?
4. At the Stronger Teams Blog, author Blaine Collins cautioned that, “Conversely, poorly asked questions can be destructive to teamwork.” He offers terrific advice at, Asking the right questions to facilitate teamwork and explains how he sees the differences between clarifying questions, exploratory questions, and why questions.
   
5. From the LifeDev blog: According to Glen Stansberry 6 Reasons for Asking Why was written as coaching “for all you rabid GTD’ers.” Among them:

1. It Defines Success
2. It Creates Decision Making Criteria
3. It Aligns Resources
4. It Motivates
5. It Clarifies Focus
6. It Expands Options Read more here on each one.

Comments

[Timothy Johnson]

Rosa - thanks for the nod. I'm living with a 2-year-old right now, so I have a live-in subject matter expert on the topic of asking "why" .... I've been thinking of subcontracting her and bringing her to client sites to wear them down on problem definitions.

[Rosa Say]

Thank you for stopping by Timothy! I like your idea! I can just imagine the one-two punch of you AND your daughter :)

One of my guilty pleasures watching TV is the Jeff Foxworthy show, Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? and while his 5th-grade cohorts may be more precocious than most, it really can give me pause on how much we underestimate our kids! Sometimes, they will look at the contestants which such open expressions which say, "What are you possibly thinking, and why are you embarrassing yourself! I just don't get you at all!"

[Angela Maiers]

Rosa,
We can learn so much from children. Their world is filled with "WHY's." Asking WHY is how we grow, develop, and ultimately become who we are. This post is a great reminder that transformation happens not only when we ask questions but in our ability to ask the RIGHT questions. ASKING WHY is something we can should all be doing.

[Rosa Say]

I agree Angela. Children are my role models for curiosity; we lose their sense of wonder as we get older, and working to get it back helps us connect to our creativity again. Extend this to the workplace, and it becomes creativity revealing more options in problem solving: asking why with child-like curiosity is much more appealing than "digging deep for the root cause." Same thing, different attitude!

[Eric Peterson]

Rosa,
I just wanted to reiterate what Tim and Angela have touched on. I love the "5- Whys". Of course, with a 3-1/2 year old at home, I could really expand it and call it the "27 why's". Toddlers get it. They know exactly how far to prod....how many why's to ask so they can ensure that they understand fully what's being said. I think their are many, many people out there that could learn a life lesson from toddlers.

Great article Rosa. I enjoyed it immensely.