Corporate Newsletter: SureWest

Issue 3: The 5 Why's

January 22, 2002

Hola, CIA agents! It's January of a new year, and we know what our resolution is: to be an agent for POSITIVE CHANGE! Every day is a fresh chance to improve what we do in our jobs -- let's make every day count!

>> MORE THAN JUST THEORY

Learning to do something new and figuring out how to apply something you've heard is not easy (at first). So I have an offer for every one of you who gets this newsletter and thinks, "Yeah, that sounds great, but I don't see how I'm actually going to put it into practice!"

Let's meet. Lunch is on me. With a little discussion, we can pinpoint one or two things specific to you and your job that you can apply from what you've heard so far. There's only one prerequisite: a willingness to try it!

Call or reply to this email if you'd like to schedule a lunch meeting. Let nothing stand in the way of activating the change agent inside you!!!

>> THE FIVE WHY's

Let's make believe for a moment. Let's say it's mid-afternoon, an hour before the shift changes at a manufacturing plant, and you're the foreman. You walk through the plant, giving a tour to a friend who happens to be a systems thinker. Suddenly, you notice a pool of oil on the floor. So you grab the nearest member of the assembly line crew: "Hey! There's oil on the floor! For Pete's sake, somebody could slip in that! Clean it up!"

Then your systems thinking friend says quietly, "Why is there oil on the floor?"

"Yeah," you say to the crew member, "How'd the oil get on the floor?"

"Well, the gabungie's leaking."

Everyone looks up, and sure enough, there's a visible leak up in the gabungie.

"Oh, okay," you sigh. "Well, clean up the oil and get the gabungie fixed right away."

Your friend pulls you aside and murmurs, "But why is the gabungie broken?"

"Oh, well--" you turn back to the crew member. "Hey, why is the gabungie broken, anyway?"

"The gaskets are defective," is the reply.

"Well, then, look," you say, "Here. Clean up the oil, fix the gabungie, and uh... do something about the gaskets!"

Your friend adds, "And why are the gaskets defective?"

"Yeah," you chime in, "Just out of curiosity, how come we got defective gaskets in the gabungie?"

The shop floor crew member says, "Well, we were told that purchasing got a great deal on those gaskets."

Your friend starts to open his mouth, but you beat him to the punch. "Why did purchasing get such a great deal?"

"How should I know?" the crew member says, and wanders off to find a mop and bucket.

So you make some phone calls and it turns out that the company has a two-year-old policy encouraging purchasing at the lowest price. Hence the defective gaskets (of which there is a five-year supply), along with the leaking gabungie, the pool of oil -- and most likely other related problems throughout the company.

Asking the question "Why" is one way to hunt backward for the root cause of a recurring problem. However, it's not enough to ask it ONCE. In the story above, none of the "solutions" offered at first would have stopped the recurrence of the pool of oil. Only after hunting backwards several levels did we begin to see a hint of the root cause.

How often do you deal with the same problems over and over, whether it's daily, weekly, monthly or annually? If you can find the root, systemic cause, then you may be able to eliminate some problems from occurring EVER again. Doesn't that sound wonderful? So what are you waiting for?

>> YOUR MISSION

Gather a few of your teammates. Together, pick a symptom where you wish to start, a real recurring problem you'd like to solve; this will be the thread you pull on to unravel the knot.

Ask the first why: "Why is such-and-such taking place?" You'll probably get three or four answers. Write them all on a white board or paper with plenty of room left around each answer.

Repeat the process for every answer, asking "Why" about each one. Post each answer near its "parent." Follow up all the answers that seem likely. Some of them may start converging, as several different symptoms trace back to the same systemic source. Keep an eye out for how the issue affects not only your group's original symptom, but other areas throughout the company.

Try not to blame individuals during this "Why?" exploration. The goal is to seek the systemic source of the problem, which often is not the first individual who seems to have influenced the situation by their actions. Keep asking why and look for things that can be improved, changed, re-engineered.

"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance -- it is the illusion of knowledge."
-- Daniel J. Boorstin

See you in the hallways, change agents!

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Some ideas and definitions used in this newsletter were found in the "Fifth Discipline Fieldbook" by Senge, Kleiner, Roberts, Ross and Smith (ISBN 0-385-47256-0)