Classic

The 5 Whys

The 5 Whys was developed by Toyota Motor Corp. You start with a specific frustration and keep asking why until you reach the root cause. That root cause is the bottleneck you need to fix.

The question it answers

What is the root cause behind the frustration I keep running into?

Use it when

Revenue is down and you don’t know what’s actually broken.
The same frustration keeps showing up week after week.
You’re keeping someone you shouldn’t and can’t say why.
You’re about to have a hard conversation with an employee.

It’s the wrong tool when

The cause is already obvious. If a rep missed quota because they made half the calls, you don't need five layers. Fix it and move on.
It's an emergency. Put out the fire first and dig for the root cause after.
Several things caused it. 5 Whys follows one chain, and some problems have three causes at once.

Start with a specific frustration

The first step is to list every place you’re frustrated in your business. Be specific. A broad statement like “We aren’t making as much money as we should” won’t get you far on its own.

Then run each one through the 5 Whys. Ask why to your first answer, then to that answer, and keep going until you reach the bottleneck that needs to be fixed.

The 5 Whys: start at the problem, ask why five times through each symptom, and reach the root cause.

An example

What are you frustrated about right now? “We aren’t making as much money as we should.”

Why? “We’ve been getting lousy leads the past six months, and they’re not converting.”

Why? “We haven’t changed our offer at trade shows since Competitor A came out with their new solution.”

Why? “Stephanie handled that, but she decided to take more time off after maternity leave, and we haven’t spent any time trying to fill her spot.”

Why? “She’s the best marketing director, and my partners and I don’t want to replace her and then not have her come back.”

That took four whys to find the bottleneck: nobody was filling the marketing director role. My advice was to skip the full time hire so they’d have flexibility if and when Stephanie came back. They could update the trade show offer themselves, or bring in a freelancer, consultant or agency for strategic direction.

Do it now

Spend fifteen minutes on a brain dump of every frustration, or anything you’ve gone apathetic about. Pick the biggest one and run the 5 Whys until you reach the root cause.

After that, ask yourself, “What frustrated me today?” Anything that shows up a few times in a week is a prime target for your next bottleneck breakthrough.

It works on beliefs too

A client of mine ran a warehouse. When we raised the volume standard, one employee who had been working at about 50 percent capacity turned passive aggressive, and orders backed up. When the owner told him his job was on the line, he answered with a threat about what he would do to himself if he lost it.

She cared for every employee like family, and the threat paralyzed her. We ran the 5 Whys together and found the root belief: she had to save him, because he had nobody else in his life who would. Once she saw what that belief was costing her, her family, the rest of her team and the company, she had the clarity to give him an ultimatum. His compliance lasted about three days, and she fired him. Other problem employees shaped up after watching her hold her ground. His replacement has more than doubled his daily volume.

Use the same process before any hard conversation. Find the belief or fear underneath the issue first, and the meeting goes better.