The Five Simple Whys that Make Change Happen

In her latest blog, Anna Faherty explains how Five Simple Whys can support productivity and facilitate change within your business. You can check out her author page here.

By Anna Faherty

I’ve blogged before about the importance of talking about failure, especially in the context of managing change. Now I’d like to share a simple tool that can help you analyse why things went wrong and make decisions about what should change in the future.

When Taiichi Ohno joined the Toyota car company as a production engineer during the Second World War, the organisation’s productivity was way below that of its rival American car manufacturers. Ohno responded by setting out to remove inefficiencies and wastefulness from the company’s manufacturing processes, an approach that came to be known as the Toyota Production System. Ohno ended up as Executive Vice President of the Toyota Motor Corporation and many of his ideas, such as continuous innovation (or kaizen) and just-in-time, became standard approaches in the manufacturing field. One of Ohno’s simplest ideas was simply to ask yourself, "Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?”. This ‘Five Whys’ technique is a way of spotting opportunities for kaizen, by seeking out the root causes of problems. For instance, if you failed to deliver something to a client on time, the Five Whys might unfold something like this:

1. Why didn’t we deliver the report on time?
   Because it took longer than we expected to complete all the work.
2. Why did it take longer than expected?
   Because we underestimated how complex the job was.
3. Why did we underestimate the complexity of the job?
   Because we assumed it would be similar to other jobs we had done in the past, rather than looking in detail about what was required in this instance.
4. Why didn’t we look at the requirements in detail?
   Because we were too busy trying to catch up time on other projects.
5. Why are we behind schedule on other projects?
   Because we do not allow enough time to collate all the necessary information before the analysis and writing processes begin.

The end result might seem obvious – trivial, even – but if you had stopped asking questions after the second "why?”, your solution might simply be to increase the schedules for all your client report work – which might fail to solve the underlying issue around allowing sufficient time specifically for the information collation stage. Similarly, if you stopped after the third "why?”, you might just issue an edict that all staff should ensure they look at client requirements in detail in the future. However, if staff are still fire-fighting to keep other projects on schedule, they would be unlikely to have time to do this. The power of the Five Whys lies in its persistence; like a small child’s questioning, it doesn’t give up until there is a satisfactory answer.

Despite its simplicity, the Five Whys works best if you follow some simple guidelines:

1. Gather a team of people together to help you answer the questions. This should include people with first hand knowledge about the issue or process you are investigating and its impact. Make sure there are representatives from every department that is involved.
2. Be precise about the overall (first) question you are trying to answer. If the problem is too broad you are unlikely to achieve the required level of detail.
3. Test your answers at each stage by checking whether there is any proof that supports the response and taking time to consider whether there are any other viable explanations.
4. Be clear about the purpose of the exercise. It should be about learning and improving, not about apportioning blame.
5. Use probing questions like "why is it so easy to make that mistake?” or "why don’t our processes prevent that from happening?” to shift the emphasis from discussions about people failing to do their jobs to an interrogation of your company’s systems.
6. Stay focused on identifying the most likely cause while acknowledging that there may be a number of possible contributing factors.
7. Communicate the results of your analysis to your colleagues. It demonstrates that you take problems seriously and also shows what you intend to do to avoid the same mistakes happening in the future.

Overall, if you can get the right people in a room, and create an atmosphere of trust, the Five Whys can quickly and easily help you alter aspects of the way you work that will make a tangible difference to your organisation. It’s an essential tool for anyone interested in making change happen in their organisation.

You can find out more about managing change and transformation by taking Anna’s new online CPD course.