How often do you ask ‘why’? Seriously, do you often go out of your way to find out WHY something is so? It is one of the most important things I do every day.
Understanding is important. One way I force myself to really understand a problem is to use the ‘5 whys’ approach. 5 whys makes me dig much deeper than I used to. Instead of just treating the symptoms, I can understand and treat the cause.
Treating the cause of any problem is what I learnt in Physiotherapy school and applies exactly the same way to building a scalable business.
An example of how to use 5 whys is:
My car won’t start. (the problem)
- Why? - The battery is dead. (1st why)
- Why? - The alternator is not working. (2nd why)
- Why? - The alternator belt has worn out. (3rd why)
- Why? - The alternator belt is old and should have been replaced last year. (4th why)
- Why? - I haven’t serviced my car often enough. (5th why, the cause)
See how I got to the cause? If I was in more of a rush and didn’t take the time to really understand, I probably would’ve just called the RACV and bought a new battery. Bad idea.
The 5 whys.