Repurposing the 5 Whys

The 5 Whys

I think all of you LEAD 365 alumni know that I like antiques. There is an expression in the world of antiques called repurposing—when you take something old and use if for a different purpose than originally intended. (Think of an old manufacturing cart turned into a coffee table, like in our coaching space.)

I’m proposing that we repurpose the old engineering tool known as the 5 Whys. The 5 Whys have been used for many years in the engineering world when trying to determine the root cause of an issue. An American taught this to the Japanese in the 1950s and then the Japanese taught it to us again in the 1980s.

For those of you who are not familiar with the 5 Whys, the basic premise is to keep asking why something failed until you get to a deeper cause, like peeling back the layers of an onion. You go as deep as you can while still being able to do something to fix that cause. In doing this, you’ll prevent a myriad of issues related to the root cause that would potentially arise if you didn’t go this deep.

Purpose

One of the leadership topics that has been working on me lately is the concept of purpose. We define purpose in LEAD 365 as “the reason we exist.” In Simon Sinek’s TED Talk “How great leaders inspire action” he calls it our “why.”

Comedian Michael Jr. also speaks to the importance of knowing your “why”:

I know that strong purpose, understanding your “why,” is really powerful for individuals and for organizations. I know it provides fuel for the difficult journey. I know it gets me out of bed on days that I don’t feel like joining the battle. I know it causes me to go above and beyond what I thought I could do. Obviously, clear and compelling purpose is a powerful attribute for people and organizations that want to be great!

I remember seeing a poster back in the 1970s that had a Martin Luther King Jr. quote on it, which has always stuck with me:

If you have not discovered something you are willing to die for, then you are not fit to live.

That’s purpose. My feelings about purpose aren’t as strong as his apparently were, but I’d say that if you don’t identify some purpose that is worthy of your long, arduous journey, you will likely find yourself being one of those people that Thoreau talked about when he said this:

The mass of [people] lead lives of quiet desperation. 

However, like identifying a root cause to a problem (how deep is deep enough), it’s hard to help someone figure out their purpose. It’s also hard to help a company or department determine their purpose.

Repurposing the 5 Whys

Last week it hit me that the struggle to identify root cause is similar to the struggle to identify purpose. I started wondering about using my old friend, the 5 Whys, to help people find their purpose.

Here’s how it might have worked for me had I used it many years ago:

1. Why do I work so hard every day? To provide a living for me and my family—certainly a worthy purpose.
2. Why do I choose to work in the people development field to make a living? I was drawn to it. For me, developing parts for cars as an engineer was very cool, but deep within me, developing people was more intriguing and more meaningful. So I made the career change from engineering into leader development.
3. Why does helping people grow give me meaning? For me, everything stems from people. Help them be better and you help products be better. Help them be better and you help services be better. Help them be better and you help the world to be better.
4. Why am I focusing on leaders? Helping leaders helps the most people. I agree with John Maxwell when he said, “Everything rises and falls on leadership.”
5. Why am I focused on West Michigan? Because I believe, I REALLY DO, that we can and should have the best leaders in the U.S. (I won’t go into this belief here, but please know it’s not some ploy for business purposes. It’s a real belief.) Once we’ve done that, we will influence the rest of the country to develop better leaders too.

The more whys I can answer, the higher and more potent the purpose becomes. The higher I can go while still being realistic, the deeper it reaches into my soul, where amazing amounts of resources exist. It is deep within me where I will find more fuel, more courage, and more grit than I had access to when my purpose was just about making money so I can make a living.

This is true for individuals and this is true for organizations.

This thinking is still new for me. As in the past, I hope you find these musings interesting if not helpful for your own journey as a leader. Please let me know if you have any questions or insights that might be helpful.

Thanks—be great this week!
Rodg

Image by S. Faric. Used under CC by 2.0 license.