When Solving Issues, Act like a 5-Year Old

When Solving Issues, Act like a 5-Year Old:from Ed Callahan's Blog by edcallahan
When a 5-year old asks you why the sky is blue, you know what is going to happen, no matter what answer you give. Why? Why? Why? is the constant refrain.
When solving issues, it is not a bad technique to employ. Let me share an example of what I mean.
In a recent quarterly EOS meeting with one of my clients, they were struggling to determine why one of their product lines wasn’t selling as well as they would have liked.
When I, acting as a facilitator for their IDS  ["Identify (the root cause), Discuss (possible solutions), and Solve (forever, once and done, not to be revisited)"] exercise on the subject, started to ask questions, here is an approximation of how the conversation sounded.
I first simply asked Why sales of that product line weren’t what they would have liked. The quick response by manufacturing was that sales wasn’t selling enough.
I then asked Why weren’t they selling enough? That they weren’t selling enough is a result or symptom, not a cause.
The next set of responses were pretty typical. The market is bad. The economy is bad. You have heard them before I am sure in your own company. External factors which you can’t control and which aren’t going away. Not a valid answer.
Why else aren’t you selling enough?
Then we started to get closer. Our market opportunity isn’t large enough? Oh really? Why are you choosing to sell there then? Oh, we mean our market share isn’t large enough? Ok. Why not? Symptom, not a cause.
Sales: Our pricing is not competitive with our competition. Marketing: The target market doesn’t know about our product line’s advantages. Manufacturing: Our quality is not what it needs to be.
Ah, now we may have multiple root causes of the problem. Let’s start with the target market not knowing about our product line’s advantages. Why don’t they? Answer – We don’t do an effective job of getting out our message. OK, we will get back to pricing and quality, but let’s focus on the root causes of poor messaging and discuss possible solutions we can implement immediately for which we have the resources.
The ensuing discussion came up with some actionable solutions which could (no guarantees in business) solve the problem forever. Everyone didn’t agree on all the solutions, but eventually, after all were heard, the Integrator (an EOS term – think President, COO, GM, owner) explained why one seemed better than the others and a plan was developed.
Let me recap. The EOS IDS tool for solving issues starts by behaving like a 5-year old:

• Ask “Why” at least 5 times to get to the root cause of an issue.
• Resist discussing solutions before you find the root causes.
• Stay on topic when discussing alternative solutions – do not allow tangents (difficult, but necessary to do).
• Pick one solutions with an owner, a measurable outcome and timeframe and then implement.

I guarantee that if you develop this skill, the trajectory of your company will change, you and your executive team will be happier, and you will make more money.

Image credit: Editor B