The Five Whys technique for HR

"Dare to be naïve" -- Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983) Inventor, designer, and futurist

Dear HR Executive:

HR professionals routinely find themselves in the middle of employee disputes and other dilemmas. And it often falls on HR to figure out what's really going on. That requires asking the right questions.

If you're an engineer who's been involved in Six Sigma, you've heard of the Five Whys Technique for solving problems. It's a brilliant technique made popular by car-maker Toyota in the 1970s, but it has widespread application. Our journalists at Business 21 Publishing use it every day. I use it all the time on my 13-year-old daughter (much to her chagrin). Managers and HR executives could find it useful as well.

The Five Whys Technique posits that it usually takes five questions to find the truth. As Bucky Fuller said in the quote above, the questioner who "dares to be naive" enough to ask "why" over and over gets the best results. In industry, a Five-Whys conversation would sound like this:

1. Why did that machine suddenly stop?  Because a fuse blew.
2. Why did a fuse blow? Because the fuse wasn't the right size.
3. Why was the wrong size in the fuse box? Because one of our engineers put it there.
4. Why did the he do that? Because somebody in the supply room issued the wrong size fuse.
5. Why? Because the stock bin for fuses was mislabeled.

AHA!

Here's how a Five-Whys conversation in your world might go:

1. Why aren't you going to hit your numbers this year? Because our order shipments were down 30%.
2. Why were they down? Because one of our suppliers missed his deadline and slowed production.
3. Why did they miss the deadline? Because they refused to make a key shipment until we paid them for the previous shipment.
4. Why didn't we pay them? Because we don't pay people Net 30 anymore. We now pay at 45 days.
5. Why was that a problem? Because the new CFO changed the policy, and he just didn't communicate that to our suppliers.
   
   AHA!

Try this technique next time you get a chance. You don't always have to say "Why." You can throw in a "Help me understand why" or "What was your thinking for doing that" or some other phrase that helps you peel away another layer of the onion. Good luck.

Stephen Meyer
B21 Publisher

RISK-FREE TRIAL -- ONLINE TRAINING LIBRARY FOR HR AND MANAGERS: Want to learn about an amazingly effective and affordable way to train yourself, your HR staff and your managers and supervisors? Sign up for a risk-free trial to the HR Cafe Training Center Online. It's a powerful resource that allows HR executives to deploy high-impact training modules effortlessly throughout their organizations. Want to see what it's about before you sign up for a trial? Check out just one program from the huge library of content in the HR Cafe. It's a six-minute "Quick Take" training module called "Why 95% of Training Doesn't Stick."

Comments

[phoebe belle]

It works effectively!Thanks.

[Jackie Edwards]

Great article! Thanks!