The Five Why’s process and the power of getting curious

A few years ago, my parents and I flew out to my brother’s home in Dallas to babysit for Thanksgiving holiday, for my then 3-year old nephew named Thomas and my 1-year old niece.

I don’t have kids, so this was the longest time I had spent with a toddler.

And inevitably, when it was time for bed… this was the conversation most nights. (Parents, is this at all relatable?)

“Thomas, it’s time to go to bed!”

“Why?”

“Because it’s night time and you need your sleep.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s when you get strong and grow.”

”But why?”

“Your brain needs time to recover from the day.”

”But why?”

………

“Because I said so.”

I couldn’t make it past the first few whys.

But we can learn something from toddlers.

This sense of curiosity is exactly what we need when we’re faced with business struggles - especially with recurrent problems that just never seem to go away.

And just like we get frustrated when toddlers get to about the second or third question… so do we as business owners.

Because it’s easy to stop at face value, at the surface-level solution. That’s almost always a tool or tactical solution.

But it is much more challenging to ask the hard question, keep digging below the surface, and to get to the real root cause.

Sometimes the root cause of the problem is actually very simple, we just can’t see it for ourselves. Sometimes it’s the problem that we’ve been avoiding for months and years and keeps plaguing us.

But rarely is the action you take from the surface-level issue the ultimate action that solves the problem.

The Five Whys

One technique that I use to dig in to the root cause is called the Five Whys.

This means, asking five questions to go deeper with focused inquiry. Asking why, why not, or how do you know five times to find the root cause so you can implement the appropriate counter-measure.

Stubborn or recurrent problems are often symptoms of deeper issues. "Quick fixes" may seem convenient, but they often solve only the surface issues and waste resources that could otherwise be used to tackle the real cause.

The tool is adapted from Lean Manufacturing principles but is also the strategy clearly used by toddlers!

Using Five Whys - A Tale of Two Companies

Company A and B are both struggling to bring on new clients.

The problem sounds the same on the surface.

Let’s have the dialogue with Company A, a business service provider like a copywriter or graphic designer.

Company A: “I just need to get more clients.”

“Why aren’t you getting clients?”

“Well, I have a lot of sales calls booked, yet those never end up converting to clients.”

The surface level solution here is to just change your mindset around sales, or improve your sales call process.

But let’s dig deeper.

“Why aren’t those calls converting?”

“They keep saying that my prices are too high.”

“Why do they say your prices are too high?”

“Well, I keep having calls with new businesses. And this would be a really big investment for them.”

“Why are only you only getting calls with new businesses?”

“Well, those the only people I know.”

“Why are those the only people you know?”

“I spend my time marketing on social media or connecting with other entrepreneurs who are also newer.”

A-ha! We see that there’s a positioning or network gap. The root cause of challenging sales might be that the price really IS too high for the people in this entrepreneur’s network. There's a value mismatch.

The answer isn’t a better mindset around sales - it’s networking and audience alignment with more seasoned businesses. Trying harder for more sales with their current network and pricing would not be the most intentional path forward.

Let’s have the same dialogue with Company B, also a similar service provider.

Company B: “I just need to get more clients.”

“Why aren’t you getting clients?”

“Well, I have no sales calls on the calendar.”

The surface level solution here is to just change your mindset around visibility, invitations, or “do more marketing.”

But let’s dig deeper.

“Why don’t you have any sales calls booked?”

“I’m so busy with existing clients I don’t have any more time for outreach.”

“Why do you need more clients if you’re already fully busy with client work?”

“I’m not making enough money from the clients I do have.”

“Why aren’t you making enough money from the clients you have?”

“I’m not charging enough for the fact that my projects take a long time.”

“Why are projects taking a long time?

“We have rounds and rounds of revisions, and so projects take twice the time I expect.”

A-ha! The issue here is either a scope/process challenge or a client readiness challenge. If I had another few questions, I would have asked questions about where clients are getting stuck in the process, what are the obstacles creating the rounds of revisions.

The root cause could be that there’s an issue with how clients are onboarded, how the process is structured, or if clients are being introduced to this package that don’t really meet the qualifications for this process or package.

More marketing might lead to more clients with scope creep… which would exacerbate the burnout!

The 5 Whys process is a way to structure your curiosity when you want to immediately jump to the solution.

Want to practice?

What’s one challenge facing your business?

Try the 5 Whys, and let me know the honest truth about the root cause you need to face first.

Want a trained expert to help you do this diagnostic process - and build your plan for tackling these bottlenecks so you move to a more profitable, sustainable, and easeful business? This is exactly the purpose my ​Deep Dive strategy intensive​. Don’t solve the surface problem - get to the root and fix the underlying problem at the source.