Imagine the ‘red-yellow-green’ meeting designed to track the progress of a strategic plan:
Employee: “I wasn’t able to complete my assignment.”
Manager: “Why?”
Employee: “It’s been an unusually busy month.”
Manager: “Why?”
Employee: “The analysis was more rigorous than expected.”
Manager: “Why?”
Employee: “I wasn’t able to get the data in a timely way.”
Manager: “Why?”
Employee: “A computer glitch set me back a week.”
Manager: “Why?”
Employee: “IT’s product launch was a higher priority.”
It’s a problem-solving exercise. Usually, it doesn’t require this many questions to get to a root cause, but sometimes it does. A typical root cause analysis benefits from a fish-bone diagram where multiple factors extend from a single spine. The complexity of a problem rarely has a single cause. The more variables considered, the clearer the picture becomes.
Why? Maybe it was after 5:00pm on a Friday. Perhaps a storm knocked out the power. The person you needed might have been on vacation. You weren’t informed of the rule change. The road was closed.
Or…the IT Department prioritized their product launch over your computer repair, costing you a week without the data you needed to complete the rigorous analysis by the agreed-upon deadline. Your strategic plan action item went from yellow (almost green) to red. $#%!
Eventually, the ‘Why?’ game serves up enough information to make further questions unnecessary. This moment gives way to a new game called ‘Now what?’ How do we get from red (stuck) to yellow (in progress)? How do we get from yellow to green (complete)?
Why? Endless curiosity is a child’s magic and an adult’s gift.