Top Management Story

Writen by Martin Haworth

As Albert Einstein said:-

Problems don't go away unless you get to the cause - the source of them. Repeatedly 'fixing' issues that arise takes a physical and mental toll on you and your team. The key is to solve problems once and for all and move on.

Picture this scenario:-

Luke runs a small engineering factory, making electronic tagging systems for retailers. His business has really taken off in the last two years and his people are really stretched now to keep up with demand. Recently his people have been complaining more; there have been a number of unpleasant incidents where tempers have become frayed. Two large customers have taken Luke to task personally because of late fulfillment of orders.

In the past Luke would have worked harder, fought his fires and got home late, but right at the moment his wife and family have started to complain that he is putting work before them more than ever.

Then he heard about 'Solving Problems with Whys'.

With two of his key people, he asked them to work with him quickly, on why they were having so many little issues arising in the business - and they would use the 'Whys' process to solve them. As an example, one actual issue that they discussed early on, went as follows:-

"Our orders have started to go out late"
Why?
"Because we have too much work on for the people we have"
Why?
"Because we don't have enough people"
Why?
"Because we can't recruit"
Why?
"Because our rates aren't good enough"
Why?
"Because we decided to place a ceiling on them"
Why?
"To keep our costs down"
Why?
"Because costs were eating into our profits"
Why?
"Good question"

Here you can see a whole new series of conversations evolving for Luke and his team. Instead of cursing everyone for late completion of orders, or their behaviours getting out of control, or all and everything else which seems to be going wrong, the discussion about rates causing there to be too few staff, has evolved into a more general issue about costs being too high. Here the process can start again:-

"Our costs are too high"
Why?
"We don't know"
Why?
"Because we don't have the data"
Why?
"Because we've never invested in collecting it"
Why?
"Because we never thought it important"
Why?
"Because we didn't realise the impact it was having"
Why?
"Because we never knew the impact it was having on our customers and on our business"
Why?
"Because we never saw the big picture"

And from here, Luke and his team, using just 14 one-word questions, have a whole new perspective on their business and they are ready to create a whole raft of ideas and actions to move this problem to a solution - for the long term, not just the short-term.

Sometimes, there is value in bringing in a facilitator to work with your team in this way, as a 'neutral' prepared to support the process on some of these challenging 'why's'. This lets you and your team tease out and own the end-point sources of problems. And share the successes of achieving the very best solutions together.

In this example, there is a semi-strategic issue, but the technique can be used for much simpler issues which crop up day-to-day in your business.

And, of course, over quite a short period of time, truly solving problems such that they go away for good, means that you can get home to your 'other life' and get to know your friends and family again...

Martin Haworth is a Business and Management Coach. He works worldwide, mainly by phone, with small business owners, managers and corporate leaders. Martin has hundreds of hints, tips and ideas at his website, http://www.coaching-businesses-to-success.com/problem_solving.html (Note to editors. This article may be edited for use in your publication or newsletter as long as a live link to the website is included)

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