Doug Sundheim over at Fast Company Now reminds us of the value of simply asking Why? and then acting on the answer. As one of the comments to his post points out, this is the exact exercise that our kids employ as a learning method (and exploit to the full when we struggle for convincing answers!)

Try this for an issue you are facing today:

"The 5 why's exercise:
1. Identify an issue with which you're currently struggling (e.g. I need to let this person go, I need to increase the sales on this product).
2. Form it into a "why" question (e.g. why haven't I let this person go yet?, why do we have trouble selling this product?)
3. Brainstorm answers with others (inside and outside your organization).
4. For each answer ask another why question (e.g. we have trouble selling this product because the price point is too high - leads to - why have we kept the price point so high?)
5. Continue this process until you've asked (and satisfactorily answered) at least 5 why's.
6. Obvious answers are often the easiest to miss."

The trick of course is to define the strategy that implements the obvious answer … "Son, how do I …?"

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