The 5 Whys

Inquiring Minds with Donna Karlin & Steve Harper

The 5 Whys process was created by Sakichi Toyoda, the founder of Toyota as a method for continuous improvement. Donna and Steve take it up a notch and illustrate how we can use it to go deeper in our understanding of ourselves and how to get to the core dynamic of any situation. It starts by identifying the problem. Then there are 5 layers or more of why questions starting with the answer to the previous question. For example, I feel angry Why do I feel angry? Because my colleague won't honor his promise. Why won't your colleague honor his promise? Because he was busy with other projects. Why was he busy with other projects? Because he didn't prioritize mine. Why didn't he prioritize my project? Because he didn't see the value in it. Why didn't he see the value in it? Because he didn't have all the information he needed to understand its importance. The root being lack of communication and clarification. Listen in and try this to see how you can peel away the layers to figure out what's really going on.