At work, we got into something a couple years ago called “the 5 why’s,” which was a way of getting to the bottom of what was going on in a store. You might ask, “why haven’t you hit your numbers?” to a store manager – who would reply, “because I’m constantly spending my time hiring,” to which you would then ask “why?” And so on. You do this five times (ask why?), and get to the root cause.

My daughter Lily has this down pat: she is in the Why Phase. It really drives me crazy. I told her just now, “no more why’s today,” and she said, why?

Categories: Errata