The Most Important Question of All - 7/10/ 2010

I n life there are several questions that start the foundation of
knowledge: who, what, when, why, where, and to what extent.

All of these questions bring us information that we did not know before.
Yet to me, the most important question is why.

Anyone who has spent anytime at all around a young child with the ability
to speak has without doubt has heard the question why uttered at least
once. And what is even more amazing as powerful a question this is, we
quickly get on the edge of annoyed with the child asking why? Why? Why?

Perhaps it is our association with young kids or the parents of young
kids, that many adults have stopped asking this question.  Sure we all ask
it occasionally but how often do we take the time to really drill down on
a problem or a process.

When accessing a potential process improvement opportunity, it all starts
by looking at the process from beginning to end. In most cases, a process
map is created to help who ever is examining the process know where to
start asking why is this done or that done.

Why is a very powerful word.  In fact the Japanese use a process called 5
whys to try and determine a root cause of a problem. This technique has
moved into the main stream of business process improvement methodology.

So the question I pose for you to ponder, if why is such a powerful word,
and we instinctively use it as a child to learn,  why do more adults not
use it more?  What opportunities have you bypassed by not asking why?

Post Mortem Reviews - 6/25/2010

Many people maintain a journal about things happening in their lives, but just imagine how much more power it would be is after every mile stone you took the time to do a formal post mortem review. It is vital we learn our lessons as we go along, otherwise we are bound to repeat them.

If you have not taken the time to capture your major learning from any recent successes or failures, take some time now to reflect and capture the learning.

Please email me your comments.