Years ago Japan made a significant name for itself in the manufacturing environment for the practice of asking “Why?” five times in succession in order to get to the root cause of a problem.  When a system failed, one asked “Why?”  If the answer was that a component of that system was faulty, “Why?” was asked again.  The answer to this question was again put to the “Why?” question and after five iterations one often discovered systemic issues which, when addressed, could have far reaching consequences. I would like, however, to suggest that for the soft skills business sector we turn the question on its head.

Instead of looking to the past by asking “Why?” five times, we need to look to the future and ask “What then?” five times.  Anyone who has played chess clearly understands that a key to success is the analysis of potential outcomes not just one, but two, three or four steps ahead.  Perhaps the key reason why “What then?” is so seldom asked and chess is not as popular as video games is that the sequential investigation of possible outcomes is not seen as a simple task.

Whereas “Why?” is typically drilling down into more and more fundamental issues, usually reducing scope instead of broadening it, “What then?” spreads its tentacles with each application.  If you get an average of three potential answers each time you ask the question, the first iteration has three potential outcomes, then the second iteration 9, the third iteration 27 and so forth.  It doesn’t take long for this to become an overly complex and unrealistic practice in pure application.

The good news is that things are seldom as complex as they may initially seem.  The process can be dramatically simplified if you simply select what you feel is the most probable answer for your “What then?” question. For example, if I lie to my customer, the consequences are usually pretty clear.  While I might lie to escape some short term issue, once the pressure is off I usually won’t find the time to address my root cause and can with relative certainty assume that I’ll need to lie again as the unresolved root cause pops its ugly head again.  If I make a habit of lying to my customers, my credibility will suffer because most lies are eventually discovered for what they are.  If I damage my credibility, I damage my brand and risk my future market potential.

Looked at through another lens, I can be certain that it is a rare company that has an official policy of lying to customers to cover for poor execution.  Thus, if I, as a manager or leader lie, I am setting an example for the team I lead – the message being “Lying is acceptable if it saves your hide.”  I, as a manager or leader, may even overtly agree to the widespread adoption of this behavior.  However, I also then make the implicit statement that company policy – which would either implicitly or explicitly state that you are not to lie to your customers – is not to be taken seriously, which leads to the inevitable consequence of individuals in your team determining for themselves which policy or standard they will ignore when convenient.   “Lying to save my hide” becomes “Evading company policy to save my hide” becomes “Ignoring company policy when it is personally convenient”.

Perhaps I thought I was telling a “little white lie” to ease the pain of a particular issue.  While I may have accomplished this immediate goal, I was also laying the foundation of future behavior for everyone in my team.

Large scale corruption, whether personal, corporate or governmental, usually starts small and expands only gradually over time, with each transgression usually being only a minor increment over the previous one.  But like the proverbial frog in the slowly heating pot of water, we’re often cooked before we know it.

Not all news is bad however!  If we take a lesson from Japan, turn “Why?” on its head and discover the consequences of our actions before they have a chance to materialize, we can also ask “What then?” for:

• Treating my team with consideration and respect
• Executing my mandate with passion
• Looking for upside to any “problem”
• Expecting the best from myself and others
• etc…