On a flight, a woman approached a lavatory door, knocked, and said, “Remember to wash your hands and comb your hair!”

The door opened, and to her surprise, a grown man walked out. She apologized quickly, “I’m so sorry, I thought my son was in there.”

The man smiled and said, “That’s okay, I appreciate the reminder.”

I recalled the story when I was given reminders recently. I brought in a consultant to review my business. I value unbiased and outside eyes. 

It didn’t take long to realize that I had not been focusing on some of the core problems, the word core being key. You and I deal with problems; are we getting to the heart of them?

Part of our exercise was the 5 Why Questions model introduced in the 1970s by Sakichi Toyoda, founder of Toyota Industries. 

In this model, when a problem occurs, you drill down to its root cause by asking "Why?" five times. Then, when a countermeasure becomes apparent, you follow it through to prevent the issue from happening again.. You are not solving for a symptom, you are resolving a recurring problem.

How You Got There In The First Place

The exercise was beneficial, a reminder of a simple but valuable tool. 

Then I wondered Why those problems became a problem in the first place. 

You have heard about blind spots, dynamics about yourself or a situation you don’t see. I discovered there was more at play though.

Forces opposed to you

Forces are outside pressure beyond your control. On the largest scale, you face economic, political, social and environmental factors that you must deal with.

Within business, you face mandates your CEO is being pressured to accomplish, budget cuts you didn’t ask for, talent issues, generational differences, industry developments and more. Forces you must react to.

And in your reaction, your focus drifts from the core problems to stay focused on to the stressful forces requiring attention.

Ideas and ways of doing things

This is internal to you and your team as well as your company. 

The toilet roll goes over the top; some people continue to roll it under because that is how they were dysfunctionally raised. We get locked into behaviors.

You are a creature of habit in thought and action without regard to examination. You have ideas you don’t second-guess; behaviors that have worked and have become comfortable; instinctive reactions you fall back on in times of pressure. 

You have cycles and those who know you best call you predictable and you act surprised.

Anytime someone says to you, “You always,” there is insight there to probe. 

With some problems, the core problem is your unwillingness to inspect the thinking that got you there and the patterns of behavior that keep you there.

False Self

No news here, you are human. 

You are beautifully human. You have in you a combination of personality, skill, interests, background, lessons learned and passionate ambitions not found in anyone else.

I started this company because I believe in you, because CIOs still aren’t as highly regarded as they should be, and because you deserve to live the life and career of your dreams. 

You also have fear. That fear is rooted in shame. When those are triggered, you hide. We have a lot of hiding places: obstinance, defensiveness, compromise, pleasing, quick to confront, quick to concede. I can go on. The terrain of inner terror is immense.

Some of the problems I encounter require confronting myself and exposing lies that have kept me from being true to me. 

I’ve been around folks. This stuff is real. 

Problems do not define you. Surface problems are easy. They require little introspection. We avoid other problems because we realize that in addressing those we need to address ourselves.

Hope For The Hopeful

You are not a fool. Fools keep going despite signs of danger and they suffer for it.

You are also a person of hope, but you will say “It is hopeless” when a current situation has run its course. 

Most of the time. 

I brought in outside eyes who asked the right questions and helped me be even more effective in the work I do for you.

But after hours, I needed to dig a little deeper.

Here are the questions for you:

What are outside forces I’m having to contend with that are a problem but they distract me from core problems?

What are the ideas and ways of doing things in me, my team, and company that prevent me from recognizing the core problems?

What lies or insecurities about myself keep me from examining core problems?

By the way, it’s not only a good business exercise; the unexamined life is not worth living (Socrates).

‍