Rule #4: How to Solve Every Problem with 4 Questions… and now adding a 5th…

Background:

One of my leaders, Akash Chauhan , introduced this technique several years ago. What surprised me most is just how universal these questions are and how many leaders I have worked with that have shared similar experiences with these four questions. While learning to scale as a leader, I was always impressed by how senior executives could quickly consume 80+ page lists of metrics and pinpoint the handful of risks to the business that week. They would remain silent until a specific section, ask about one of the degraded metrics, and within a few minutes, they would root out significant gaps in the business. Over time I learned that this comes with experience, understanding how the flows of the business flows are connected, the seasonal nature of issues, and a clear rubric to determine how to quickly deep dive into these areas of risk. This Rubric is the four questions.

The Rule:

The four questions are simple, but don’t let that fool you in their impact:

1.    How are you doing? (Target)

The first question is the most straightforward but also one of the most difficult to get correct. As leaders, we can inspect our operations by asking a very open-ended question like this and receive answers ranging from precise reports on hourly packing rates to strategic assessments of the future of the business, neither of which may answer your question. However, this is an opportunity to assess if the goals and targets for the company are correctly aligned and if your team is equating success to these targets as success to the company.

2.    How do you know? (Metric)

This question is where most of the world defines operations, identifying the “Red” metrics of the business and focusing on why they are deviating from their target. When you ask this question, it is essential that you get the level of detail that you expect for this KPI to understand the frequency it is reviewed, its unit of measurement, its data source, its visibility, and who owns the success of this metric.

3.    What are you doing about it? (Action)

Now that we have identified a variance to our target, we need to implement mitigations or changes to achieve our goals. Inevitably, this is where most of the discussion will gravitate, and rightfully so. Identifying these actions and pressure testing their expected impact is vital to understanding what additional activities or resources are necessary, how long the action will take to implement, what other steps or resources are required, and how long it will take to return the metric to expectation.

4.    How do you know it’s working? (Mechanism)

Unfortunately, this step is the most frequently forgotten and misunderstood of the questions, but I would argue that this is the most important one for leaders to implement. Without a proper understanding of the mechanism to enforce and determine the impact and benefit to the end user, a long list of actions and resources can go into place without any actual effect on the operation. A long list of actions is often easy to deploy. Still, without understanding effectiveness, these actions can quickly become more detrimental to the business than what they were attempting to mitigate. Every action must have a specific measurement of success to determine a causal relationship between the activity and the target metric.

In Practice and the 5th Question:

During a site visit in Phoenix this week, I had the privilege to meet with their Senior Leadership Team and discuss various topics. I was asked a question that allowed me to share this Rubric with the group as a practical use case. As I explained the concept of the four questions, the General Manager, Andrew McPhee , jumped in and corrected, adding that five questions must be asked. Andrew had used the four questions in his past from the same source as me but subsequently added the 5th question, which I am now incorporating into my rules because of its power. The 5th question is, “If your action has worked, have you shared it?” After so many years of using this technique, the simple addition of this last question is profound and speaks to the best part of leadership: we are a team, and we are better together. Your best idea is only as good as your influence if you keep it to yourself, but thoughtfully shared, they can be truly transformative.

I hope you enjoyed this segment, and I look forward to discussing Rule #5: "Winners Know the Scoreboard"