Why Ask Why?

There is a concept in lean manufacturing (think Toyota and its vaunted excellence in production) called the "5 Why's". Those of us who have kids can relate to its value. They're curious about why something is the way that it is and they keep asking "why" until satisfied with the answer. By "peeling back the onion" of a problem, they (and we) can get to the "root cause" and thoroughly understand not only how things work but the underlying assumptions (facts?) and variables that, if changed, could lead to a different result.

I was in a meeting with some of Pittsburgh best and brightest nonprofit execs last week when I realized that we not only needed to ask more "why's" but that it's pretty tough to get at the root cause of anything without some credible facts. We were discussing an innovative, technology-based method of prioritizing social service needs (e.g., poverty, hunger, violence prevention, environment) in the region at an upcoming conference and the nonprofit sector's ability to "sit at the table" with corporate and government counterparts to mobilize resources to address them. It became apparent (at least to me) that the nonprofit sector has lots of statistics about various social ills (e.g., "X% of people in Allegheny County are homeless") but a lot less certainty about how we match up relative to other cities our size across the entire set of issue areas (e.g., "X% of people in Allegheny County are homeless and that is almost twice as high as the other 24 cities around the world that we compare ourselves to and compete against economically, for population / talent, and global mindshare).

It seems clear to me that, without this kind of fact-based, unbiased, holistic (even at the 30,000 foot level) view, it's not only going to be tough to sit at the table with key decisionmakers from the other two sectors on how to address key social issues (systematically able to ask enough "why's" to understand key change levers) but it will be impossible to rationally allocate the resources -- time, $$$, and energy -- necessary to make meaningful progress. In a time of significant reductions from many traditional sources of nonprofit funding, it is likely that any resources proactively increased in one social area will be at the expense of another (e.g., more resources for homelessness could mean less for the environment) with a relative change (positive and negative) in community impact. These trade-offs (I heard a famed financier on the Charlie Rose show a few weeks ago call this social arbitrage) obviously have huge implications for every single citizen in the region.

Until we can agree on some facts about the region's social condition relative to other cities our size, we'll always be using only emotional, anecdotal, qualitative arguments to allocate resources largely controlled by the private and public sectors. And, I'm afraid, we'll never get to asking enough "why's" to really make a dent in areas we need to improve on to become the "Best and Most Admired Mid-Sized City in the World."