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Saturday, December 15, 2012

Why why why why why

At work, I often have to deal with customer issues. And it's interesting to see how customers from different customers react to issues differently. For European and North American countries, they just want the problem fixed as soon as possible. For The Chinese, they will squeeze you for a better deal next time.

And for the Japanese... If you have to handle a critical issue from them, good luck to you. They are very particular about quality and if they find an issue, they will make you to apply the "5 whys" in order to find why the issue happened. Because if you ask yourself why to every answer given, you'll be able to find the real root cause of the problem in order to fix it.

My sister got fascinated by that theory. So I gave her an example.

Me: Why did your car break down?
Sister: Because the tires got punctured.
Me: Why did the tires puncture?
Sister: Because I didn't pump air into my tires.
Me: Why didn't you pump air into your tires?
Sister: Because I was lazy.
Me: So root cause of your car breaking down is because you are lazy.

My sister played it back with me.

Sister: Why did you marry YH?
Hubby: oh, I want to hear this.
Me: Because I've been with him for so many years.
Sister: Why have you been with him for so many years? How can you stand him?
Me: Because he makes me laugh.
Sister: Why does he make you laugh?
Me: Because... Because.... He's like a monkey.
Sister: Why is he like a monkey?
Before I could reply, she burst out in hysterical laughter
Sister: Because he is a result to Darwin's evolution. So you married YH because he's a Darwin evolution from a monkey.

I guess it does make sense... I think. :)