Manufacturing can be downright instructive. The more useful concepts in manufacturing can be applied directly to our own lives. Takethe distinction between roughing and finishing, for example. Inmanufacturing and in life, the key to effectiveness is not necessarilyfinesse, but knowing where the finesse needs to be applied. This ideahas application beyond the machine tool.Another idealike that is the principle of 鈥淔ive Why.鈥� Part of the Toyota ProductionSystem, Five Why says that every recurring problem in the process oughtto be analyzed by asking 鈥渨hy鈥� five different times to get to the rootcause. A Toyota Web site gives this illustration: Why did the robot stop? A circuit overloaded. Why did the circuit overload? The bearings locked up. Why did the bearings lock up? The pump is not circulating enough oil. Why is the pump not circulating enough oil? Its intake is clogged with shavings. Why is the intake clogged with shavings? There is no filter on the pump.Thisline of inquiry represents a deeper sequence of why鈥檚 than most of usroutinely follow. More typically, we ask the question just a couple oftimes before we hit the floor of what we think we can change. Yetwithout all of the why鈥檚 in the example above, the shop might neverhave made the connection between adding a pump filter and keeping therobot running. Instead, that shop would simply have gotten very good atchanging the same blown fuse again and again.In ourworking lives even off the shop floor, I think we do the same thing. Inthe stumbling blocks we keep on stumbling over, we settle into thebehavioral equivalent of changing the same fuse again and again. Giventhat it goes against our nature to ask 鈥渨hy鈥� five times about a pieceof hardware, imagine how much more resistance we must have againstasking so many why鈥檚 of our personal mindsets and routines. Butask anyway. Ask and keep asking. Is there a recurring problem thatkeeps you from maximizing your own output or performance? If you cansee the impediment (often you can鈥檛), then try asking why five timesabout it. If the line of why鈥檚 can get to the robot鈥檚 root difficulty,imagine what else it might improve.