Over the past year I've collected a few interesting pictures of signs in (or near) restrooms. They all made me stop and ask, "What are they trying to tell their customers?"

When I facilitate training, I like to ask participants a simple question right before the class begins. "Why are you here today?" This shouldn't be a difficult question to answer, but too often it is.

Young toddlers are famous for asking the question, "Why?" It's too bad we don't ask that same question very often in the workplace because it turns out that "Why" is a very powerful tool for diagnosing the root cause of many performance problems. The simple technique, pioneered by Toyota, simply involves asking "Why?" an average of five times until you uncover the real cause of a particular problem.