179 | (Day 4) The Strategic HR Sprint – Deepening Your Strategic Thinking

Hello, and welcome to day four of the five day strategic HR sprint,

where you're building your confidence and your skills in being strategic in your HR

role in just 10 to 15 minutes each day.

Whether you're doing the sprint live as each episode is published, or

you're joining it later, welcome.

It's great to have you here.

And no matter when you find this episode, you can still sign up for

free to access all of the materials that go with each day's activities

by visiting brightskyhr.co.uk/sprint, or by using the link in the show

notes or the YouTube description.

If we haven't met before, hello, I'm Fay Wallis.

I'm a career and executive coach with a background in HR, and I specialize

in creating resources and services to help HR and people professionals have

successful and fulfilling careers.

If we have met before, welcome back.

It's lovely to have you here again, and I really hope you're enjoying the sprint.

If you're one of the people who has messaged me to say how you're getting

on with the sprint, thank you so much.

It's amazing to hear from you, and I really, really appreciate it As

a quick reminder of what we've been covering on day one, you recognised the

strategic skills you already have and explored what strategy really means.

On day two, you explored the wider context that your organisation is

operating in and how that can help you become more strategic in your HR role.

And yesterday, for day three, you identified one organisational

challenge that's worth focusing on.

Today, we're going to take the next step.

So yesterday, I encouraged you not to worry about thinking about how to solve

the challenge you had chosen, and the reason for that is that one of the

easiest mistakes any of us can make is jumping straight to solutions before

we've properly understood what's causing a problem or challenge in the first place.

It's human nature to want to solve problems.

Someone brings you a challenge or you spot a problem, and your mind

immediately starts generating ideas.

Perhaps your first thought is, "Oh, we need some training to fix

this," or maybe, "We need a new policy," or you might be thinking,

"We need to recruit more people."

They'll all be perfectly reasonable ideas.

But if we haven't properly understood what's really causing

the challenge, we might not end up solving it in the best way.

We might end up treating a symptom rather than the root cause.

And in fact, one of the habits that I've noticed strategic HR professionals tend

to have is they stay curious for longer.

So instead of immediately jumping to, "Oh, how can I solve this?" Or, "What should

I do about this?" They first ask why.

"Why is this happening?" And that's exactly what we're going to explore today.

There's one really simple technique that can help with this called the five whys.

It's exactly like it sounds.

You start with the challenge you've identified, and then you

ask yourself why five times.

So you'll ask yourself why, you'll come up with an answer, you'll ask yourself

why again, you'll keep on going.

But you don't have to worry about doing it exactly five times.

Sometimes you'll get to the root cause sooner, and sometimes it

might take a little bit longer.

The important thing is to keep on digging, keep on asking why, until you

feel that you have definitely uncovered the underlying root cause rather than

just being stuck on a symptom Before I give you an example about the five

whys, it's worth mentioning that this exercise can be used in slightly

different ways depending on the challenge that you've chosen to focus on.

So if your challenge came from something that's already happening in your

organisation, you can use the five whys to explore what's causing that challenge.

But if yesterday you chose one of your organisation's strategic priorities

or one of the broader strategic challenges that you identified during

the day two activity, the starting point might be slightly different.

So for example, perhaps one of your organisation's strategic priorities

is making better use of AI.

So rather than asking why do we need to make better use of AI, you need to ask

yourself, "What's stopping us from making better use of AI?" Or something like that.

And perhaps the answer is that people don't know where to start or how

AI could help them in their role.

That's the challenge that you then explore using the five whys.

So whether you're exploring an existing organisational challenge or one of

the barriers that's getting in the way of a strategic priority, the process

is exactly the same, it's just your starting point is slightly different.

So I'll share an example to help bring this to life hopefully.

If you imagine for a moment that your organisation is struggling with high

staff turnover, and this is a challenge that you've identified you'd like to

focus on, you might assume that the problem is that people are leaving because

they can earn more money elsewhere.

You might know that you're not the highest payer within your organisation.

So it would be tempting to just conclude that the answer is

going to be to increase pay.

But what if you start asking why?

Why are people leaving?

Perhaps you discover that although pay might be a factor, the main

issue is that many people don't feel supported by their manager.

Why?

Because managers don't feel confident having regular development

and career conversations Why?

Because they haven't had enough support or training.

Why?

Because the organisation has been growing so quickly that developing

managers hasn't been a priority.

Suddenly, you have a very different understanding of

what's causing the challenge.

The answer might not be about increasing pay at all.

Instead, it might involve developing managers, improving career conversations,

or giving people leaders more support.

The point is that by taking the time to understand what's really causing the

challenge, you're much more likely to then come up with solutions and plans

that have a meaningful and lasting impact.

To help you put all of this into practice, I've created a worksheet

for this day of the sprint.

If you've registered for the sprint, you should have it sitting in your

inbox waiting and ready for you.

If it's not there, have a quick look in your junk or your spam folder,

and if you still can't find it, please do let me know, and I'll

make sure that I get it to you.

And of course, if you haven't registered to get the emails for this free sprint,

you can still do that at any time by visiting brightskyhr.co.uk/sprint.

So when you have the worksheet in front of you, you'll see that you start by

writing down the organisational challenge that you've identified yesterday.

Then you'll work through the five whys, asking why after each answer

to explore what's really causing the challenge or what the barrier is.

Once you've done that, you'll identify the areas of HR where you think you could have

the biggest influence before then writing down your own initial thoughts about

how the challenge could be addressed.

One thing I'd encourage to keep in mind is that you don't have to

complete this exercise on your own.

In fact, you'll often get much better insights if you involve the people

who are closest to the challenge.

So that might be a manager, an employee, a colleague in another

department, or someone else who experiences the issue day to day.

Now, I know that the idea of asking someone why five times in a row

might feel a little bit awkward.

You might worry that you sound critical, blunt or pushy.

And if that's how you're feeling, I would just recommend that you explain

what you're doing before you start.

So you could say something like, "I'm trying out a technique called

the five whys, and the idea is to keep asking why so we can get beyond

the symptoms and understand what's really causing the issue, and I'd

really appreciate your help with it."

I think most people will be happy to help once they understand exactly

what it is that you're doing, and it doesn't feel so strange then.

And don't worry if today's activity leaves you with more questions than answers.

Sometimes understanding the problem more deeply is the biggest

step forward that you can make.

But if you're not quite sure how to use the five whys with your own

challenge, just reply to today's email.

I'll be very happy to see if I can help.

And once you've completed the worksheet, if you'd like to, you

can use today's optional AI prompt.

I hope you like using it if you do.

The prompt is designed to build on the thinking that you've already

done through the worksheet.

So rather than asking AI to identify the challenge or the root cause

for you, today's prompt starts where your worksheet finishes.

You'll share the challenge, you'll share the possible root cause

that you've identified, and you'll also share any initial thoughts

that you already have about how the challenge could be addressed.

Then your AI tool will then suggest practical HR and people initiatives

that could help It will explain how each idea addresses the root cause rather

than simply treating the symptoms, and it will also suggest a mixture of

quick wins, medium-term initiatives, and more ambitious strategic ideas.

Before you use today's AI prompt, there is one important thing

that I'd encourage you to do.

Just take a moment to remove or change anything that could identify your

organisation or the people involved.

So for example, instead of naming your company when you're entering

it into the prompt, you could say a medium-sized manufacturing

company or an NHS organisation.

Instead of using people's names, you could simply refer to a manager, an

employee, or a senior leadership team.

That way, you can still get really useful ideas from the AI tool without

sharing confidential information.

I hope you enjoy today's activities.

I think that today, I, I feel like it might be the most challenging day

of the sprint, so make sure that you give yourself a huge pat on the back

once you've done it, and that you acknowledge that you're doing brilliantly.

It's brilliant.

You're showing up every day and getting this done.

And tomorrow is the final day of the sprint, where we'll be tackling one of

the biggest barriers to being strategic in HR. It's not usually a lack of ideas

or a lack of skill, it's a lack of time.

So we'll explore some practical ways to create more space for strategic

thinking and strategic work so that everything you've learnt this

week becomes something that you can continue putting into practice

long after the sprint has finished.

If you're following along on YouTube and finding this helpful,

please do give the video a like.

It's so nice to see that the sprint is having an impact, and it means that

YouTube is more likely to show it to people who haven't come across the sprint

already, and I would love to help as many people as I can with this sprint.

Thank you so much, and goodbye for now.

I am looking forward to seeing you tomorrow for the final

day of the strategic HR sprint