In 1981, a young engineer at Toyota named Taiichi Ohno stood on a factory floor watching a car roll off the assembly line. The process was efficient, almost perfect by conventional standards, but Ohno wasn’t interested in perfection.
He was interested in improvement.
He placed a piece of tape on the ground and asked a question no one else thought to ask: “Why here?” Why should the parts arrive at this point, at this time, in this order?
Then he asked “why” again.
And again.
Five times, to be exact.
What became known as the “Five Whys” wasn’t a manufacturing trick it was a philosophy.
Every question pulled the team closer to the root of a problem, and every answer became a stepping stone toward a goal that didn’t yet exist.
The mindset of relentless inquiry in pursuit of something better helped birth the Toyota Production System, which transformed not just Toyota but global manufacturing itself.
What’s striking is that Ohno never set out to “build the most efficient factory in the world.” He set out to ask better questions. The goal wasn’t speed or cost savings, it was learning. Yet in doing so, Taiichi Ohno achieved both.
That’s the paradox of meaningful goals: they’re not just targets, they’re transformations. When set with intention, they don’t simply drive performance, they change how people think.
In business, this distinction is often lost. Companies measure everything from margins to market share, but no goal is a finish line. And few pause to ask their own version of Why? - the improvement do we want to see in our world.
