Root Cause: When you read that – what comes to mind? In both our personal and business lives, this is something that is often disregarded.
Think about it as a tree – the root of the tree, the trunk, the limb, the branches, the twigs, the leaves and possibly fruit.
Throughout our life, it is easy to look at signs or symptoms rather than the root cause.
However, dealing with branches will not solve the initial problem – for example – let’s keep it simple – a headache – many people just pop an Advil or Tylenol and move on but where does the headache stem from – it is a symptom of something bigger.
Prolonging or suppressing it does not help the root cause of the headache – it just puts it off, until the next one – dealing with a branch.
There could be numerous reasons that you have the headache and if you fix the root cause of the issue, the likelihood of its return has lessened significantly.
A majority of headaches are caused by dehydration, and simply drinking more water on a regular basis will decrease the amount of headaches you will have. (one simple solution to try…)
It is the same in business.
We tend to spend a majority of our time fighting fires – dealing with the branch – and not taking the time to delve in to the root cause – so it will just keep happening until the root cause is sorted.
Fighting fires is a more expensive, more impulsive way of making decisions and tends to fall into the category of decisions based more on emotion than data.
In some situations, it may be necessary to deal with the branch in order to keep things running, I understand that. However, once the issue has been rectified, take the time to dig into the root cause and figure it out instead of moving on to the next issue at hand.
For example – a part has failed – so we just put in a PO and buy a new one – but why did that part fail? What caused it to fail? Did it last the length of time it should have or is something creating an environment for that part to fail earlier than it should? If you buy a new part and just replace it, then the issue has not been fixed and it will do the same thing over again…
In this way, many times we are treating or looking at the leaves, twigs, branches, limb or even the trunk, but we overlook the root. It can sometimes take time to get to the root of the issue – whether it be personal or business, but in both cases, it is worth while doing a full analysis and finding the root…
Take time to do it properly and always search for the root cause – it will benefit you in the long run.
In business, having access to good, accurate historical data will assist in the process.
Questions to Ponder:
Do you tend to deal with branches or do you look further into the root cause?
Are your decisions based on:
- Data
- Gut feeling
- Opinion
- Emotion
Do you get to the root cause?
Are you just dealing with a temporary fix?
Are you just putting a Band-Aid on a bullet hole?
Take many things in to consideration when searching for the root cause. You will be glad you invested the time, effort and energy.
If you are wanting assistance on a personal level with this, visit www.peopleunderconstruction.com or contact support@peopleunderconstruction.com; if you are looking for assistance from a business standpoint, visit www.customizedbusinessessentials.com or contact support@customizedbusinessessentials.com.
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