Why, why, why, why, why?

Here's a thought I had about solving problems. I wonder what you think.

When something isn't going right for you, what do you do? Get angry? Take a deep breath? Have a cig? Talk to your best friend? Treat yourself to feel better? Go for a walk? Complain to your boss? Accept that life is sometimes like that. Communicate to the other person involved how it made you feel?

I know for me, that when something isn't right, I want to do something to fix it. But what?

I'm beginning to think this is the wrong question.

At work we have this problem solving technique. The biggest thing that comes out of it is that most people try to solve the first problem they come to and miss the root cause. Here's a classic.

A person has a workplace accident. Their hand gets caught in a machine and injured. The H&S guys want an investigation and action. How did it happen? The safety guards were overridden. So, you do training to reiterate that guards shouldn't be overridden? Or you make it impossible to override them? Or you ask why? Why did the person override the guards. Because they were trying to rescue personal belongings from the machine? Why? Why were there belongings in the machine? Because they were on the conveyor belt when the machine was switched on. Why? Because staff have no where to put their belongings. So perhaps the action to avoid this in the future is to provide lockers?

Do you see how you can come up with a very different potential solution?

This is called root cause analysis. The idea is to fix the root cause, rather than the apparent problem. Not solving the root cause means the problem tends to come back.

To find the root cause you ask "why?" 5 times.

I think this can be as useful in personal life as in business.

Here's an example:

I'm angry because my friend was late. The apparent cause of my anger is my friend being late. I could address this by telling my friend how thier lateness affects me. Or I could realise that I was angry because I've had a really bad day and then being late was the last straw. Or I could realise that I'm angry because my friend keeps disrespecting me and perhaps I would be better off without them as a friend? Or I could realise that the reason I feel my friend keeps disrespecting me is because as a child I felt an inconvenience to my parents and so I'm hyper-sensitive to things that might suggest I'm an inconvenience. Perhaps my past is tricking me into thinking my friend's lateness is an indication that making time to meet is an inconvenience to my friend?

So, I could address my anger by challenging my friend on their lateness. Or by challenging my internal belief that I'm an inconvenience.

I'm not suggesting we shouldn't solve the immediate problem. But that if you don't do something about the root cause as well, the issue is likely to recur.

The challenge is that root causes need a lot more effort to find and solve.

When something isn't right, I'm trying to hold off on the "what do I do?" And give a bit of time to "Why do I feel like this?"

What do you come up with, when you ask "why?" 5 times to something that is causing you some bother?