A top skill among leaders as well as managers, is problem-solving.
All too often we see organizations put what I call a band-aid on an ax wound. It may have stopped the bleeding, momentarily, but the fact remains that there is a hole the size of an ax with multiple layers of damage.
A good example of this is an attempt to “revive” company culture with a single picnic, on people’s time off… The issue of a shifted company culture isn’t fixed by hamburgers and bud lights. Instead company culture is much deeper and requires changes in processes, communication, and leadership.
So how do the best problem-solvers get to the root of issues?
Funny you should ask, because I experienced this yesterday when getting a massage for my injured knee.
The 5 Whys of problem solving helped me and the massage therapist visualize what was wrong with my leg. The 5 Whys are a practice that stem from lean manufacturing and the Toyota process developed by Taiichi Ohno and is a simple concept: ask “Why” five times to get to the root of any problem.
The process allows us to dig deeper into the root cause of issues, and not just jump at the first sign of a solution. Often times our first solutions are not the end-all to the issue, and if we jump to those conclusions without investigating all potential fixes we may lose even more time and have to revisit the problem down the road.
One of the biggest wastes of time in any organization is repeatedly fixing the same problem, it is also a sign of surface fixes and a lack of understanding on how to fix them.
My conversation with the massage therapist went like this:
Mike: My knee is hurting right here on the outside
1.) Why?
Mike: Because I run a lot and didn’t stretch and ice after one long run
2.) Why not?
Because I wasn’t patient and didn’t stretch after running
3.) Why would your knee hurt from not stretching?
Because my IT band was overworked and needs maintenance, it can’t handle that much stress apparently
— Enter early solution: get a massage today & rest it: PROBLEM SOLVED get back to running in a week, business as usual —
4.) Why is it so overworked?
Because I haven’t been icing and stretching it enough (just like an oil change for a car)
5.) Why not?
Because I was lazy and didn’t finish the run properly
*** Enter proper solution: massage today, rest this week, be sure to maintain stretching & icing every day to maintain healthy knee***
If we jump to conclusions because we’re impatient or even worse if we turn a blind eye to it because we don’t want to address hard issues, we are creating more work for ourselves long-term.Had I not resolved to ice and stretch every day, I would more than likely have run into the same knee issues in a month or so.
I have seen too many people and organizations waste time on band-aid fixes when they needed to get deep into the would and sew up the damaged tissue to heal properly. Do not waste time on simple fixes, be sure to get to the root of the issue and don’t settle for surface solutions.
What are some other examples of a band-aid on an ax wound? Were they ever given a permanent fix?
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