The Root Cause: Rethink Your Approach to Solving Stubborn Enterprise-Wide Problems

INTRODUCTION

Arm me with audacity.

—William ShakespeareEnglish Renaissance poet, playwright, and actor

Nothing truly valuable arises from ambition or from a mere sense of duty.

—Dr. Albert EinsteinGerman-born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of relativity

The Root Cause is about change because nothing is more constant than change. Change is about decisions and events that disrupt a business system’s integrity, but it is also about implementing solutions to restore system integrity and making course corrections in order to pursue a new strategic direction. Hence, change is the opposite of routine—business as usual.

Routine operations are the hallmark of a system. Therefore, maintaining, renovating, and innovating those processes ...