Throwback Thursday: Looking for Root Causes of Problems Can Lead to More Effective Solutions
This was originally published in July 1991 in Bob Pike’s Creative Training Techniques Newsletter.
At the root of the business world’s move toward Total Quality Management is the axiom: fix the process to fix the problem.
According to the textbooks, the closer a problem can be traced to its root cause, the less likely you’ll be to fix that problem again. And when you make a regular practice of carefully analyzing problems, the more likely you are to get things right the first time.
Needs assessment is arguably one of the most complex and problematic processes trainers undertake.
When you get right down to it, the headwaters of this process should trace to management and its vision for your organization, but that connection is often overlooked.
Our vision should be a shared one that supports management’s vision, not one that tries to get management to support us.
The old, undying lament is, “Why isn’t management supporting our training?”
It’s a complaint around which trainers readily bond, but the truth is training is not ours.
The reason we train is to help management meet needs and solve problems in pursuit of its vision for the company.
But that does not mean that every bark from management should get a knee-jerk reaction.
When management comes to training with a request for “a course on handling stress,” how often do we simply pull a session together and teach it without taking the time to identify the cause of the stress?
If people are stressed out because their department is understaffed, for example, all you’re doing is helping them try to cope with stress that isn’t going to go away.
And that approach isn’t going to have much value in the long run.
A sound needs assessment in this case would reveal that the stress is not necessarily a problem training can resolve, but is one that management could solve by adding additional staff, redefining job descriptions, or delaying specific projects.
Finding the cause solves a problem that all the training in the world could not.
Obviously, it is important to be responsive to a manager in need.
But being helpful doesn’t mean throwing together a course because someone demands one.
If you were a doctor, you wouldn’t hand out prescriptions for narcotics simply because your patients demanded them.
Without proper diagnosis, the consequences for you and your patients would be too severe.
We need to write our training prescriptions with the same concern for the long-term results.
Finding a cure, sharing a vision with management, and applying the idea of uncovering causes in needs assessments can take a training function far down the road toward matching training services with corporate plans and needs.
Duane’s Take
One of the things I’ve said for years is this:
We never seem to have time to do things right, but we always seem to find time to do them over.
That is especially true when an organization treats every performance problem as a training problem.
Someone asks for a course on communication, leadership, customer service, stress management, or accountability. Everyone is under pressure, so there is no time for a proper diagnosis. The training team is told to move quickly, build something, and get it on the calendar.
It looks like action.
But if we have not identified the root cause, we may be wasting everyone’s time.
And time is a finite resource.
Every hour employees spend in unnecessary training is an hour they aren’t doing their jobs, serving customers, solving problems, or completing work that is already piling up. Add the time trainers spend designing the course, managers spend coordinating attendance, and leaders spend waiting for results that will never come, and the cost becomes much larger than a few hours in a classroom.
This is especially damaging when the real problem is the system.
You can’t train people out of chronic understaffing.
You can’t teach better communication around a process that nobody understands.
You can’t fix conflicting priorities with a workshop on time management.
When we ignore those root causes because we don’t have time to investigate them, we don’t save time. We take limited time away from people, give them training that cannot solve the problem, and then send them back into the same conditions that created it.
Eventually, the problem returns.
Then we hold another meeting, revise the course, schedule another session, or blame employees for failing to apply what they learned.
That is how organizations find the time to do things over.
But there is another consequence that training departments can’t afford to ignore.
When the course fails to correct the problem, people rarely blame the broken system. They blame the training.
Employees conclude that training is a waste of time because they sat through a class and nothing improved. Managers decide that training does not produce results. Senior leaders begin to see the training function as an expense rather than a contributor to performance.
Then, when budgets tighten, training looks expendable.
The irony is that the course may have been well designed and skillfully delivered. It still could not fix understaffing, unclear expectations, poor management, bad incentives, or a broken process.
But by accepting responsibility for a problem it could never solve, the training department also accepts the blame when that problem remains.
A good needs assessment is not a delay before the real work begins. It is part of the real work.
It helps us determine whether people lack knowledge or skill, or whether the organization has created obstacles that training cannot remove. It keeps us from prescribing a course when the actual solution is better staffing, clearer expectations, improved tools, stronger management, or a redesigned process.
Protecting people’s time and protecting the training function’s credibility require the same thing: the willingness to diagnose the problem before prescribing the solution.
The responsible thing is not always to deliver training quickly.
Sometimes it is to slow down, ask harder questions, and refuse to waste people’s time solving the wrong problem.
And as Bob used to say,
Until next time, add value and make a difference.
Timeless Principles. Better Results.
The best training principles don’t become outdated.
They become overlooked.
Organizations that consistently develop great trainers aren’t constantly chasing the latest trends. They’re applying proven principles that engage learners, improve retention, and help people perform better long after the training ends.
If you’re looking to strengthen your trainers, improve facilitation skills, or build a learning culture that produces measurable results, I’d love to help.
Whether through a keynote, a train-the-trainer workshop, leadership development, or consulting, I work with organizations that want learning to create lasting change.
Learn more about working together at DuaneLester.com.