Does Your Management Understand Root Cause Analysis?

Management Just Doesn’t Understand

Do you remember this song by Will Smith when he was the “Fresh Prince”?

That’s it. Parents just don’t understand.

Similar lyrics might be true when management reviews an incident investigation…

Management just doesn’t understand.

What happens when management just doesn’t understand? Here are some typical results:

• They ask for results in an unreasonable timeframe.
• They expect people to perform the investigation in their spare time (while they continue to perform their regular work).
• They think they already know the cause and can’t understand why the investigator is taking so long.
• They think there can only be ONE root cause.
• They implement discipline before the investigation is completed (or maybe before it even starts).
• They reject the investigation and send the investigators back to try again. (Find me a rock. No, not that rock. Find a different rock.)
• During the investigation presentation, they seem to be more interested in who is to blame than they are in the root causes. After all, discipline has to be one of the corrective actions.
• They don’t approve the suggested corrective actions because they think that training should be the answer.
• They yell at the investigator(s). (Shoot the messenger.)
• They approve the investigation and corrective actions, but have no way to track the corrective actions to completion.

I’ve seen or heard about all of these.

But why? Why doesn’t management understand root cause analysis? Read on for some ideas…

Why Doesn’t Management Understand?

It could be that many managers have never been trained in advanced root cause analysis. They have heard of 5-Whys and think that it is good enough. They may know about those fishbone things.

Let’s face it, most business courses don’t teach any root cause analysis. So, if managers aren’t trained as they progress up the corporate ladder, they just don’t understand.

Or worse yet. They had poor training and THINK they understand. There’s a lot of that out there. Training by “experts” who really don’t know what they are talking about. Training that was out of date when it was given, and that was years ago. Training that doesn’t teach the fundamentals of root cause analysis.

It would be nice if senior management attended a TapRooT® 5-Day Advanced Root Cause Analysis Team Leader Course when they were in their developmental managerial career. After all, we hold these courses around the world. Training managers early in their careers is happening at many companies. But if you’re reading this, it probably didn’t happen at your company.

By the time managers become senior managers, they just don’t have time for a 5-Day Course. So, what can you do?

Help Your Management Understand Root Cause Analysis

System Improvement has been training senior managers for decades to understand root cause analysis. It started with training for senior managers at two large oil companies. Next, there was training for senior management at an airline. And training for management at a nuclear facility, and several courses for senior management at a large manufacturer. Each of these courses was developed from scratch. But we have now combined our experience into a standard course that can be tweaked for your industry and your management. The course is titled:

TapRooT® Executive Leadership’s Role
in Root Cause Analysis.

The standard course is one day long. It can be shortened or lengthened depending on the goals of the training. CLICK HERE for the course outline.

We can conduct this course at your site (our recommendation) or virtually. We don’t offer a public course version of this course.

CONTACT US BY CLICKING HERE or calling 865-539-2139 if you would like to schedule one of these courses for your management to prevent the outcomes we mentioned above.