TL;DR
- If you’re facing the same problem over and over, you’re trying solutions for the wrong problem
- Ask yourself “Why?” 5 times to figure out the root cause
- Brainstorm potential solutions to that cause
- From there, you can either pick the highest ROI solution, either short term or long term depending on the urgency and your goals.
Notes
- Sometimes you have a problem that just keeps coming up in your work or life. You’ve tried different solutions but none of them seem to work for long.
- You’ve been treating the symptom, not the disease.
Some examples
- Campaigns feel inconsistent – Symptom (assumed problem):
- Proposed solution: Create templates and stricter boundaries for the team
- Root cause (actual problem): The team doesn’t share a vision for what the work is supposed to be
- Actual solution: Have alignment sessions and build consistency through values and principles, not templates
- The client keeps making changes
- Proposed solution: Keep making changes or limit to a certain number of changes
- Root cause: The client generally knows what they want, but you weren’t aligned strategically from the start
- Actual solution: Spend more time upfront discussing the strategic vision, not the project details
- Deadlines are continuously missed
- Proposed solution: Better time management, stricter schedules and more progress-tracking metrics
- Root cause: Priorities constantly change and people can’t work long enough on one to make progress
- Actual solution: Spend more time clarifying and defining priorities and focus on finishing, not shifting projects