Goal Setting: The Root Cause of Success!

Mind Tools Newsletter 90 - Dec 28th, 2007 This newsletter is published by Mind Tools Ltd of 2nd Floor, 145-157 St John Street, London, EC1V 4PY, UK. You have received it because you have subscribed to our double opt-in newsletter. To subscribe or unsubscribe, just click the links at the bottom of this email.

Contents: In this Newsletter Root Cause Analysis In the Club A Final Note

Where are you heading in 2008?

You may think I'm asking about your vacation plans. And, of course, this is a great time to be thinking about vacations...

But what about all the other things you want to achieve in 2008? And beyond? Are you finding any time to think about those plans too?

I'm always amazed to hear so many people, when I ask, admit that they spend more time to planning their vacations than ever they do planning their lives and careers.

If you take the time to identify your true life and career goals, and work out how you're going to achieve them, you're much, much more likely to succeed! With properly set goals, you can work steadily to realize the dreams that are important to you, and start living the positive, passionate, energized life that you've always wanted. With all the distractions of mundane busy-ness, how else will your dreams get the attention they need?

In This Newsletter ...

So, if you're serious about setting the goals that will make 2008 your best year ever (and now is the time to be planning for this), there's a new helping hand for you at Mind Tools: our new Life Plan Workbook!

This 48-page workbook combines the information and worksheets you need to draw up your ideal life plan, and start living a truly exceptional life. To do this, the workbook guides you through a simple 5-step process: reflect on yourself at your best; explore your dreams; focus on your passion; set powerful goals; and organize yourself for success.

What's more, for 12 days only, the Life Plan Workbook is yours for fre*e when you join the Mind Tools Career Excellence Club. Your first month's subscription is just US$1, and you can cancel at any time. There are genuinely no strings attached to this offer: Just give the club a fair try, and decide for yourself if you want to stay. And you can keep the workbook even if you decide to leave!

Join now to get the Life Plan Workbook bonus, and to experience the club for yourself!

Also in this newsletter, we have a great new tool for you: Root Cause Analysis, which is published here in full. So often in problem solving, we fire-fight the symptoms rather than deal with the causes: In this article, find out how get to root of every problem, so that the problem stays solved!

Goals and Life Plans

Even if you choose not to take us up on our offer, do make sure you set your goals for 2008!

If, like me, you've made goal-setting a way of life, you'll know how well it works, and you'll recognize its power. And there's no time like the New Year for reviewing and honing your plans for a successful and happy future!

So here are some taster tips to get you started on your goal-setting:

• Read our goal-setting article. While it's necessarily much shorter than the Life Plan Workbook, and isn't supported by worksheets in the same way, it will get you off to a great start.
• Write your goals down, so that they're outside your mind and are expressed clearly and concretely. And, to increase your commitment to them, consider sharing them with people who you trust.
• Set SMART goals - make them Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time-bound. Setting them in this way leaves little "wriggle room" - you've either achieved them or you haven't.
• Express your goals positively, colorfully, and in the present tense. Make them dynamic, attractive and engaging.

Have fun with your goal setting, and enjoy this issue's article!

James & Rachel

James Manktelow and Rachel Thompson
MindTools.com
Mind Tools – Essential skills for an excellent career!

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Editors' Choice Article:

Root Cause Analysis

Tracing a Problem to Its Origins

In medicine, it's easy to understand the difference between treating symptoms and curing a medical condition. Sure, when you're in pain because you've broken your wrist, you WANT to have your symptoms treated – now! However, taking painkillers won't heal your wrist, and true healing is needed before the symptoms can disappear for good.

But when you have a problem at work, how do you approach it? Do you jump in and start treating the symptoms? Or do you stop to consider whether there's actually a deeper problem that needs your attention?

If you only fix the symptoms – what you see on the surface – the problem will almost certainly happen again… which will lead you to fix it, again, and again, and again.

If, instead, you look deeper to figure out why the problem is occurring, you can fix the underlying systems and processes that cause the problem.

Root Cause Analysis (RCA) is a popular and often-used technique that helps people answer the question of why the problem occurred in the first place. It seeks to identify the origin of a problem, and then uses a specific set of steps, with associated tools, to find its primary cause. This helps you:

• Determine what happened.
  
• Determine why it happened.
  
• Figure out what to do to reduce the likelihood that it will happen again.

RCA assumes that systems and events are interrelated. An action in one area triggers an action in another, and another, and so on. By tracing back these actions, you can discover where the problem started and how it grew into the symptom you're now facing.

You'll usually find three basic types of cause:

• Physical causes – Tangible, material items that have failed in some way (for example, a car's brakes stopped working).
  
• Human causes – People did something wrong… or did not doing something that was needed. Human causes typically lead to physical causes (for example, no one filled the brake fluid, which led to the brakes failing).
  
• Organizational causes – A system, process, or policy that people use to make decisions or do their work is faulty (for example, no one person was responsible for vehicle maintenance, and everyone assumed someone else had filled the brake fluid).

Root Cause Analysis looks at all three types of causes. It involves investigating the patterns of negative effects, finding hidden flaws in the system, and discovering specific actions that contributed to the problem. This often means that RCA reveals more than one root cause.

You can apply Root Cause Analysis to almost any situation. Determining how far to go in your investigation requires good judgment and common sense. Theoretically, you could continue to trace root causes back to the Stone Age, but the effort would serve no useful purpose. Be careful to understand when you’ve found a significant cause that can, in fact, be changed.

The Root Cause Analysis Process

Root Cause Analysis has five identifiable steps.

Step One: Define the Problem

• What do you see happening?
  
• What are the specific symptoms?

Step Two: Collect Data

• What proof do you have that the problem exists?
  
• How long has the problem existed?
  
• What is the impact of the problem?

You need to analyze a situation fully before you can move on to look at factors that contributed to the problem. To maximize the effectiveness of your Root Cause Analysis, get together everyone – experts and front line staff – who understands the situation. People who are most familiar with the problem can help you to a better understanding of the issues.

A helpful tool at this stage is CATWOE. With this process, you look at the same situation from different perspectives: the Customers, the people (Actors) who implement the solutions, the Transformation process that's affected, the World view, the process Owner, and Environmental constraints.

Step Three: Identify Possible Causal Factors

• What sequence of events leads to the problem?
  
• What conditions allow the problem to occur?
  
• What other problems surround the occurrence of the central problem?

During this stage, identify as many causal factors as possible. Too often, people identify one or two factors and then stop, but that's not sufficient. With RCA, you don't want to simply treat the most obvious causes – you want to dig deeper.

Use these tools to help identify causal factors:

• Appreciation – Use the facts and ask "So what?" to determine all the possible consequences of a fact.
  
• 5 Whys – Ask "Why?" until you get to the root of the problem.
  
• Drill Down – Break down a problem into small, detailed parts to better understand the big picture.
  
• Cause and Effect Diagrams – Create a chart of all of the possible causal factors, to see where the trouble may have begun.

Step Four: Identify the Root Cause(s)

• Why does the causal factor exist?
  
• What is the real reason the problem occurred?

Use the same tools you used to identify the causal factors (in Step Three) to look at the roots of each factor. These tools are designed to encourage you to dig deeper at each level of cause and effect.

Step Five: Recommend and Implement Solutions

• What can you do to prevent the problem from happening again?
  
• How will the solution be implemented?
  
• Who will be responsible for it?
  
• What are the risks of implementing the solution?

Analyze your cause-and-effect process, and identify the changes needed for various systems. It's also important that you plan ahead to predict the effects of your solution. This way, you can spot potential failures before they happen.

One way of doing this is to use Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA). This tool builds on the idea of risk analysis to identify points where a solution could fail. FMEA is also a great system to implement across your organization; the more systems and processes that use FMEA at the start, the less likely you are to have problems that need Root Cause Analysis in the future.

Impact Analysis is another useful tool here. This helps you explore possible positive and negative consequences of a change on different parts of a system or organization.

Another great strategy to adopt is kaizen, or continuous improvement. This is the idea that continual small changes create better systems overall. Kaizen also emphasizes that the people closest to a process should identify places for improvement. Again, with kaizen alive and well in your company, the root causes of problems can be identified and resolved quickly and effectively.

Key Points

Root Cause Analysis is a useful process for understanding and solving a problem.

Figure out what negative events are occurring. Then, look at the complex systems around those problems, and identify key points of failure. Finally, determine solutions to address those key points, or root causes.

You can use many tools to support your Root Cause Analysis process. Cause and Effect Diagrams and 5 Whys are integral to the process itself, while FMEA and Kaizen help minimize the need for Root Cause Analysis in the future.

As an analytical tool, Root Cause Analysis is useful for performing comprehensive, system-wide reviews of significant problems, as well as for identifying the events and factors leading to them.

---

In the Career Excellence Club ...

In addition to "All Readers' Articles" like the one you've just read, members get access to many more excellent resources: our Extended Toolkit of member-only tools, downloadable Bite-Sized Training lessons, podcast Book Insights and Expert Interviews, Coaching Clinics, and debate, discussion and support in the Club forums.

If you are already a member, simply click on the links provided below to access the recent resource in the list. If you are not yet a member, take our tour to find out more about what it gives you.

27 Nov Thur	Read Smarter – Consuming Information More You read everyday but do you do it as efficiently as you could? Do you even think about what you're reading and why before you dive in? Find out why these concepts are so important. All Members' Bite-Sized TrainingTM Members: Read More >> Take the Club Tour>>
26 Dec Wed	Stepladder Technique – Making Better Group Decisions You know how hard it can be for everyone to participate and be heard in a group. Find out how to manage people so that they make better group decisions. All Readers' New Tool Read More >> Take the Club Tour>>
24 Dec Mon	Influencer By Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, David Maxfield, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler Find out why the authors say you shouldn't think about end results if you want to influence others. And learn what you SHOULD be focusing on instead. Premium Members' Book Insight Premium Members: Read More >> Take the Club Tour>>
20 Dec Thurs	A Generous Gift What's the most generous gift you can give this season? Forget about shopping, and instead lavish time and attention on those you care about... With a little help from this Coaching Clinic. All Members' Coaching Clinic Members: Read More >> Take the Club Tour>>
19 Dec Wed	Managing Your Boss – Developing an effective working relationship Find out how to take the lead in building a great working relationship with your boss. Premium Members' New Tool Read More >> Take the Club Tour>>
17 Dec Mon	Chester Elton: Using Recognition to Drive Performance Have fun finding out how best to use "carrots" to engage people, retain talent and accelerate performance, in this interview with Chester Elton. Premium Members' Expert Interview Premium Members: Read More >> Take the Club Tour>>
14 Dec Fri	Just In Time (JIT) – Reducing Inventory, Minimizing Waste, and Responding to Your Customers What if you could have what you need without having to hold a huge inventory of parts and finished stock? Find out about "Just In Time" manufacturing. All Readers' New Tool Read More >> Take the Club Tour>>
13 Dec Thur	Networking Skills Does networking intimidate you? By the end of this session you'll be well on your way to networking success! All Members' Bite-Sized TrainingTM Members: Read More >> Take the Club Tour>>
12 Dec Wed	Working with Purpose - Bringing more meaning to your career If you feel that changing jobs is the only way to bring purpose to your work, think again. Find out how you can bring new meaning to your current job. Premium Members' New Tool Read More >> Take the Club Tour>>

A Final Note from James

I'm going to say it again: Make sure that you think about what you want from 2008, and then set clear goals to make sure that you achieve these things.

Time and again, it's been shown that the main difference between successful people and unsuccessful people is that successful people think about where they want to go, and then set goals to go there.

So here's my challenge to you: Set your alarm clock two hours early for the next three days, and use the time you gain to think - really THINK - about what you want to achieve with your life. And then set the goals that will get you there. If you use the Life Plan Workbook to do this, so much the better!

Here's to your goal-setting, to your successes, and to your best year ever in 2008!

James

James Manktelow

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