Root cause

Root cause

Today’s English expression is “root cause.” The root cause of an issue is the earliest or most basic cause of an event or behavior. I’ll give you a simple example. Let’s say at work, a supervisor asks an employee to stay 30 minutes late one day to finish a project. The employee decides he can’t take it anymore and quits the job on the spot.

You might be tempted to say the reason the employee quit is because his supervisor asked him to stay another 30 minutes. But is that really the root cause? Is that the beginning of the issue? Do you think someone would really quit their job because of 30 minutes? Probably not, right? The real reason might be that the employee doesn’t feel appreciated, or that the supervisor routinely doesn’t respect people’s time, or that they already had a poor relationship. The one last 30-minute request might appear like it’s the reason, but the root cause—the real reason, going back to the beginning—is something much bigger.

In many situations, there are proximate causes and root causes. The proximate cause is the last thing that happens. In our example above, the proximate cause was the supervisor’s request for 30 minutes of extra work. But the root cause is deeper, more serious, and goes back farther in time.

In the U.S., a lot of people are leaving their jobs. There’s even a term for it here: the “Great Resignation.” Why are people leaving their jobs in such great numbers? Some people say it’s because people want to continue working from home, but their bosses want them in the office—so employees quit. Others think that people saved so much money during the pandemic, so employees have more savings, and that’s the reason they quit.

But I suspect these are not the root causes. I suspect that these are not the deepest, most important reasons. Here’s what I think. I think many people have long been unfulfilled in their jobs. I think that a lot of people have been going in, punching the clock, and collecting a paycheck, but they haven’t been happy. And I think people want to feel connected to their work, especially after the last 18 months. Work at home, extra savings, the pandemic…these things may have started the trend of people leaving their jobs. But I have a feeling the root causes are bigger, that people have felt unfulfilled in their jobs, especially at large companies.

What are the root causes of domestic violence? There are a lot of opinions on this. In Bogota, they believe that one of the root causes is the machismo tradition and the inability of men to manage their emotions, especially jealousy. One way to address the root cause is to provide men with counseling to help manage these emotions . The Calm Line won’t solve the problem of domestic violence by itself, but at least it’s attempting to address the root cause.

What is the root cause of stress? It’s tempting to say that you feel stressed because you have too much to do, too many phone calls to make, lots of responsibility, not enough time. But the root cause of stress is probably bigger. The root cause of your stress might be difficulty in managing your time or priorities. For others, the root cause of stress might be more emotional such as feeling like they have to do everything and not feeling comfortable asking for help.

I recently saw a show on TV called “Bar Rescue.” In each episode, an expert in the hospitality industry goes into a failing bar and restaurant, analyzes the business, and helps turn things around. In one episode, the bar is losing money and the owner was forced to give up their house to save the business. All the while, the employees were stealing from the bar by over-pouring drinks or giving out free shots (and taking home big tips in the process).

What is the root cause of the problem? Not the free shots on any given night. The root cause is that there was no supervision of the bartenders and the owner failed to set boundaries between himself and his employees. The team was taking advantage.

JR’s song of the week

JR’s song of the week of “Sea Cruise” by Robert Gordon. You know, vinyl is making a comeback. People like playing records on vinyl, traditional records. Some people insist that music sounds better on vinyl; I am not one of those people. But JR was at a restaurant where they were playing this song on vinyl and he really liked it, so he chose it for today’s song of the week. “Sea Cruise,” by Robert Gordon. You can find it on Spotify or on an old-fashioned LP.

See you next time!

The “Great Resignation” is not affecting Plain English. We will be here for you every week on Monday and Thursday year-round. No vacations either! This is a great time to say thanks to all the people who make Plain English a success week in and week out. Madeline and Dana help with the content.

Then we have our translators. They produce the translations of keywords and phrases on the website; that’s part of the Plain English Plus+ membership. Our translators are Tao, Paola, Coty, Valeria, Katrin, Melissa, Yoko, and Przemyslaw. Tao and Paola have been here since almost the very beginning, too.

And of course, JR, who does so much behind the scenes editing audio, video, managing the website content, email newsletters, all that stuff. So, a big thanks to everyone on the Plain English team.

We do take vacations, I should clarify. We just work around them so that we can bring you new content every week. That’s all for today. You can see the handiwork of the entire team at PlainEnglish.com. We’ll be back on Monday with a new lesson. See you then!