Root cause

Root cause

“Root cause” is a great expression; you’ll use it when you’re solving complicated problems. To understand this, you need to know the word “root.” The root is the part of a tree or a plant that’s underground. You don’t necessarily see it, but it’s the base for the whole tree. You see where I’m going with this.

The root cause of a problem, then, is the fundamental, underlying, reason or source behind the problem. Often problems have a “proximate cause” and “root cause.” The proximate cause—this isn’t a common expression, but it’s the correct word—the proximate cause is the thing you see, or the most obvious reason for a problem.

But the root cause is the fundamental cause, the basis, the real source of the problem. And that might not always be obvious.

Let’s take a simple example. Imagine that it’s 3:00 p.m. and you’re exhausted. Why? Well, if you didn’t sleep well the previous night, then that’s the answer. You’re tired because you didn’t sleep enough.

But is that the root cause? That’s the most obvious answer. But is that the real source of the problem? Maybe the root cause of the problem is stress that keeps you awake at night. Maybe the root cause of the problem is sleep apnea, a condition that doesn’t allow you to fully sleep on any night.

If you have too much stress, or if you suffer from sleep apnea, then you won’t solve your problem by going to bed earlier. So any time you have a complicated problem, you want to look for the root cause.

In today’s story, we talked about multiple kinds of failure . When something goes wrong, it can be helpful to find the root cause of the failure. And to help us do that, the author Amy Edmondson created six types of failure to analyze.

Let’s say you have a business that delivers products to customers. And customers always get the products late. You could yell at the delivery driver. But is the driver the root cause of the problem? Is the driver the fundamental source of the problem? Maybe! Maybe the driver is slacking off.

But it’s also possible—more likely, actually—that the root cause is that you’re not planning for traffic when you make delivery estimates. Or maybe the root cause is that you’re giving each driver too many packages to deliver in a day. You see what I mean.

For a while, I was fighting an unwinnable battle with customer support. It was with a technology company that I used—past tense—with Plain English. And I’d keep having problems and I’d get on the live chat. And—without fail—the people on the live chat would do the bare minimum required to get me off the chat. Absolutely nobody was willing to even consider the root cause of a problem.

And that’s when I realized what kind of failure I was dealing with. It was an inability failure: the team I was using just didn’t have the ability to get to the root cause of the problem. I shouldn’t blame them; it’s no use getting angry. They just operated a chat. So I switched to a provider with better customer service and the ability to identify the root causes of problems.

See you next time!

Oh, I forgot to mention. I was going to say this earlier. But this is the last new episode of the year. Everyone that works on Plain English, I tried to give them all a break by creating “shorter” lessons earlier this year, but…they were like 100 words shorter than normal.

Everyone on the Plain English team must have been shaking their heads thinking, “This is what you call a break?”

So we are going to be off until after the new year. Our next new episode will be Monday, January 1. We’ll put something in your podcast feed next week. But the next full episode, the next lesson set, will be Lesson 636 on Monday, January 1, 2024.

Congratulations on an amazing year. I am just always so proud of and inspired by all the great work you’re doing, all the great progress you’re making. Keep up the great work. We’ll be back in 2024, better than ever, for another year of English learning together. See you next year.