At work or home: Root Cause is the best route to problem-solving success

I remember becoming part of the Danaher culture in the late 90’s and thinking that I understood the application of lean thinking. Within weeks of arriving there, I realized that I frankly, had a LOT more to learn.

Twenty years after that wake-up call, I reflect on my exposure to, and eventually, my facilitation and teaching others some of the many ways to apply lean throughout an entire organization -- not just on the factory floor or supply chain operations, or even with commercial and transactional processes (where many companies don’t realize what they can achieve with the front and back office) but in daily life as well. Yes, lean / continuous improvement thinking is (or can be) a way of life! Nearly every classic lean tool has use at home or even, inter or intra-personally.

This fundamental point is one that I try to drive home with new clients looking to hire on a staff of lean practitioners, usually after they’ve had a taste of lean with some help from consultants. I find that initially, the boundless potential for lean thinking in terms of the potential for application (and related dividends) isn’t realized until the culture begins making changes, realizing the benefits within their four walls, and asking where else they can apply lean. Eventually, some folks bring lean thinking into their homes and lives.

One of the reasons I love my job is that I have a truly unique position these days, developing new business for a retained search firm that focuses solely on companies who are beginning, or are well-entrenched in lean/continuous improvement/six sigma. We find those clients the precisely-matched and motivated functional leaders and practitioners that they require. So along the way, my observations of how deep or broadly one’s lean thinking can go is something I get to witness and assess quite frequently. 

Often times, clients will remark ‘if they knew how deep they could take it and the rewards of doing so, they would have invested in lean a long time ago.’ One client’s long-time CEO came to tears speaking with me, stating he would have been retired 10 years ago given the returns that his lean initiative now returns to the business (had he put it in place when he first became aware of lean). In that time he lost his wife and a child, and lamented about his absence from home due to fire-fighting or working in, not on, the business while trying to balance his obligations at home. 

Ever since that emotional discussion, I thought many times about posting a blog illustrating with real life examples this simple truth about lean that’s so often not realized. So I’m dipping my toe in with this article in LinkedIN. Naturally one might start with examples from 5S and visual management, but recently, I was inspired to kick off with Root Cause—digging deeper to find the true reason for a failure of any sort.

Inspired by a problem at home - we have been getting water into the garage of my intentionally and quite naively-purchased fixer upper home, but so far in these three years of blissful ownership, I’ve failed to get to the root cause, until just this year.

In problem solving, it’s very easy to get caught up talking about SYMPTOMS—which serve as a good back drop but don’t solve a thing, nor can they be controlled or changed by the problem solver. For instance, in New England this year, we have suffered from climatic extremes of having winter snow or freezing daytime temps through late April, proceeded by slamming right into summer, with rains through June and July that made up for a dry April and May (five times over).

So what do most people do to solve a problem? Most talk about their problems and then sometimes reluctantly defer to an “expert” after you’ve tried a few of your own tricks, right? Well I fell victim to the same. First I cleaned the gutters, as they overflowed in moderate storms. Then I extended the gutter downspout drains a few feet away from the foundation walls. No luck, every big rain meant water in the garage. Eventually, I hired in an excavation company come dig out and “patch” the crack running at the inner corner of the foundation wall where the garage meets the house, and backfill it. The contractor told me “these are historic rains, don’t worry, you won’t see rain like this again” just before requesting his preferred method of cash for the work done, and then didn’t produce an invoice (perhaps that’s why the use of the word “patch” gave me the chills, that metaphoric band-aid term that made me cringe so). Sure enough, the next big rains came and more water in the garage. I noticed a small crack just above the top of the “patch area”, so I filled that in. Still, we got water in the garage.

I then called a local “reputable” engineering firm, who suggested a (very ugly) system of connected french drains around my house, which also may have to be dug up every few years to clean out the perforated pipe as the filter sock that goes over the pipe can clog and/or deteriorate. Fun! Further, I’d have to look at gravel for the first two feet from the foundation extending into my landscaping. His quote was nearly $8,000 to run 198 feet of French drain that would whisk the water away from the foundation, and solve my problems. And while that may be accurate, I’m not about to toss out 8 grand that I’ll never get back out of the house, but I’m also not about to settle with the idea of being forced to have quality time with my floor squeegee, either.

A week ago Saturday, I woke up with a strong dose of determination (augmented with caffeine), and went at this perennial problem with a vengeance. I was going to fix this damn water issue, once and for all!

Amidst the 110 degree heat index of 95 degree heat and high humidity, I was determined to both trench/bury the rain gutter discharge pipes on both sides of the front of the house, and have them drain far (50-80’) away from the structure.

I have functioning gutters, so I determined that I just needed to move the water coming out of the gutter downspouts further away from the house. Those gutters may overflow occasionally, but the water that seeps into the landscaping should get soaked in by the tree and shrub roots, right?

Five sweat-soaked t-shirts and 3 electrolyte drinks later, I dug out the entire front of the house, compacted gravel and sand, laid all the pipes in. Towards the end, in that little problematic corner of the garage, I dug a bit deeper knowing this was a problem area. And right there, I found that the true root cause, was not a root, but a rock! Sitting right atop the foundation footer and conveniently just below the prior “patch”, right at the troublesome inner corner where garage meets house, there was a large rock buried. Digging it up I discovered, as luck would have it, the rock was relatively flat, and pointed right towards the foundation wall, forcing water up against the wall, and of course trapping water there, allowing for a freeze to expand and crack that inner corner, allowing any water (that wasn’t draining away adequately) to seep right in to the garage. The crack continued down past the “patch” almost to the footer itself, as only a portion was actually “patched” by my Band-Aid rock star contractor from the past.

Since 1986, 4 different owners of this house had been chasing water out of the garage. When I first purchased the home, I had to jack up the door wall and cut out the rotted framing, sheathing and garage door trim because the water problem was so bad for so long. All this, over a poorly placed rock.

Imagine if it had been dug out and removed when the patch was placed on the foundation walls three years ago. Or better yet, had the foundation been properly back-filled in 1986 without mini boulders butted up against it.

I'm happy to report that this past week, we had a 3 hour soaker yielding 5 inches of rain, and while I was traveling, I was happy to hear that we didn't get a drop of water in the garage. My root/rock cause is solved--and it cost me nothing to remove but some elbow grease, sweat, hydration drinks, and a couple hundred dollars in proper water resistant concrete mix, paint, and some pipes. A small price to pay to fix the problem, and a reminder that I suffered needlessly for three years because I didn’t take my own advice to get to the root cause.

What’s more, this lesson served as reminder for me to share how Lean (or continuous improvement) is a way of life--even when people (like me) forget to use the tools they already have!! Root cause, one of the many tools in the lean thinker’s toolbox, was probably one of the first tools I learned, and is one of the easiest problem solving tools to deploy: Ask “Why” 5 times and only accept answers that are causes (not symptoms). Chances are you get there in 3-4 asks. Lean tools help sustain a permanent solution or improvement to the inevitable many shortcomings and failures you'll see on the shop floor, or your garage floor.

Can't relate? For those of you with dry garages: How many times have you had to take the car in that garage back for repair of the same problem multiple times, paying for a technician to throw parts at it in an expensive guessing game that leaves you with the bill, only to find (if you’re astute enough to ask) that the true root cause was just something like a bad ground wire, or a leaking hose or clamp. And here you’ve paid for hours of “diagnostic” and repair time while the technician merely plugged in a computer, cleared a fault code and replaced the device reporting the fault (not looking at the cause for why that part or sensor is barking!).  At least your garage floor is dry when you pull in, right? ??

Where the rubber really hits the road is when you persevere and achieve the results with resolving the root cause.

What lean tool examples can you share from your daily life challenges?