Responding to Frank Patrick: Root Cause

Responding to Frank Patrick; Root Cause

Blogging Buddy Frank Patrick posed a question to me yesterday, based on a comment I posed to his assertion about understanding underpinnings last week. For those of you who find text full of links annoying, I’ll summarize in text.

Frank has a deep understanding of Theory of Constraints. I mean deep. And I learn from him regularly. Frank posited;

The Theory of Constraints Thinking Processes can be used to address this through the use of a Current Reality Tree to lay out the logical underpinnings that support or explain one's "perception of the world." This aspect of marketing runs parallel to the need, in any situation involving persuasion, to start from a point of "agreement about the problem."

So I asked Frank, via the comment, if he could explain more how he applies these powerful concepts in practice. I’m not that good at it; I’d benefit from Frank’s explanation.

What sits behind my request is one of the points of learning for me currently; how do we reliably and quickly describe the root cause of problems? The more I try to seek process excellence, the more I am aware of the need to find root cause. And the company that can consistently and quickly specify the core problem it faces will simply be more agile than competitors. And such an agility will be impossible for a competitor to identify, understand or replicate.

TOS’s Current Reality Tree is the most analytical and robust of the numerous methods of getting to root cause. I’ve used it several times. In each instance, it has led me to a very sound root cause, to which the solution became obvious. In each instance, I have been completely unable to communicate either the process or the result to others. The work and simple, logical elegance was for naught.

Frank, any help on implementation??