Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between the two. Is what I’m experiencing truly the problem or is it a symptom of an underlying problem? The terrible headache isn’t the problem, only a symptom resulting from a large brain tumor. I’ve learned that whenever I think I’ve identified the problem, I need to dig deeper to determine if it is only a symptom. We need to get to the root cause.
I was talking with a friend last week and he was frustrated with his sales results. He had identified the problem; his sales force and channel partners were not being effective. We talked about it for awhile and it became clear that the problem he identified was only a symptom. The company had not clearly identified who its customer was. Pretty tough to develop a go to market strategy when you haven’t identified who your market is. He needed to dig deeper to diagnose the tumor. To get to the root cause.
When I interview people about their public accounting experiences, I typically ask what they love and what they hate. They typically love the people, the clients and the caliber of work. They hate the problems; the long hours, tremendous stress, and lack of control over their schedules (along with plenty of others). These are symptoms folks.
Likewise, we’ve talked with hundreds of companies over the past years. There is a common theme to the message we hear. Most of the pains we hear about are symptoms stemming from the symptoms described in the previous paragraph. The headache affects one’s ability to focus.
In order to be the professional service firm that provides better results to the people that work in it and the clients that benefit from it, we are digging deeper in order to tackle the root cause.