Six Problems That Can Sabotage Your Business Systems!
As previously discussed, the Law of Cause and Effect says that everything happens for a reason; for every effect, there is a specific cause. Outcomes in a business organization, good or bad, are traceable to a series of identifiable causes.
Six Sources of Business Problems
When looking at your operations, nearly all frustrations and problems stem from six basic sources that you should be able to spot and remedy.
- Human – A person is not a good fit for the job, not skilled or properly trained, not motivated, or perhaps doesn’t get along with their supervisor or peers.
- Process – The business system or process is poorly designed, communicated, or executed. Half-baked systems always have diminished results.
- Policy – You have a company policy that hinders performance. For example, production goals cause hurry and sloppiness. A policy not to take checks or credit cards causes a loss of sales.
- Equipment – Equipment is outdated, slow, or worn-out and causes downtime or excessive waste.
- Materials – Cheap or low quality materials cause inefficiency, rework, or customer complaints.
- Environment – The work environment is not conducive to high performance—too hot or cold, dangerous, cluttered and disorganized, stressful, and so forth.
Each of these general causes of poor performance provides a starting point for getting to the root cause. Identify your problem. Ask employees or customers for their thoughts and ideas. Then fix the step or component in the system that will correct the problem.
Common Sense
This past week I was trying to help a struggling family get a past-due mortgage payment made. I told the bank representative that I wanted to make a payment on their behalf over the phone. The representative said she couldn’t take the money because my name was not on the loan. I won’t judge the bank because there may be issues I don’t understand, but can you imagine a company policy that won’t let you take past-due money.
A water faucet releasing one drop per second wastes over 2000 gallons in a year. In the same way, a bad policy, a faulty piece of equipment, a messy work environment, an ineffective system, low quality materials, or the wrong person in a job can also waste many dollars.
Sometimes problems are easy to spot and sometimes they require a little digging. A 5-Whys Analysis can be very useful to uncover less-obvious root causes.
But don’t forget this: The good results in your business also have specific causes. Identify your reasons for success, expand upon them, and apply them to other areas of the business. Run with your strengths.
Wishing You Prosperous Times,
Ron Carroll
P.S. – Box Theory™ software contains 5-Whys Analysis and Pareto Analysis tools for uncovering your pesky problems. Check it out at www.BoxTheoryGold.com.