Treating the symptom not the cause

In B School, one of our professors advocated always identifying and addressing the root cause of a problem and not the symptom. This made a lot of sense at the time.

The real world teaches you however, that not all business situations are neatly academic. Very often, there are current fires to fight. and where there is a fire, one would be wise to get hold of a fire extinguisher now and point the nozzle at the flames where you see them; not go into a meeting to decide if the root cause of the fire was an electrical short-circuit or an open flame in the pantry or a careless smoker discarding a matchstick.

After a few years of treating symptoms and causes, hopefully judiciously, I have come to realize that sometimes putting in a process to treat the symptom also treats the cause. Process discipline usually works this way. If you find yourself always behind schedule and therefore getting into trouble at home for missing social commitments, then you might want to set a rule that treats the symptom; in this case - reaching home late. Having been there, done that, and gotten into trouble for it, I started out by setting an alarm on my phone for 6 pm at which time I had to call home to tell them what time I would leave the office and when I could be expected to reach home. This little change yielded miraculous results. First, I was seen as more predictable and trustworthy. At least I could be counted on to call at 6 pm to advise if I would be late. Second, if I was forgetting a social commitment for that evening, I would get a not-so-gentle reminder at 6 and I could re-prioritize my work at the office. Third, I found that started to remember social commitments better after being chewed out at 6 pm on previous occasions. I learned to set social commitments on my phone calendar too, along with my business commitments.

All in all, I started to manage my time better. Root cause addressed. So the next time someone starts to pontificate about treating the cause and not the symptom, you might want to take that with a pinch of salt. Either approach might yield results.