Four Causes of Workplace Problems and How to Solve Them

Why identify the cause before looking for solutions?

A solution works only when it addresses something that is actually causing the problem.

If we mistake a symptom for a cause, we may spend time, money and effort without preventing the problem from returning.

Imagine that customer reports are repeatedly being sent late. Telling everyone to "work faster" may sound like a solution, but it does not tell us why the reports are late.

The real causes might include poor personal planning, missing information from another department, an inefficient approval process, or an external supplier sending data later than expected.

Each cause requires a different response.

Before choosing what to do, ask: Where does the evidence suggest the cause actually sits?

The four main sources of workplace problems

1. Yourself: could your own actions be contributing?

Good problem solving starts with enough self-awareness to consider an uncomfortable possibility: I may be contributing to this problem.

This does not mean blaming yourself for everything. It means checking your own part before deciding the fault must lie elsewhere.

Common examples include:

• poor planning or time management;
• failing to communicate important information;
• making assumptions instead of checking facts;
• missing a step in a process;
• avoiding a difficult conversation;
• lacking the knowledge or skill required for a task;
• repeating a habit that has already caused problems.

Ask yourself:

• What did I do or fail to do?
• What information did I have at the time?
• Which assumption did I make?
• Is there a recurring pattern in my own behaviour?
• What could I personally do differently next time?

The advantage of identifying a cause in this category is that your own behaviour is usually the part of the situation over which you have the greatest control.

2. Other people: is somebody else's action contributing?

Some problems are caused partly by the actions, omissions or decisions of other people.

They may not have supplied information, followed an agreed standard, understood an instruction or developed the skill needed to perform the work correctly.

Again, diagnosis should not become blame.

Instead of saying, "Sam is the problem", define the behaviour objectively:

"The stock figure is required by 3pm each Thursday, and during the last three weeks it arrived after 5pm."

That statement gives us something useful to investigate.

Ask:

• Does the person know exactly what is expected?
• Do they have the information, authority and skill required?
• Have priorities been made clear?
• Is feedback being given when standards are missed?
• Is another part of the process preventing them from succeeding?

People-related problems may be improved through clearer communication, coaching, training, better feedback or agreed standards.

3. Systems: is the process making failure more likely?

A workplace system includes the processes, rules, tools, responsibilities and information flows that shape how work gets done.

If several capable people repeatedly make the same mistake, the system deserves close attention.

Signs of a system problem include:

• the same error appearing again and again;
• work being duplicated by different people;
• important information being entered several times;
• nobody knowing who owns a particular task;
• long approval chains creating avoidable delay;
• a process depending on one person's memory;
• different teams using conflicting versions of the same information.

Ask:

• What sequence of events produces the result?
• Where are the delays, gaps or duplicated steps?
• Which part depends on memory rather than a reliable process?
• Is responsibility clearly assigned?
• Could the process be simplified?

This is where structured root-cause techniques become useful. The Five Whys technique, for example, can help you move beyond an immediate symptom and investigate why it occurred.

4. External events: what sits outside direct control?

The original model describes the fourth category as "Mother Nature". In a modern workplace, it is useful to broaden this into external or natural events.

Examples might include severe weather, illness, power failures, a supplier failure, disruption to transport or a sudden external event that the organisation could not reasonably prevent.

The fact that an event is external does not mean nothing can be done.

You may not control whether a storm occurs, but you can decide whether important systems have backups. You may not control whether a supplier experiences disruption, but you can decide whether there is an alternative supplier or adequate stock.

For external causes, ask:

• Could this event reasonably have been predicted?
• Could its impact have been reduced?
• Do we need a contingency plan?
• Is there a single point of failure?
• What should we prepare before this happens again?

Problem solving therefore becomes partly problem prevention.

Use Problem Solver SOS to focus on what you can change

The first three categories form the practical mnemonic SOS:

• S - Self: improve your own habits, decisions and skills.
• O - Others: improve communication, standards, knowledge and behaviour.
• S - Systems: improve processes, tools, responsibilities and controls.

External events are different because direct control is limited. The response is usually preparation, mitigation and adaptation.

This gives problem solvers a useful rule:

Work hardest on the causes you can influence.

A workplace example: why are customer proposals late?

Suppose a sales team regularly sends proposals later than promised.

The manager could immediately blame the salespeople. A better response is to investigate all four categories.

Notice that the problem does not necessarily have one cause.

A recurring workplace problem often comes from several contributing factors. Solving only one may improve the situation without removing it completely.

This is why the aim should be to build a cause map, not simply identify somebody to blame.

How to distinguish causes from symptoms

A useful cause helps explain why the problem occurred.

A symptom merely describes what happened.

For example:

• "Customers are complaining" is a symptom.
• "Orders are arriving two days late" describes the problem more precisely.
• "Dispatch information reaches the warehouse after the daily collection time" identifies a possible cause.

Whenever you identify a possible cause, ask another question:

What evidence shows that this factor contributed to the problem?

If the evidence is weak, treat it as a hypothesis rather than a fact.

You can then use more detailed techniques such as the five important problem-solving questions to move from facts and causes into a practical plan.

Do not turn root-cause analysis into a blame exercise

Problem solving becomes less effective when people believe the purpose of the investigation is to find somebody to punish.

People then defend themselves, hide information and argue over responsibility.

A better question is:

"What combination of actions and conditions allowed this result to happen?"

This keeps attention on facts and improvement.

When a person made an error, address it. When a process allowed the error to pass unnoticed, improve the process as well.

The aim is not to remove personal responsibility. It is to make sure the organisation learns the full lesson.

Move from causes to action

Once you have identified and checked the likely causes, turn the analysis into action.

1. Define the problem precisely.
2. List possible causes under Self, Others, Systems and External Events.
3. Gather evidence for each possible cause.
4. Remove explanations that the evidence does not support.
5. Identify the causes you can influence.
6. Choose an action for each significant cause.
7. Set responsibilities and dates.
8. Check whether the problem improves.

For a broader start-to-finish process, see our guide to solving problems at work. You can also explore our article on the two types of problem and nine questions for solving them.

Become a better workplace problem solver

The quality of a solution depends heavily on the quality of the diagnosis that came before it.

When something goes wrong, resist the temptation to jump straight to a favourite answer or an easy person to blame.

Investigate four areas:

• yourself;
• other people;
• the system;
• external events.

Then use Problem Solver SOS to concentrate effort on the three areas where improvement is normally possible: Self, Others and Systems.

If you want a complete structured method for diagnosing causes, evaluating solutions, solving recurring problems and preventing future issues, our Problem Solving Training course teaches practical analytical and creative techniques that managers and teams can apply directly to workplace problems.