A Parable

Village residents were having a picnic by a river when one of them suddenly spots a baby in the water. He immediately dives in, braving the fierce current, and rescues the infant. But as he climbs ashore, one of the other villagers spots another baby in the river in need of help. Then another. And another. Before long, the river is filled with desperate babies, and more and more rescuers are required to assist the picnickers. The next day the village council called an emergency meeting and allocated a budget to design lifesaving tools, processes and training to save the babies and to hire more rescuers.

Eventually, the village managed to create an efficient, although costly, life-saving organization and, over time, an entire infrastructure was created to support their efforts; hospitals, schools, foster careers, social services, trauma and victim support services, lifesaving trainers, swimming schools etc.

Then one day one of the rescuers left the team and walked off. “Where are you going?” the others ask, “There is much work to do here!” She replied “You carry on. I’m going upstream to find how these babies are ending up in the river”.

Moral of the story!
Obvious? Perhaps! But how much expense and lost time does your business incur by focusing on addressing the symptoms of a problem rather than taking the time to understand and correct the root cause. SkeensMcDonell can help you identify the root causes of your issues through our assessment process.

*This is a variation of the parable written by Stevyn Colgan.

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