Are You Solving the Right Problems?

“Keep redefining the problem until you arrive at the root cause.”

 — Einstein

Imagine you’re walking along a river bank and you see someone drowning.

Without hesitation, you jump into the water and save them.

You’re a hero. 

A few minutes later, you spot someone else drowning. Once again, you jump into the water and save them.

Again, you are a hero.

Suddenly, you begin to spot multiple people drowning.

The River Story

You might be familiar with the classic “River Story” parable, which illustrates how we are often so preoccupied with trying to fix things in our immediate vicinity that we fail to notice where the problem originates.

This tends to happen most frequently when the thing that’s happening demands our full and immediate attention.

The story continues. At first, there’s a frantic attempt to save those who are drowning, until one clever person decides to go upstream to find the source of the problem: why are they falling in to begin with? What is the cause of the drowning? 

You know what they say: an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of the cure.

There are countless applications to this story. If we are treating the wrong problem, or the outcome instead of the root, it will persist even despite attempts to resolve it.

There will always be things that fall beyond our control, things that we can’t change. But there is something we can control, which is the choice to ‘go upstream’ and seek out the source of the problem, which can give us more information about it. 

What problem keeps showing up for you?

What method/s have you been using to solve it?

Can you ‘go upstream’ and discover the source of the problem? Is there possibly a different problem you could address that might make all the difference?

Just some food for thought.

Please share with anyone who might need to hear this.

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