Fix the process, not the problem

In 1983, a paper company was on the verge of filing Chapter 11 for a subsidiary, a mill acquired two years earlier that was losing more than $1 million a month. One year later, the paper mill was just about breaking even. Today it is a highly profitable operation. What happened? Everyone at the mill became a problem solver. Both managers and mill workers learned to take the initiative not just for identifying problems but also for developing better ways to fix problems and improve products. The key to the mill's success: a multiyear learning process in which employees developed four progressively more sophisticated problem-solving loops: Fix-as-fail-solving problems after they occur. prevention-keeping problems from occurring. Root causes-discovering what is truly causing a problem. Anticipation-solving problems before they occur and finding innovative solutions to customers' problems. Drawing on the paper mill's experience, the authors illustrate the four loops and suggest ways managers can help this organizational learning process move ahead. Paradoxically, a key to becoming a faster, smoother running operation is to start slow and avoid the temptation to jump to root-cause problem solving before you truly understand what your problems are or have freed up the resources to go after them.