The Root Cause: Rethink Your Approach to Solving Stubborn Enterprise-Wide Problems

“Impeccably researched and astoundingly insightful, The Root Cause reveals how to go from ‘putting out fires’ to finding true, lasting solutions . . . A must-read guide for executives and leaders at any stage of their career!” ―Marshall Goldsmith, Thinkers50 #1 Leadership Thinker and #1 New York Times bestselling author of Triggers

Sooner or later, every executive has to confront problems that seem to be built into the way the business was designed, maintained, and managed. Whether it's information overload, profit margin issues, or adapting to new regulations, popular “best practices” don’t solve those problems. High-level executives, it turns out, are often the least able to diagnose—much less solve—an organization’s systemic problems. Hans Norden draws on a wealth of experience in in-house change management to help both established and up-and-coming C-suite leaders analyze the problems and create authentic, sustainable solutions.

In The Root Cause, readers will learn how executing change initiatives requires a different form of leadership than routine operations. Norden explains why systemic problems fester, manifesting as disruptions in the workflow of different departments and levels in the company.

You’ll discover:



Why systemic problems keep recurring and thus appear to be without solution
Why solving systemic problems is a unique and exclusive executive responsibility
Why a business managed as a collection of separate component parts will experience friction and conflict—and why most business “best practices” are fallacies
Why identifying the right solution to a systemic problem becomes easy when using a bigger picture perspective
Why leaders with a clear vision of the desired future state are better positioned to respond in a timely and adequate manner



While top-down management may work on a day-to-day basis, managing and fixing systemic problems requires intelligent collaboration with other management levels to implement improvements. Providing a clear, step-by-step road map to diagnosing issues and establishing authentic, holistic, and sustainable solutions, The Root Cause shows leaders a way to solve the seemingly unsolvable problems—and prevent more from arising in the future.