Zero-Based Root Cause Analysis (2)

It is probably true that you will never learn anything that someone else didn't already know. If this is true, then shouldn't we spend a lot of time learning from other people? Let's explore this a bit....

Before I was born, people knew how to walk, talk, eat, etc. And then, I was born.

I know how I learned to walk, to talk, to speak in public, to write, to breath, to comb my hair (what’s left of it). I had to fail, and fail, and fail, and fail. So did Edison. Sometimes, failing leads people to understand that “hey, I ought to learn more from other people.” Other times, failing leads people to “hey, those other people were dead wrong!”

Failure is the only phenomena of life capable of changing the way we see things, if we’re willing to put aside “the shell.” We never know where “failure” will lead us.
Maybe the real issue here is within the word “learn.” Learn is too vague a word, at least for me.

One of the synonyms for “learn” is “discover.” Something special happens at the moment of discovery. It’s the “epiphany” that I seek, and that I’m interested in helping others seek. Eureka! Shock! Mind-blowing, life changing, instantaneous paradigm change! It’s really hard to get to that point when someone else does the thinking for you. In fact, you can’t. When someone else does the thinking for us, we turn into lemmings.
Nevertheless, I suppose it’s true that I've not learned anything that someone else didn’t already know. But the most important things in life are the things that change me (us). And these kinds of things can only be learned by personal discovery.

I am not saying that I don’t think we should learn from one another. Of course we should! If we don’t we’re doomed.

And am I not saying that codes, standards, checklists, and all of that are bad. I think they’re essential. Without them, we have "Haiti."

When any of us learns something, we should all do our best to apply those learning’s across the board – before an incident occurs.

Before.

Those learning’s are our past solutions to past problems that we should have already have applied to our lives.

When we have a current problem, it’s time to put our past solutions to the side (until we know how and why the event occurred). I’ve done this all my professional life, and it’s led me (and others) to places I’ve (we’ve) never imagined.

All the ancient books (and religions), all the past philosophies, all our current knowledge, all that’s in our text books and on the internet will not replace the need for me (each of us) to learn certain things myself (ourselves)– even if someone else already knew – as a result of something that has gone wrong.

Before the problem, learn from others. After the problem, forget what others learned and simply wonder “why it happened to me (us), especially if others knew better?” In the end, it’s a very individual, lonely, but breathtakingly ecstatic existence – if we’re willing to break out of the shell.