Crisis management: The root of the problem

"Like the sound of a conch shell, all one needs in a moment of doubt is the right inspiration."

The above is not a quote from the Bhagavad Gita, but mine, inspired by Krishna's advice to Arjuna when Arjuna's confidence crumbles at the sight of the mighty Kuru army facing him.  

While my earlier posts were about historical figures, this one may seem out of theme. However, I believe that Krishna and Arjuna are not mythological characters, but historical figures.

I read an article from e-samskriti.com about crisis management and how Krishna's message to Arjuna applies to our daily life and workplace issues.

Crisis management- A case study of Arjuna's rescue and rehabilitation by Sri Krishna

Below is a paragraph from that article.

" Mind is the first factor in man to react to the sensory situations it perceives so easily every time. Its inevitable habit is to come out with lamenting and conflicting conclusions, unless intelligence, the higher faculty, intervenes in the process and starts imposing its competence for better understanding. The discordance between intelligence and mind, between wisdom and emotion, is the chronic ill of mankind, the society, and individuals. This is the crisis we face every day. 

Mind’s misbehavior is generally left uncared for and its imbalance is allowed to prevail resulting in man’s wrong responses ruining his wisdom and thereby his welfare. The aim of crisis management is to make a man realize this grave inefficiency, inattention, and imbalance and enable him to face the crisis in the most effective manner."

For the last couple of weeks, I have been dealing with a seemingly minor issue. My electric toothbrush had lost its charge. I resorted to using it like a regular brush for a few days, then realized that my daughter's toothbrush seemed to be working. So I substituted the brush head in the mornings and replaced it after using the charged body of the toothbrush.

On my task of things to do was to buy another electric toothbrush, despite my disappointment that the two-year-old expensive brush had stopped working. Nonetheless, I shrugged my shoulders and did what I needed to do. It was after all a toothbrush. Don't spend too much time on this, there are more important things to worry about, I reminded myself. So I bought myself a new electric toothbrush for under $30. 

Keen to make another start in my world of dental hygiene, I placed the new toothbrush in its charger and waited for a few hours to use it. It wasn't working! Annoyed at the thought of returning to the store and standing in line with customer service, I found the receipt and retrieved the empty box that I had thrown in the garbage can.

I placed the charger and the new brush in my daughter's bathroom. Nothing! Then it dawned on me. In order to test my theory, I plugged it into my office's outlet. Eureka!

The problem was with the electrical outlets in both bathrooms. I found my old brush and charger and plugged it into another working electric outlet. The green light on the brush started flashing immediately. I realized how I almost threw out a perfectly functional toothbrush and charger without identifying the root cause of the problem- the faulty electric outlets in both bathrooms.

Which then made me wonder about workplace issues and system problems. How good employees are allowed to leave an organization because of defective upstream problems. These are often bigger issues that go unrecognized until many lower employees are lost.

"You are only as good as the system you work in"

These were the words of the president of the Society of Hospital Medicine at the 2010 annual meeting which I attended. Words that have stayed with me. Words that came back to me because of a toothbrush.

Seemingly minor issue, but a good reminder to look for the root of the problem.