Welcome to the eternal ‘Hide and Seek’ game

The first game which strikes our mind, when we think of our sweet childhood days, is the simple ‘Hide and Seek’ game. I term it simple since it could be easily played outdoors or indoors, without any paraphernalia. At the end of each gaming session, the most interesting part would be to understand the ingenious ways, used by the fellow gamers to hide. Real Interactive game with real joy ! As we grow up, treading paths in our professional careers, we also come across many tricky, gaming situations, which we need to navigate, within a given set of constraints.

I would like to share a real-life warranty failure incident involving a small clutch maker and a big car maker, in the last millennium. A typical ‘David and Goliath’ scenario in the professional arena. A particular plate in the clutch was breaking repeatedly in warranty, in the most popular model of the car maker, all over India. Since we were a start-up company, we were quite baffled by this abrupt failure and quickly assembled a cross functional team to dive headlong into the analysis. Lot of pride was at stake, since we were collaborating with a multinational company.

During this analysis adventure, we were drowned with thousands of unstructured data, facts, symptoms, interviews, feedback, expert opinions and so on. We treated the ‘symptom’ of breakage and increased the thickness of the failed plate. Few months down the line, the improved version also started failing left, right and centre. Finally, after months of focused efforts, we were able to find the culprit.

The root cause for the plate breakage in the clutch was a faulty design of the pedal linkage mechanism in the car. As usual, as a tiny component maker, we had to use our diplomatic skills more than our technical skills to make the giant car maker realize their mistake and correct it. Once the root cause was addressed, the warranty failure came down to zero.

Even in all walks of our lives, although our intention is to carry out a perfect job, we repeatedly come across failures. The external world has its own way of doling out hurdles to us, from all directions. In the cauldron of perceived symptoms, we get carried away easily, by treating the attractive ‘symptoms’, without going deep into the analysis of the root cause. Since we neither find the hidden root cause nor take preventive actions, certain unfavourable situations keep boomeranging with monotonous regularity in our lives.

So, this adventure is an eternal ‘Hide and seek’ game always – Whether it is in our childhood or in our professional work arena or in our ultimate quest of seeking the meaning of our human existence. In Life’s discovery garden of ‘symptoms’, let us focus on seeking the hidden ‘root cause’. Since it is an adventure, it promises loads of suspense and fun, always!