Breaking Failure: How to Break the Cycle of Business Failure and Underperformance Using Root Cause, Failure Mode and Effects Analysis, and an Early Warning System

3. The Business Failure Audit and the Domain Transfer of Root Cause Analysis

“Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”

—George Santayana

Although business and campaigns often fail and underperform at great expense, most companies make no serious effort to determine the reasons why such failures occur. Usually, a department or manager is blamed, and they are either fired or their career is stalled. In other cases, if the department or person is lucky and well connected, or management is disengaged from day-to-day matters, the failure might be attributed to bad timing, the competition, or some other external factor. In addition, people have an innate tendency to look for external causes rather than question their own skills, ...