The Mother-Source concept has been a key part of Failsafe's training for many years. It acknowledges the need to select a hand-picked, devoted (even passionate) group of people that are trained and committed to ingrain a root cause mentality within an entire organization.

In other words, it is not enough to merely do RCA's on big problems. If this is all you want to do, YOU are the CAUSE of problems. Big problems are caused by unresolved small problems. And unresolved small problems are allowed to exist by people. Not just a few people, but all of us. Me. You. Everyone.

It is easy to say this, and even easy for people to agree with this. But it is very hard to get to the shocking, horrifying point where each of us actually sees OURSELVES as part of this problem. It takes a nurturing entity, a committed effort, to bring the infant idea of "everyone seeing themselves as part of the problem" to fruition.

Failsafe suggests that each site should provide this nurturing Mother-Source entity. Without it, the site is destined to experience disaster. Although Failsafe has been suggesting this for years, hardly anyone has anything remotely resembling this entity. It's the most desired (according to seminar attendees), but apparently least attainable part of Failsafe's suggested process.

Therefore, although I still think it best for each site to have its own Mother-Source, perhaps an alternative is to provide one for you. If you cannot find the resource within your own organization to help people learn from things that wrong, Failsafe will provide the resource.

Failsafe's Mother-Source-Central will:

• Jump-start a site's new Root Cause Analysis effort
• Give old, stagnant RCA efforts a booster shot
• Demonstrate the INTENT and VALUE of your own SITE MOTHER-SOURCE
• Provide outside leadership of RCA's to help assure the right people see themselves as part of the problem
• Provide OJT for a site's lead investigators so that they can do better RCA's on their own
• Help assure a consistent methodology in all your RCA's -- both on-site and across all sites
• Provide a coherent network of willing client sites to share learnings and address obstacles
• Provide a communication mechanism to assure that common SAFETY-RELATED learning's are shared across client-sites
• Provide the manpower to keep the RCA process consistent and progressing
• Help identify and act on COMMON LATENT THREADS

Eventually, Licensed Mother-Source-Central names and contact information will be permanently posted on Failsafe's web site so that you can contact them directly, without having to go through me. I expect to start posting names within weeks of this netletter. In the meantime, if you are in need of this resource, please send me an email.

Since this is a new effort, I am sure we will have growing pains. But I will do my best to make this resource whatever it needs to be to help you address the true causes of your problems.

Failsafe has developed a distinctive pathway to help organizations learn from things that go wrong. It calls this pathway “Operation Failsafe.” Included in Operation Failsafe is:

• Training: A distinctive Root Cause Analysis training curriculum offered through Failsafe University.
• Methods: A number of proprietary methods taught in the training to help people discover and act on the causes of their problems
• Mother-Source-Central: a licensed group of affiliates poised to respond to organizations in need of Root Cause Analysis services

In support of Mother-Source-Central, Failsafe:

• Desires long term relationships
• with a loose network of licensed affiliates
• from anywhere in the world
• with Failsafe providing the guidance
• with financial benefits for all
• with minimal red tape and obstacles

If you are either in business for yourself, or a consulting organization in a related field and are interested in becoming part of Mother-Source- Central, you will have to:

• be trained in Failsafe's methods (no training fee)
• keep the training updated (no training fee)
• routinely keep in touch via a private, free, web- based forum
• read and sign a contract

My desire is to conduct ourselves (the Mother- Source-Central) exactly as I think each site's Mother- Source ought to be conducting themselves. We will lead RCA's for our clients, teach them how to do Mini-RCA's, gather and accumulate Latency findings (when the client desires), help the client confront their Latencies, and help add a root cause mentality to their culture.

If you might be interested in becoming part of this venture, please send me an email (email address is at bottom of this netletter). I'll send you more information.