Look For The Cause

The runner: "I've got a hamstring problem, I am going to see a physio to get my hammie treated". 
Me: "Are you sure it's your hammie?"
Quite often we treat the symptom not the cause. We go to the issue at hand and don't take the time to go upstream to establish what the root cause is.  We see it in medicine. I am sick... ok, take this. It's not why are you here, what's the cause of this situation, your lifestyle, habits, nutrition, lack of movement, stress, overwhelm, workload. Late for meetings? Why? Poor planning, no prioritising, lethargy, historically we always start late (leadership and standards), everyone else is late (extrinsic validation). Going upstream is an important thinking tool. The Japanese leader would ask the why question 5 times to get to the real cause. Most ask the question once (if any) and treat the symptom. Turns out the upstream cause of the hammie issue lay in their shoulders... tight shoulder, caused the body to be out of whack, so then hips out of whack, tightens their glute, tightens the hammie, strains hammie. Look for the cause before treating the symptom.
Thanks to Annie Spratt for the pic.