Focus of Root (FOR)

Focus of root is an expression to identify the critical resources in your region or area. These can be physical characteristics such as flat open areas for airports, rivers for shipping, or high ridges for vantage points. Resources can also be people, like personal aquaintances, familiy members, congregations or academic communities. We often need others to see what we have failed to notice in ourselves and our surroundings.

When resources are identified, they can be described in terms of being an asset (strength) or a liability (weakness). When perceived liabilities are engaged, the process to understand them is strength in itself. Not only is addressing the need a positive approach to problem solving, its responsible stewardship. Leaders need to be good stewards as their habits impact how others behave.

When problem solving, an inventory of strengths and weaknesses is a good way to apply critical thinking techniques to recognize what is the cause or root of an issue. As simple as this many sound, identifying the problem or objective in terms we can understand can be difficult. Influences and people outside of our normal circles may be required.

After a problem or objective is defined, the process of developing a solution can begin. With the FOR in hand, we can apply a method to document and share our experience with others to explore solutions. Scientific method is a technique that can be applied to make observations and draw conclusions from those observations. It is also a way to keep track of findings and gather critical evidence. It is from that critical evidence we can determine and possibly predict the behavior of physical and social relationships. But, we must be careful not to exclude the full measure of probability in our estimated conclusions.

As we have the strength of sharing and shaping our conclusions with others, it is critical to account to the limits of our powers of observation.