Last month my ISHN article addressed the concept of "root cause." I wanted to convince you that safety professionals look for the root cause of an incident when there is not one to be found. Plus, they do this with techniques that couldn't determine the single cause of an incident if there was one.
Searching for a root cause through interviews and surveys inhibits the very kind of frank and open conversation needed to identify the various environmental and behavioral factors that need to be identified and addressed.