Are You Solving The Wrong Problem?

We need more leads! We need more activity! We need more demos/meetings! We need more pipeline! We need more tools! We need more people! We need better products! We need better pricing! We need more funding! We need……….

Too often, we focus on the symptoms of problems and not the problems themselves.

And when we only address the symptoms, the problems persist. Often, they get worse. We, often, end up doing more of what doesn’t work.

Until we start understanding the root causes of our problem, getting underneath the symptoms, we will never begin to solve the problems.

But what keeps us from understanding the root causes? Why do we continue to focus on the symptoms, not the problems that create those symptoms?

In some sense our brains are wired to respond to symptoms. We quickly look at things and move into a react/respond mode. Some of this is healthy, for example, if we are crossing a street and a car is speeding toward us, we need to jump out of the way, not analyze, why the car is doing this.

We tend to respond to symptoms because they are easy to see, explain, and address. We mistake action/motion for progress. Our react/respond mode to “not enough leads” is to get more.

Then we layer on top of this a business mindset focused on action, perhaps epitomized by the phrase, “Move fast and break things.” We reward behaviors that are action oriented, so responding to symptoms becomes our standard of operation. Stated differently, we’ve created a corporate political environment making the focus on symptoms a “safer” course of action than understanding the root issue.

Then layer churn on top of this. As we start seeing average tenures, at all levels, decreasing to 11-18 months, it’s human nature to focus on the things that can be accomplished in that time. New leaders leverage the playbooks they have always used, without understanding whether those playbooks address the underlying problems. Individual contributors display similar behaviors, doing what they are most experienced and comfortable with doing, rather than assessing whether they are doing the right things.

Then, let me make this more complicated. As we look at smaller or early stage organizations, everyone is charged both with execution and problem solving. Ideally, as we start seeing things not working, we quickly assess the problem and take corrective action. But as we grow, adding more support infrastructure, we tend to remove “problem solving” from those that do the work. Rev-ops, Enablement, strategy groups tend to focus on these more complicated issues, “freeing” up time for people to execute.

Overtime, strategy is separated from execution, incentives become more siloed. As a result, our abilities to recognize and address these problems become more difficult. Each group tends to act within their organizational responsibilities, limiting our abilities to identify and address the underlying problems. And then, we start developing metrics for each function that tend to reinforce these siloed behaviors.

It’s easy to understand how these thing evolve and happen, almost unconsciously. But how do we address these? How do we become agile and nimble in identifying and addressing the underlying problems? Some thoughts:

1. We need to develop a culture, across the organization, where we slow down to diagnose. Rather than reacting/responding, simply asking, “Why is this happening?” Something as simple as the 5-whys helps us quickly diagnose the underlying issues and address the root problems. “We need more leads” becomes, “Why aren’t we getting enough leads….. What do we need to change….. Why….”
2. Doing the diagnosis, helps us better frame and understand the problem. It helps us move from, “sales are down,” to “Why aren’t customers buying?”
3. Doing the diagnosis helps us better understand whether it’s an individual performance issue, or a systemic issue for the organization. If an individual is failing to produce the right outcome, but the rest of the team is doing well, it’s an individual issue we have to understand and correct. But if, across the team or organization, we are seeing the same issues, there has to be an underlying problem causing this. It’s not the people themselves, rather there is something underlying what they are doing that stands in the way of their ability to produce results.
4. Recognize, the “systems” implications to the problems. Too often, where we see the symptoms, may be very far away from what is creating these symptoms. (This is the classic “forest for the trees,” challenge.) For example, poor response to our outreach may be an upstream issues of product/market fit, ICP definition.
5. Recognize that we may be too close to the issues, or blind to the real problems. Or the problem definition and solution may be outside our experience base. Get external perspectives–look at how others are addressing similar issues, talk to customers to get their perspectives, have a colleague or someone from a different part of the organization look at the issue. So often, the experience I, a consultant, brings is less my expertise, but more that I bring a different perspective to help people see the problems that have been in front of them all the time. Stated differently, I see the things they are too close to see.
6. Give people “permission” to identify and raise issues/potential problems. It’s stunning to me that so often, the people doing the work recognize there is an underlying problem, but they are afraid to raise the issue. Perhaps, we’ve become too accustomed to the mantra, “Don’t bring me problems, bring me solutions!” Too often, the people experiencing the problems aren’t the people that can solve the problems, but they recognize when things aren’t working.
7. Build a culture of continual improvement. Build a culture where people are curious, they want to learn, they want to improve, they want to change. Challenge them with issues, like, “How do we get better? What should we change?”

I’ll stop here. It’s easy to fall into the trap of focusing on symptoms, looking for the quick fixes, or even ignoring what is happening. But that doesn’t help us grow and improve. It doesn’t help us achieve our potential or to outperform the competition.

And, as a sidenote, developing these skills within our organizations enable us to create far greater value with our customers. They face the same challenges. Perhaps we can bring that outside perspective to help them better understand and address their own problems.

Afterword:  This is the AI generated discussion of this post.   As usual, interesting perspectives and a slightly different take on things.  Enjoy!