Looking Beyond the Visible Problem

Every organization has problems. They are a natural part of business. What I find intriguing is how quickly, and how loosely, we define them.

• "We have a communication problem."
• "Our managers need more accountability."
• "The team needs training."

Those statements may all be true. The challenge is that they leave so much open to interpretation. They describe what we believe is happening, but they don't explain the observations that led us to that conclusion or what success should actually look like.

Without that understanding, we're left trying to solve a problem that everyone may be defining differently.

I was reminded of this while working with an organization that wanted additional training for one of their teams. On the surface, the request made perfect sense. Executive management described the team as "chaotic," so additional training seemed like the logical solution.

As I interviewed the team members, however, a different picture began to emerge.

Everyone understood their responsibilities. They could explain the process, describe the expected outcome, and demonstrate the knowledge they had already been taught. The issue wasn't a lack of training.

What I eventually discovered was that the team supported multiple managers, each with different expectations of the team. Depending on who they were working with, success was defined differently. They weren't struggling because they didn't know what to do. They were struggling because they were trying to satisfy different definitions of success.

Additional training might have made everyone feel like they had solved the problem. In reality, very little would have changed because the training wasn't what was driving the inconsistency.

That experience reinforced something I've observed throughout my career. The visible problem is often real. It deserves attention. But it isn't always the place where meaningful improvement begins.

Communication may not be the issue; unclear expectations may be. Training may not be the issue; inconsistent leadership may be. Accountability may not be the issue; it may simply be that no one has clearly defined the standard people are expected to meet.

The effectiveness of any solution depends on the clarity of the problem it's intended to solve. That's why it's important not to accept the first version at face value. When a problem becomes visible, the natural instinct is to solve it immediately. A better first step is to become curious. Clearly define the desired outcome, identify what specifically is falling short, and consider what other factors may be influencing the results. More often than not, those questions lead to a very different conversation than the one that started the investigation.

Before deciding on a solution, ask three questions:

• Compared to what standard are we measuring success?
• What specifically isn't meeting that standard?
• What other factors may influencing the results?

The more precisely we define the problem, the more effectively we can solve it.