Our weekly IDS® sessions are spent treating symptoms rather than root causes, meaning the same problems keep resurfacing. How do we push past the surface?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Resurfacing issues are a symptom of a leadership team that is too polite or too rushed to dig deep. To solve an issue permanently, you must separate the symptom from the root cause.

When an issue is brought to the table during your Level 10 Meeting™, do not let anyone jump into solution mode. This is the identify phase of IDS®. The person who raised the issue must state it clearly in one sentence, focusing on the real problem, not the story around it.

Once stated, ask the team: What is the real issue here? You must ask why at least three to five times. For example, if the stated issue is 'we missed our marketing lead target', the root cause is rarely just bad luck. Ask why. Because the email campaign was late. Why? Because the designer did not have the assets. Why? Because we do not have a clear handoff process.

The real issue is not the lead target; it is the process bottleneck. Now you are solving the right problem.

Ensure you have the right people in the room to discuss it. If the issue involves someone who is not present, you cannot solve it.

Keep the discussion focused. Do not allow side conversations or tangents. Once the root cause is identified, transition to the solution phase and assign a clear, actionable To-Do to one person. If the same issue comes back next week, your solution was either wrong or not implemented.