During our IDS sessions, we are constantly solving the surface symptoms like a drop in sales volume or software bugs rather than digging into the actual structural root cause because people get defensive. How do we force our leadership team to identify the issue behind the issue?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Solving symptoms instead of root causes is a massive waste of organizational energy because the same problems will keep popping up every quarter. To get to the issue behind the issue during your IDS® sessions, you must master the Identify phase of the tool.

When an issue is put on the board, the person who raised it must state the issue in a single, clear sentence. Once stated, the team must not jump to solutions. Instead, the facilitator must ask probing questions to dig deeper. Ask why five times, or ask what the deeper systemic breakdown is that allowed this specific symptom to occur. For example, if the issue is that a client is angry, the root cause is rarely the angry client itself. The root cause is usually a broken onboarding process or a training gap on the delivery team.

You must also establish a high-trust environment where pointing out a process breakdown is not treated as a personal attack on the seat holder. Remind the team that you are attacking the issue, not the person. If your team is too polite to speak the truth, you will never solve the real structural problems that are holding your business back from a clean exit.