During the IDS® portion of our meeting, we waste twenty minutes arguing about different solutions before we have even agreed on what the actual problem is. How do we force our leadership team to slow down and properly identify the root cause before moving to discussion?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

The letter I in IDS stands for Identify, and it is the most abused step in the process. Most leadership teams are filled with action-oriented people who want to jump straight to solving. When you do this, you end up solving symptoms rather than the root cause, which is why the same issues keep returning.

To fix this, you must enforce a strict rule: nobody is allowed to offer a solution or debate an issue until the owner of the issue has clearly stated the problem in one single, concise sentence. The rest of the team must then agree that this sentence represents the true core issue. If there is disagreement, you must stay in the Identify phase.

Ask deep, clarifying questions rather than offering opinions. Use the five-whys technique to dig beneath the surface. For example, if the stated issue is that marketing missed its lead goal, do not start brainstorming campaign ideas. Ask why. If the answer is that the copywriter was late, ask why the copywriter was late. You might find the real issue is a broken onboarding process, not a poor marketing campaign.

The meeting leader must actively police this boundary. If someone starts suggesting a solution during the Identify phase, the leader must gently but firmly stop them. Only when the team is in complete agreement on the single-sentence definition of the root cause can the leader announce that you are now moving to the Discuss phase.