When we run IDS® during our weekly meetings, we solve the immediate symptom presented on the board, only for a slightly different version of the same issue to pop up somewhere else in the business. How do we push past the surface-level symptom to find the systemic operational flaw?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

When your leadership team finds itself solving the same issues over and over, you are treating symptoms instead of curing the disease. True IDS® requires the discipline to stay in the Identify phase much longer than feels comfortable. Most entrepreneurial teams are biased toward action, so they hear a symptom and immediately jump to a solution.

To break this loop, you must enforce a rule: the person who raised the issue does not get to dictate the solution. When an issue is brought to the table, the team must ask clarifying questions to strip away the emotional narrative. Use the five whys technique to drill down to the structural flaw in your operations.

For example, if the issue is a missed delivery deadline, the immediate response might be to reprimand the logistics coordinator. However, by asking why, you may find the sales team is inputting orders with incorrect specifications. Asking why again might reveal that the software is missing a validation field.

The actual root cause is a technology gap, not a human performance issue. Solve the technology gap, and the delivery issue disappears forever. You must train your team to identify the systemic gap, whether it lies in your processes, your tools, or your Accountability Chart. Only when you have consensus on the root cause should you move to Discuss and Solve. Resolving the root cause once is far more efficient than patching the symptom every single week.