When we run our weekly IDS sessions, we find ourselves debating the same personnel and operational symptoms without ever reaching the actual root cause. How do we train our leadership team to uncover the issue behind the issue?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

Solving symptoms instead of root causes is the most common reason issues keep resurfacing on your weekly list. To find the issue behind the issue, you must break the habit of accepting the first problem statement at face value. When someone raises an issue, the first step is always to Identify. This does not mean jumping into a solution. It means asking clarifying questions. You must dig deeper by asking why the problem happened, and then asking why to that answer. Usually, what looks like a marketing problem is actually a people problem or a training issue. If your pipeline is dry, do not immediately debate new ad campaigns. Ask if the seat owner is actually executing the process, or if the process itself is broken. Another diagnostic tool is to look at your Accountability Chart. Often, an operational issue is actually a structural overlap where two leaders think they own the same outcome. When your team starts to debate, pause the conversation and ask who owns the seat and what the numbers say. By forcing the team to strip away the emotional narrative and look at the underlying process or structural gap, you will identify the real root cause and solve it once and for all.