Our leadership team members often share overly positive customer or employee headlines that actually mask deeper, systemic issues, using the segment as a public relations victory lap rather than an honest assessment. How do we train the team to identify when a positive headline is actually an issue in disguise that needs to be dropped to the Issues List?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

The customer and employee headlines section is designed to keep the leadership team connected to the pulse of the company, both good and bad. When this segment becomes a public relations loop of uncritical praise, it creates a dangerous blind spot for the business. A positive headline should be celebrated, but it must not be used to cover up underlying dysfunction.

To train your team to spot disguised issues, the facilitator must look for the but in every positive headline. For example, if a leader shares that a customer is thrilled with a new project delivery, but mentions that the team had to work seventy hours over the weekend to make it happen, that is not a clean victory. That is an operations issue that belongs on the Issues List.

When a leader shares a headline, the facilitator should ask a simple follow-up question: Was that result achieved through our standard process, or did we have to break our system to get it? If the answer is the latter, immediately drop it to the Issues List.

You must also establish the rule that headlines are strictly for sharing brief, factual information, not for debating or justifying operations. If a positive headline requires a long explanation to sound good, it is likely an issue. Encourage the team to ask themselves if the success is repeatable. If the success was a fluke or required heroic, unsustainable effort from your employees, it is actually an issue that requires IDS® to protect the health of your organization.