Is your team solving the real issues…or just the symptoms?

Sure, the “pop-pop-fizz-fizz” of Alka-Seltzer can provide temporary relief for an upset stomach, but it can only help so much.  Usually the problem stems from eating spicy or greasy food, so if you continue to eat the wrong foods, the stomachache just keeps coming back.

The same goes for solving the problems within your company.  If you don’t dig deeply into their root causes, chances are you are simply addressing symptoms that will keep coming back.  Temporary relief is just that, “temporary.”

Take for example the client who had a problem with their Controller.  She was good at the numbers, always got reports turned in on time and was impeccably organized. But she frequently came to work in a bad mood, shut her door for most of the day and instilled fear in many of the employees. At the same time, the employees understood she held the purse strings and had the “ear” of the CEO.

During Level 10 meetings her name came up repeatedly in attempts to “solve” the problem. There were frequent talks of how to circumvent her personality “quirks” and ways to re-assign projects to avoid having to confront the situation.  The team recognized there was a problem, but was unwilling to call it out for what it truly was. Even though she did her job well, she adversely affected almost everyone else in the company.

It took a year for the CEO to fire her.  But almost immediately afterwards, employee morale went way up, though damage had already been done. Key people were lost who just couldn’t tolerate working for an organization that allowed such dysfunctional behavior.

Your team may be dealing with similar people issues or other types of common challenges.

My advice: Avoid the wrong food, skip the Alka Seltzer and get to the root of your issues quickly.