13/10/2026
Are you solving a problem or treating a symptom?
A problem that keeps recurring is often a symptom of an underlying, long-standing issue. And treating the symptom, however well, rarely makes the issue go away.
Imagine a team that regularly misses deadlines. The obvious response might be to tighten the timeline, add more checkpoints, or increase the leader’s involvement and, for a while, any one of these changes could improve delivery.
If the problem returns, though, the missed deadline is likely the symptom rather than the problem itself. Priorities could be shifting midway through the work, decisions may be taking too long, responsibilities might not be clear enough, or the team may have gradually learned that, when things become difficult, the leader will eventually step in and take over.
Those are very different issues, even though they all produce the same visible result.
This is why recurring problems deserve a different kind of attention from isolated ones. Rather than moving immediately into solution mode, it helps to examine the conditions surrounding the problem, how long they have been present, and what patterns in the team or wider organization keep reproducing the same outcome.
A useful question is:
If we solved this incident today, what would still be here tomorrow?
Sometimes the greatest progress happens before we solve anything, when we finally name the problem we're really dealing with, and name it precisely.