Are you resolving issues or just sticking on plasters?

Are you investing time and money fixing the wrong problems? So many times I’ve gone into organisations and they’ve presented the problem and the solution. But was the problem really understood in the first place, let alone the right solution generated!  Frequently I am told that the solution is a training need, quite often this is part of the solution, but organisational development (OD) analysis is so often not taken into consideration hitting companies on the bottom line.

Quite often we focus on resolving the symptoms we see rather than investigating the root cause.  I find it helpful to use the below 7 categories when investigating a problem.  If we take an example of a company that needs its staff to be more innovative, but it’s just not happening. Example of the types of questions used when considering why staff are not able to be more innovative are as follow:

• Strategy – are you clearly communicating that innovation is valued within the business and explaining why it is important?  Are you explaining what innovation means within your business and the expectations?

• Culture – is there anything within the culture causing a problem, or that might block a solution? Maybe there is an underlying blame culture, so staff don’t take any form of risk out of fear.

• Systems – are you clearly identifying what you are expecting and give the support within your systems, such as innovation as a core skill that is evaluated within performance management?  Is there time allocated within the working week for innovation activities and so on?

• Structure – is the structure helping facilitate the output you want? Does every decision have to go through layers and layers of authorisation, never to be seen again, thus blocking the innovation process?

• Style – does the style of the management match what you want to achieve?  Does managers discipline for making mistakes, and therefore block innovation?

• Learning & development – does the learning and development within the business support the areas needed to enhance innovation and provide solutions for any known barriers?

• Reward – does your practices on reward support the move towards innovation, such as ensuring that innovation is part of progression evaluation and pay reviews, or does the practices support the norm where doing the day job gets rewarded and keeps you stuck?

(Seven categories taken from the McKinsey 7-S Framework and Gabraith’s star model)

Therefore, a review of some key areas as above when considering solutions to problems can be very helpful in resolving the root cause, and not just the symptoms.  This means that you reach your aim, and not waste time and finances tackling the wrong things.

If you would like some help getting to the root cause of the problems you are facing, then I would be happy to help you.