Please check you're addressing root causes not the symptoms
Have you ever encountered any of these scenarios and treatments?
Revenue is down. Let’s pound the pavement and generate more sales!
Net profit is down. Let’s cut costs!
We have too many job vacancies and staff turnover. Let’s ramp up our recruitment drive!
All viable strategies, right?
Perhaps…
At a recent client Annual Planning session, we had an awakening. We found that the most successful annual initiatives (in terms of progress) were those that dealt with the most prevalent and costly SYMPTOMS.
Conversely the initiative that seemed to best address the most significant root cause (ie. Building the capability of their fee-earning talent), was a laggard when compared to the other initiatives. In fact, as a professional services business, with significant volume of new talent, and the need for precise and high-quality advice, this initiative was the most important by some margin.
As leaders, it is pivotal that we resist the temptation to band-aid solutions for what are deemed to be symptoms.
If you think the examples mention above are fictional…they were not!! We have encountered them across numerous client sessions.
I am sure you too have experienced your fair share of “firefighting” – a real tell-tale of dealing with symptoms.
Using the above-mentioned examples, the following strategies (not an exhaustive list) may address some deeper and more powerful root causes.
Revenue is down.
- Investigate and address a potential product-market-fit issue.
- Review the quality of leads generated.
- Investigate the quality and calibre of our salespeople.
- Assess our competitive position.
Net profit is down.
- Assess our pricing and discounting strategy (and gross margins).
- Assess whether this is a volume root cause.
- Assess overhead increases and movements.
- Review production efficiencies.
We have too many job vacancies and staff turnover.
- Review our recruitment practices and calibre of candidates.
- Investigate the quality of our onboarding processes. Are we providing what we “sold” to our new recruits?
- Assess the quality and capability of our leaders and managers. Are we keeping our talent engaged and primed to produce?
- Evaluate our communication effectiveness. Does our talent feel inspired, informed, and engaged?
As a take-away from here, I’d encourage you to please reflect upon your recent strategy sessions and the following questions:
1) To what extent are you and your team truly diagnosing root causes (instead of symptoms) and then squarely addressing them?
2) Outside of the strategy sessions, what proportion of organisation-wide energy and focus is progressing the real strategic, game-changing needs that deal with root causes versus "firefighting” and dealing with symptoms?
As always, love hearing how you’re tracking with these things.
Have a great week.
Grow well!
Adam