Everyone Knows Something Is Off. Nobody Agrees on What.

You know the meeting. Sales says operations is the problem. Operations says sales keeps promising things that do not exist. Leadership wants more accountability, the team wants better communication, and someone suggests new software.

Because apparently what this situation was missing was another login. 😂

When good people are working hard and the same problem keeps coming back, I’m not immediately convinced we have a people problem. I want to know what everyone has learned to work around.

Maybe two departments both think the other owns the next step. Maybe someone is being held accountable for a result they cannot actually control. Maybe a process made perfect sense five years ago and no one has questioned it since. Or maybe the workaround has been around so long that everyone quietly agreed to call it the process.

Then comes the usual response: another meeting, another report, more accountability, maybe some training.

Possibly a committee, if things have really gone sideways.

Meanwhile, the original problem is still sitting there.

The question I usually ask is much simpler:

Why are we doing it this way?

Sometimes there is a perfectly good answer. Great.

Other times the answer is, “We inherited it,” “Nobody really owns that,” or my personal favorite:

“Yeah, we know.”

Well. There it is.

Before I spend too much time asking who dropped the ball, I’d rather know what keeps making us drop it.

One question finds someone to blame.

The other might actually fix something.

Krista Stalcup, MBA

Executive leader focused on organizational problem-solving, operations, growth, workforce strategy, business development and marketing.

View Krista Stalcup’s Executive Portfolio: https://www.abundanceofsunshine.com/krista-sunshine