Have you ever been halfway through discussing a solution when someone finally asks the question that probably should have come first: what problem are we actually trying to solve? By that point, people may already be debating software, staffing, process changes, timelines, or budgets, and the conversation has gained enough momentum that stopping to reconsider the original problem feels almost inconvenient. The team may be working hard toward something that sounds reasonable, while simultaneously solving the wrong thing.
This is one of the reasons I keep coming back to the first of three questions I use when trying to bring clarity to a situation:
Where are we actually trying to go?
That question sounds simple, but it changes entire conversations. Sometimes received well, and sometimes it sparks a lot of frustration—especially if people then realize we’re chasing the wrong outcome. If the destination is unclear, then almost any problem can appear important especially if is no agreed context or standard for deciding what actually matters. Once the destination becomes clearer, the next question follows naturally:
What is stopping us from getting there?
That is where things often get interesting, because the obstacle we first identify is frequently a symptom rather than the real barrier. All too commonly, the boardroom table is discussing what we need to do to just “get it done” but without stopping to say, “what’s the actual barrier” and when there is none, realizing almost any decision is a potential viable path.
For example, a company may say it needs a new CRM because salespeople are not following up on customers consistently. Once you look deeper, the real issue may be that nobody agrees on the sales process, customer ownership is unclear, or the team does not trust the data already in the system. Replacing the CRM may still be useful eventually, but it is difficult for technology to solve a problem that is fundamentally about process, ownership, or behavior.
The same thing happens outside technology. A leadership team may believe it needs more people because work is piling up, while the real problem is that too much low-value work has been creeping into the organization, and people are busy, but not producing as they should. A department may ask for more meetings because communication is poor, when the underlying problem is actually unclear decision ownership. A company may try to motivate employees only to be met with poor performance when the real issue is that nobody understands which priorities are supposed to matter most.
This is where I think organizations sometimes become too focused on enabling something when they should first be looking for what is preventing it. I once heard it said to me, early in my career, that if I’m managing well, my goal is to hire people smarter than I am, remove all their barriers, and then just get out of their way and let them thrive.
That matters because people are often much more creative than our processes allow them to be. If a team understands the destination, has clear authority, and is no longer blocked by conflicting priorities, unnecessary approvals, missing information, or poor communication, they may not need a complicated new mechanism to “enable” them. They may simply need room to work.
Before committing significant time, money, or organizational energy to a solution, leadership should be able to explain the problem in plain language. What outcome are we trying to reach? What is currently preventing us from reaching it? What evidence tells us that this is the actual barrier? If we remove that barrier, what should become possible?
That is why “What problem are we actually solving?” is such an important question. It slows the organization down just enough to make sure the effort that follows is pointed in the right direction.
When the destination is clear and the real barrier is understood, the solution usually becomes much easier to see.