Solve The Cause, Not The Symptoms
Why we miss the real problems that need our attention, and how to change that.
A couple of weeks ago I learned that a school friend had died. We weren’t very close in in recent years. I’d seen him at reunions, a familiar face at some big milestone parties. I was surprised how hard the news landed and it took me a while to understand why.
I wasn’t grieving for them, at least not that alone. There was something on a more personal level. Perhaps I was mourning a childhood. One we had shared with a version of me that existed then. Where is she now? Perhaps it was simply how far I had come from that version of me? Memories are great, but they are clear evidence that something has gone.
The book that wasn’t on my list
At the same moment, co-incidentally, I was listening to Lindsey Simpson’s new book ‘The Age Rebellion’. Strangely I wasn’t looking to re-design or supercharge the second half of my life as Simpson suggests. I was simply doing market research for my upcoming launch, observing authors launching their books right now. I was impressed on all counts, it was a great launch. There was at least a professional curiosity, however the book landed at a perfect moment and I was all ears.
Simpson is on a mission to retire the idea of retirement and what’s not to like about that? I think it’s a great mission. The world of work we currently inhabit and the idea that we should stop at an arbitrary age - fitting when work was largely hard labour - but now no longer fit for purpose. The way forward, she argues, is to re-establish your purpose and achieve it via different perhaps multiple income streams. So plural identities and careers that could look very different.
As I was listening, I smiled, because I have those multiple streams, a portfolio. I’ve had different sides to me for years; leading, speaking, writing, volunteering, mentoring and let’s not forget the ‘job for life’ of being a mum. As I sit changing the proportions of those ‘elements’ and investing more in writing and speaking at this moment in time professionally, and more time in caring for parents than for toddlers personally, it looks a little messy.
The world and the ‘system’, be that employment or social media, isn’t ready for that new reality. We want diversity and yet we shoehorn people into categories where you can only tick one box, or be known for one thing - at least be known for one thing well. Having dialled down my corporate career to write my second book I sit clearly in between or outside the formats that our systems currently recognise. I’m gradually disappearing from view, not because I have retired, but because I’m living a life that doesn’t meet the standard we’ve become used to viewing things through; because I haven’t structured my way through life for maximum visibility.
So whilst accidentally picking up a book to read, I stumbled over the real issue. The patterns that govern visibility and relevance require me to change if they wont; certainly if I sustain this route as the larger piece of my portfolio.
The catalyst is just a signpost
So the passing of the classmate asked me more questions about my identity than it did about them. It was actually the catalyst for my deeper reflection. It was not about the loss of life, but the loss of identity and something that slowed me to make me look at my present. The book I picked up professionally handed me something personal too. Neither was the subject. Both were the thing that got me to the real question.
This is exactly how it works.
The catalyst that hits us is rarely the subject that needs attention, but it can be the thing that gets you into the place where the real question sits. And we are not great at this.
Leaders do this regularly. We solve the stuff that arrives not the reason it arrives; wild inefficiency prompts a restructure that fails to change the culture, the feedback that was actioned without deeper understanding, and failed to improve the relationship. And the many meetings where we miss asking a different version of the same question. ‘What is it that we’re trying to solve here?’
If nobody asked that question in a meeting quite often you’d solve something else; a metric pointing to one thing, something normally easier to articulate. It is easy to gloss over the real problem but there’s normally a bigger question which once found makes all other ones irrelevant.
No-one rewards discomfort but we should
But do we take enough time? Leaders everywhere are under pressure to be super decisive the system rewards decisiveness, hesitation is seen as weak. Perhaps sitting in questioning mode means a lack conviction and we move too quickly; we take the catalyst at face value find a simple answer and move on.
The discipline that actually changes things is if you can stay in the discomfort longer long enough for the right questions to surface.
I am admittedly doing that right now in my own work in my next chapter. Asking questions. Did I leave the corporate world to write a set up writing business or speaking business? Did I trade structure for the freedom of fractional executive work? Or even as somebody mentioned in a email recently - “Enjoy your sabbatical.”
I don’t have a firm answer but I do have patience and as I enjoy the writing journey, I’m still asking questions.
When are we done?
So how do you know when you’ve wrestled with a problem long enough to have allowed the real stuff to emerge? How do you distinguish the real productive discomfort from the stuff which looks like reflection but it’s too shallow and is probably just avoiding the problem?
I don’t think there’s a clear cut test here, but I do think if you start solving something and the questions start pointing to something else entirely, then maybe you’re really not done, you could just be starting.
I am seeing this in my writing too, not just the portfolio of life. My book Decisions That Carry, has this tension. It is a core reason that we make decisions that fail to go anywhere. Do we give the problem statement enough thought and challenge. Do we interrogate the data from all angles enough too?
Curiosity helps you asks a new question, but it’s discomfort that keeps you in the same one long enough to get real answers.
I’m sitting with my own questions still. About what this next chapter really looks like and what I’m actually building. The “enjoy your sabbatical” comment didn’t hurt, it just illustrated the point perfectly, I thought it was funny. Even the people around us have internalised the same system. If it doesn’t fit a recognised category, it must be a gap. A pause. A sabbatical.
It isn’t. The real question I’m sitting with, not how to explain myself to the system, but what I’m actually building in a life I see beyond it
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This week’s Look Again:
Let me challenge you to notice the next thing that stops you; be that a result that surprises you or a conversation that doesn’t sit well. Or perhaps even news that lands harder than expected. Before you work on it, ask one question first.
Is this the actual issue, or is this what’s pointing me to the real one?
Sit with the discomfort a little longer than feels comfortable. That’s where the real question lives.
Have a great week.