When Your Team Is Struggling, Are You Solving the Right Problem?

When something is not working in a team, leaders rarely lack ideas about what to do. Arrange a workshop. Tighten the reporting process. Clarify responsibilities. Add more training.

All are sensible responses. However, any of these could be the wrong solution.

The difficulty is that we often choose an intervention before fully understanding the problem. In compliance, pressure to act can be intense because delay has consequences. But moving quickly on the wrong issue creates activity, not progress.

In my work with senior teams, I have learned to be cautious when a problem is reduced to one word: communication, accountability, culture or trust. These labels may be accurate, but they are not yet a diagnosis.

Take communication. Perhaps information is not reaching the right people. Perhaps decisions are being made in informal conversations. Perhaps colleagues are reluctant to challenge someone more senior. Or perhaps the team is communicating constantly but has never agreed what needs attention now and what can wait.

These are four different problems. They will not be solved by the same intervention.

Identify the problem behind the problem

When performance slips, I encourage leaders to look in four places.

·         First, consider purpose and priorities. Can everyone explain the team’s most important outcomes? Is there genuine agreement about what takes precedence when regulatory obligations, business requests and advisory work collide? What looks like poor execution may simply be a team carrying too many competing priorities.

·         Second, examine roles and decision rights. Who makes the recommendation? Who makes the final decision? When must an issue be escalated? Teams waste time revisiting decisions when authority is unclear.

·         Third, pay attention to relationships. Can people challenge one another directly and respectfully? Can a junior colleague question an established view? Does disagreement improve the team’s judgement, or is it experienced as disloyalty? Constructive challenge is not an optional extra in compliance. It is part of how risk is managed.

·         Finally, look at the system around the team. Are reporting lines and governance processes helping or hindering? Is compliance involved early enough in business decisions? Are urgent requests repeatedly displacing important work? Sometimes the team is working around a badly designed system.

"Moving quickly on the wrong issue creates activity, not progress."

Dr Shirley Kavanagh

Choose the response after the diagnosis

Once you understand the pattern, the right intervention is usually easier to see. Conflicting priorities may require a strategy conversation. Role ambiguity may require clearer decision rights. Unspoken tension may need a facilitated discussion. Weak follow-through may call for a better meeting and accountability rhythm. A genuine capability gap may require targeted development.

This does not have to become a lengthy diagnostic exercise. Speak individually with team members. Observe and reflect on your meetings. Review two or three decisions that became delayed or contentious. Ask the business what it finds difficult when working with the team.

Then bring the team together around some honest questions:

•      What repeatedly slows us down?

•      Where do issues get stuck?

•      Which conversation are we avoiding?

•      What part of this problem might our own leadership be creating?

The last question is often the hardest. A leader’s pace, availability and response to challenge shape how the whole team behaves under pressure. Sometimes the intervention needs to begin there.

Good compliance leadership is not about launching the fastest response. It is about exercising sound leadership judgement before acting. Pause long enough to identify the real constraint, then act decisively. That short, deliberate pause may well prevent months spent solving the wrong problem.