Half-Fixed is Still Broken
Janice looked across the board room table at Matt and Terry and gave her assessment, “The evidence is solid. It isn’t just the forensics. The investigation turned up over a dozen witnesses. I know it’s hard to believe, but the facts are clear. He’s guilty.”
Matt looked out the window again. “He’s our top performer. Perhaps we just reprimand him?”
Janice flipped open the employee manual to a page she had tabbed as if she had anticipated this direction. “You could, but that would be a violation of section 7. The company has a zero tolerance policy for this kind of behavior.”
“You’re right,” Matt sighed, “Terry, let’s get everything in order. Call the team together. We need HR, Comms, and Legal all working together.”
After you have done what it takes to understand the true depth and breadth of the problem, and then done the hard work of opening your mind to receive the cold, hard truth, it is time to take substantive action.
The good news is that in this stage things often get more simple and straightforward. The bad news is that sometimes the simple thing is painful. It could be that an employee needs to be fired, or a product needs to be discontinued. Whatever it is, you can be assured that whatever hard thing needs to be done, there will be an accompanying temptation to choose a half-measure that appears to provide some of the benefit, but with less pain.
When you are in the storm you will be tempted to take shortcuts in order to be able to declare the problem over and put an end to the noise. Crisis is often a pressure cooker with employees, board members, investors, donors, and the media flooding you with texts, emails, and phone calls. Giving in to the “half fix” is a mistake. Here is why.
There is a short-term payoff (“Finally, this is over!”) but it comes with a long term cost. Like a patient whose infection was half cured, it is only a matter of time before the bacteria that was left untouched multiplies. For a leader, however, the second recurrence is worse than the first because when they communicated the problem was solved (“Mission Accomplished!”), all the trust that was restored was placed on that conclusion. If the problem recurs because corners were cut, then trust is broken for a second time. Trust broken twice can be fatal for a leader’s credibility and that of the organization.
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