The symptoms are familiar.
How they became normal is harder to see.
Most businesses only notice the symptoms one at a time. None of it looks broken, and that’s the point. Together, they reveal a quiet pattern that growth creates. It is almost certainly taking shape in your business too.
Businesses are different. Patterns aren’t.
Every time I ask for the number, I get a different one.
If one person is off, that project just stops.
There’s the official process, and the one everyone actually uses.
Everyone’s flat out, but the work still isn’t moving.
Things that used to take a day now take a week.
We put in a system. The work is still just as hard.
The useful question isn’t what’s wrong. It’s how ordinary workarounds became this hard to shift.
It isn’t a sign your people have failed. It’s what happens when capable people keep a growing business moving.
No one designed it this way.
- 1
A problem appears.
The report still has to go out on Monday morning.
- 2
Someone solves it.The response
So a spreadsheet is built to bridge the gap before the deadline.
- 3
It works.
Monday’s numbers arrive on time. The pressure lifts.
- 4
It gets repeated.
It works again the next week. And the week after that.
- 5
Other work leans on it.
Planning starts pulling from it. The board expects the figure.
- 6
It becomes normal.
No one decided this. It’s simply how things are done now.
What now rests on one sensible fix
People were solving the problem in front of them. Each step was reasonable.
Each fix that held became the ground the next thing stood on, until it wasn’t a workaround anymore. It was the foundation.
‘I know how this happens. I’ve been the workaround.’
The people holding these systems together are rarely the problem. Their capability is usually why it has held together this long. And the person keeping the workaround alive is usually the one with the least time to step back and replace it.
I worked an hour each Sunday night so Monday’s numbers were ready.
One hour on Sunday saved four on Monday.
A critical process now depended on someone working outside their hours.
When another team stopped supplying inputs, I built models to fill the gap.
It kept the planning cycle running.
The work, and the accountability, quietly moved to us for good.
I built a planning tool used across Europe, then supported every team on it.
It created real value. Teams could plan faster.
The know-how stayed with me. Progress waited on my availability.
It doesn’t break. It just gets heavier.
One person stayed late to reconcile the figures.
Three teams now wait on the reconciled version.
Maintaining the workaround has quietly become someone’s job.
None of this looks urgent, and that’s exactly why it continues. The cost of waiting accumulates quietly, one sensible decision at a time. Not choosing is also a choice. The longer you wait, the more there is to unwind.
None of it was a wrong call.
The hard part isn’t fixing it.
It’s knowing where to start.
When every thread pulls on another, the right one to pull first is rarely the obvious one.