Why the Same Problems Keep Coming Back at Work

Why the Same Problems Keep Coming Back at Work

Systemic problems have a particular feeling.

It is the sensation of being stuck on a roundabout — going round and round, solving the same issues, hiring new people, changing roles, and yet arriving at exactly the same outcomes.

Different faces. Familiar results.

There is a reason for this. Many organisational problems are not caused by individuals. They are caused by the system those individuals are part of.

W. Edwards Deming suggested that 94 percent of a business's results are determined by its system — the structures, processes, incentives, goals, and constraints that shape everyday work. The remaining 6 percent comes down to people. Whether you accept the precise figure or not, the underlying point holds: people operate inside something larger than themselves, and that something shapes what is possible.

And yet it is remarkably common to find managers focusing almost exclusively on people while leaving the system untouched.

This is understandable. People are visible. Systems are harder to see.

But when the same problems keep returning, the system is sending a clear signal: stop treating symptoms and start studying structure.

Why systemic problems are hard to see

Systemic problems rarely announce themselves clearly. More often, we see their effects — delays, frustration, workarounds, stress, and repeated difficulty. Leaders understandably want quick answers, but without taking time to understand how the system actually behaves, those answers remain superficial.

The most reliable indicator of a systemic issue is this: when new people — even capable, motivated, experienced ones — produce the same results as those who came before them.

At that point it is no longer credible to blame performance or attitude. The system is producing those results. The people are just working inside it.

How to spot them: the patterns worth learning

Recurring bottlenecks.

When work repeatedly queues in the same place, the issue is rarely effort or intent. It is capacity, flow, or design. The bottleneck is a symptom; the cause is upstream in how work is structured or resourced.

Over-reliance on a small number of people.

When certain individuals become critical to everything — when work cannot progress without them — the system has quietly become fragile. This often points to weak development elsewhere, unresolved low performance, or simply a failure to distribute knowledge.

I have seen departments where the same three people were in demand from every team simultaneously. They burned out. The system kept producing that demand regardless of who was in those roles.

Rule and process evasion.

When people skip steps, work around processes, or quietly ignore rules, they are adapting to survive. The question is never simply "why aren't people following the process?" It is "what is the process asking that people find impossible, unnecessary, or counterproductive?"

People do not set out to be anarchic. The system is usually asking too much, moving too fast, or rewarding behaviour that conflicts with the stated rules.

Misaligned goals.

When teams are measured on outcomes that compete with one another, the system produces conflict by design. No amount of goodwill resolves that.

I worked with a company where sales were rewarded for closing deals on products the business could not yet deliver (and, in some cases, didn't even sell). The systemic consequences — overloaded delivery teams, broken customer relationships, financial pressure — were blamed on delivery people who had no control over what was being sold.

Shifting the burden.

One of the most common responses to systemic problems is to move responsibility elsewhere. New tools are introduced. Consultants are brought in. Frameworks are adopted. Technology is purchased in the hope it will solve problems that are not yet understood.

Sometimes these interventions genuinely help. More often they add complexity without addressing the root. Leaders who do not understand their own system will keep reaching for external solutions to problems they created internally.

Problems with a pattern.

In one company, the customer support team fielded the same calls every Monday morning — customers locked out of the platform after forgetting passwords over the weekend.

The support manager built an efficient process for handling these calls and presented a report to the executives on how well the team was performing. She was rewarded, applauded and put on a pedestal.

Everyone missed the point. The pattern was obvious, predictable, and addressable. I studied it and suggested adding a self-serve password reset function. A small, cheap fix. The calls stopped.

When a systemic problem has a clear pattern — frequent, predictable, high-impact — it should be turned off, not managed.

Small problems consuming disproportionate time.

When people spend significant time, energy and attention on seemingly minor issues, it is usually because the larger, gnarlier problem is too difficult, too cross-functional, or too politically sensitive to touch. The small symptom is within someone's control; the real problem is not. Observe where time goes. It usually points toward what is actually wrong.

Cultural permission to avoid problems.

"We don't talk about that here." "That would never work." "We're always too busy to improve." These phrases mask untested assumptions. Many systems problems persist simply because nobody feels able or permitted to challenge them. It usually takes only one or two people to behave differently — to study the real problem and present it clearly — to begin breaking down those myths.

Pressure distorting behaviour.

In one company, leaders and managers returned from their monthly board meeting visibly changed — angry, impatient, demanding. Investors wanted faster returns. The board, far removed from the reality of how work actually flowed, could not understand the delays.

That pressure cascaded down. People skipped processes to show progress. Goals were softened to look achievable. Symptoms were fixed to demonstrate activity. The system distorted under stress, and the distortion was mistaken for the problem itself.

"Showing progress" and making progress are not the same thing. When the pressure to demonstrate activity overrides the patience to fix the actual cause, problems compound.

What fixing a system actually requires

Systemic change requires a different stance from leadership.

Observation before action. Curiosity before certainty. A willingness to accept that the organisation is, right now, perfectly designed to produce the results it is currently getting.

The place to start is usually the same: staple yourself to the work, map how it actually flows, and bring that picture to the people who have the levers to change it. Study the climate that people are working in – and nudge it to be better.

Goals, behaviours, climate, budgets, processes, incentives, and norms — these are the real tools of systemic change. Leaders may not have created the current system deliberately, but they are responsible for shaping it now.

When a problem recurs after being "solved," it has not been solved. A useful technique here is the five whys — asking why repeatedly until the root cause becomes visible, not just the most recent symptom. The answers at each level are not only diagnostically useful; they also reveal multiple points at which the system could be improved.

Even without formal authority, individuals can contribute by gathering evidence, identifying patterns, and making the system visible to those who can act on it. Systems change begins with understanding. And understanding begins with looking at the right things.

Fix the system, and many people problems resolve themselves.

Ignore it, and the roundabout continues.