What I Look for When a Team Says ‘It’s Not Working’
When someone tells me, “It’s not working,” my first instinct is to ask a simple question:
What exactly isn't working and who says so?
That phrase can mean a dozen different things depending on who’s saying it. It might come from frustration, burnout, operational failure, unclear leadership, or just bad communication. Over the years, whether I’ve been part of the team or brought in as an external consultant, I’ve learned that behind every vague complaint is a very specific root cause. You just have to listen properly.
Here’s what I look for.
1. Is the problem technical, structural, or personal?
Almost every operational issue falls into one of these three buckets:
Technical: The equipment’s not doing what it should. Processes are out of spec. People are working around problems, not fixing them.
Structural: Roles are unclear. Communication loops are broken. The system’s overloaded or misaligned.
Personal: People aren’t talking. Trust is low. Leadership is absent or unbalanced.
Often, it's a mix. But identifying the dominant layer helps everyone stop guessing and start addressing.
2. Who’s saying it and who’s not?
When one person says “it’s not working,” I take it seriously. But when only one person says it, I’m cautious.
If it’s a site supervisor, is their team aligned?
If it’s upper management, have they been on the ground recently?
If it’s frontline staff, are they being heard?
Sometimes, the team is working, just not how someone wants or expects it to. Understanding who feels the pain tells me where to focus and what kind of fix might be needed.
3. What’s changed recently?
Most systems don’t collapse randomly, there’s always a shift. Maybe:
A new person joined the team.
A contractor left.
A policy changed.
The workload increased.
When I hear “it used to work, but now it doesn’t,” I go looking for the variable that moved. That’s often where the leverage is.
4. Are people solving problems, or working around them?
This is a huge signal.
If people are patching the problem but not addressing it, that tells me the issue isn’t just technical, it’s cultural or structural.
People usually avoid fixing root causes because:
They don’t feel empowered
They’re too busy fighting fires
They’re afraid of making it worse
Or, they’ve raised it before and nothing happened
Asking “how are you currently working around this?” gives me more answers than most reports do.
5. Where’s the clarity missing?
Most operational failures aren’t due to bad intentions or laziness. They’re caused by ambiguity. No one’s quite sure:
Who owns the outcome
What the process is
What success actually looks like
When something becomes a problem, and who’s supposed to act on it
If you’ve got good people and poor results, look for gaps in clarity first, not competence.
6. What would “working” actually look like?
Sometimes the problem is expectations, not execution.
If “working” means 100% uptime, zero rework, perfect team communication, and no supplier delays, then of course it’s not working. It’s never going to.
When I’m brought in, I ask stakeholders to define what “working” really means. Is it output? Morale? Cost? Safety?
Only once we define success can we measure failure.
7. Is there one thing we can fix today?
Long-term solutions take time, but morale doesn’t wait.
Even in complex situations, I look for one visible, meaningful action the team can take now to create momentum.
That might be:
Cancelling a pointless report
Fixing a daily meeting structure
Delegating authority to the right person
Unblocking a supply chain issue
Fixing the whiteboard that’s been broken for 3 months
People don't need everything fixed overnight. But they need to feel like something is moving. And as a consultant, I believe the first win should come quickly, even if it’s small.
Final Thoughts
When a team says “It’s not working,” they’re not usually asking for a miracle.
They’re asking to be heard, understood, and supported with something real.
In my experience, the best way to help is by listening without rushing, diagnosing without judgment, and acting without ego.
Because most of the time, the problem isn’t that nothing’s working, it’s that something essential has been overlooked.
My job is to find it, and help you fix it clearly and practically.