Would your team welcome the end of the problem?
“If we succeed, what will we stop doing?” — Ligia Koijen
Imagine a team whose job is to improve communication across a business.
Each quarter, it reports more workshops, more meetings and more people reached. The dashboard looks productive. The budget is renewed.
But one question remains unanswered: are people communicating more effectively?
Perhaps decisions are still delayed. Perhaps responsibilities remain unclear. Perhaps employees have become very good at discussing communication without changing what happens on Monday morning.
This is a hypothetical example, but the leadership question is practical: what have we taught this team to count as success?
When activity protects its own existence
We can see this tension in campaigns, advisory services and internal programmes. People are given a problem to solve, then evaluated through the activities they build around it.
An intervention becomes a calendar. The calendar becomes a budget. The budget becomes someone's role.
None of this establishes bad faith. It creates a reason to examine the design.
If a team receives recognition for the number of interventions it delivers, reducing the need for intervention may become difficult to demonstrate as an achievement. A leader can sincerely want improvement while maintaining measures that reward continued dependence.
At In2motivation, this is a question we believe development work should face directly: what will people become able to do without us?
Start with the result
Our communication model offers a useful way to examine the situation: Results → Behaviour → Emotional State → Mindmap → Body System.
Results: Define what should be observably different. For example, customer escalations are resolved within an agreed timeframe, with fewer cases reopened.
Behaviour: Identify what people need to do. Clarify ownership before a meeting ends. Raise a disagreement before a commitment is made. Record a decision where the relevant people can find it.
Emotional State: Explore what people experience when they attempt that behaviour. Is someone afraid to challenge a senior colleague? Are managers too frustrated to listen? Ask rather than assuming.
Mindmap: Examine the interpretations behind those responses. “Disagreeing will damage my career” produces different choices from “We are expected to test a decision before committing to it.”
Body System: Consider the physical conditions supporting the conversation. Exhaustion, constant interruptions and a lack of recovery time deserve attention alongside communication skills.
Use the model as a structure for inquiry. Check each explanation against what people report and what you observe.
Give the programme a success condition
Before commissioning another round of activity, complete these four sentences:
The problem we are addressing is… Describe something observable. “Meetings end without clear ownership” gives you more to work with than “Our culture needs improvement.”
We will know we are helping when… Choose two or three outcome measures and establish a baseline.
We will change our approach if… Agree what evidence would challenge the current plan.
We will reduce or end this intervention when… Define when the team can sustain the result independently.
For a communication programme, you might review decision turnaround times, reopened decisions and employees' understanding of responsibilities. Agree the measures with the people doing the work, and check for unintended consequences. Faster decisions are useful only if their quality remains adequate.
A question for your next leadership meeting
Choose one recurring initiative. Ask its owner:
“If this worked exceptionally well over the next six months, what would we need less of?”
Allow an honest answer. It might be fewer escalations, fewer approval layers, fewer external sessions or fewer meetings.
Then ask whether your budget, recognition and reporting would treat that reduction as success.
People need to know they will be valued for making a problem smaller. Leaders are responsible for making that possible.
Ligia Koijen | In2motivation
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