Why do organisations keep solving the same problem?

The case presented below is hypothetical and has been created to illustrate the concepts being discussed.

A family business in Mumbai supplies precision machine castings to a major automotive original equipment manufacturer (OEM). Everything was working well until a quality defect started recurring.

As a result, the precision machine castings kept getting rejected and the shipments came under pressure. The customer wanted answers, so the head called an emergency meeting and within hours they started a new Excel tracker, a senior engineer was made responsible for a quality task force, a stricter standard operating procedure (SOP) was circulated and their WhatsApp group started filling with updates.

So for several weeks, the numbers got better and the complaints decreased. Then attention went to other tasks and meetings started getting irregular again. The operators began treating the SOP as just another reporting requirement while the spreadsheet continued to show that all the targets were being met, even as the process was deteriorating again.

Soon, the quality defect returned, but no one was ready to take the blame. The owner blamed a lack of employee discipline while the production team said that the raw material was substandard. The owner’s son suggested replacing the old machinery and hired a consultant who recommended another dashboard and reporting process.

All of these explanations could point to possible causes, as each of them focuses on something visible, but that’s exactly where the issue lies. The visible failure isn’t always what causes the recurring problem.

The business can address the quality issue, but it may repeatedly choose solutions that protect it today instead of a fix that can be useful in the long term. Hence, an investigation that could involve temporary disruption, slower output, uncomfortable conversations and some differences in routine might be necessary.

However, such an approach would immediately come with costs and the benefits might be seen much later. So a manager who is going to be responsible for this week’s shipment is likely to face a very rational conflict. The intervention might eliminate the underlying issue, but it could also damage the manager’s performance on the measures by which he is going to be evaluated.

Is it really their mistake then, when they go with solutions that’ll produce faster results than those that’ll help them for longer?

Organisations vary in how they solve challenges and also in how deeply the solution becomes ingrained in their routines. There can be different modes of trying to solve a particular setback. Mode 1 is called Intuitive Problem Solving (IPS), it occurs when there’s urgency and includes relying on familiar and fast interventions to control an issue. Here, it seems like the problem has been resolved, but it’s only contained for a short while because the system remains the same which causes the problem to resurface.

Mode 2 is Semi-Structured Problem Solving (SSPS), where management goes further by analysing the problem but the solution might still not become completely embedded into routines. In this case, Mode 2 was used as they analysed the problem but the solution wasn’t completely embedded in routine. Once the attention of the managers shifted, the intervention started to weaken.

Finally, there’s Mode 3 which is Systematic Problem Solving (SPS). The third mode is different from the previous two as the underlying learning mechanisms differ, and it can produce a more long-term solution. It’s the difference between patching a recurring issue and changing the routines that keep producing it (Mohaghegh & Größler, 2021).

Then, if systemic redesign is so much better, why don’t managers just use it?

The answer is simple: changing routines is costly. Organisations can respond through problem fixing, which involves necessary adjustments within the existing routines as opposed to deliberately changing the routine itself. The latter includes uncertainty, learning, planning, temporary disruption and possibly a short-term decline in performance while the new routine is developing (Kesting, 2023).

Therefore, a manager who prefers to patch the situation shouldn’t necessarily be considered short-sighted or incompetent. It can be rational for them to prefer to patch an issue instead of fixing it at its core when they are working under immediate pressures.

But what happens to an organisation that has been through this cycle repeatedly?

Recurring changes and repeated reorganisations may result in change fatigue and uncertainty (De Vries & De Vries, 2021). This matters in our case because the first quality task force might feel urgent, but if the same thing happens for the fifth time, then it may feel customary.

So if employees see new dashboards or procedures appearing and disappearing, they might pay less attention to the next intervention. All accumulated experiences matter because they show that companies aren’t merely responding to current crises. People are also responding based on their memories of failures that they’ve seen before.

What does this mean when an intervention begins failing? Should organisations just admit that the intervention failed?

It is an option but doing so can come at a personal cost, especially when failure feels threatening or embarrassing. In such situations, defensive routines may appear to protect people from embarrassment by blaming external factors or avoiding confrontation (Auqui‐Caceres & Furlan, 2026).

What happens when the leaders have lost confidence in their approach? One possible response is to increase control.

However, management control systems may produce unintended consequences. For example, when targets, monitoring, procedures or other aspects become rigid, behaviours such as misreporting or workarounds could arise (Haxhiu & Marc, 2026).

In the Mumbai case, this could help explain why the spreadsheet continued to present reassuring numbers when things weren’t so good.

Now it looks like the recurring quality defect may not be an isolated technical failure but a symptom of a fundamental issue that the quick fixes haven’t addressed. Thus, the question isn’t whether managers should stop using temporary solutions. Sometimes selecting one is rational. But next time a recurring problem results in another committee, dashboard, tracking group or something else, ask yourself a tougher question: is the system that keeps producing this issue being changed or are employees just becoming better at living with it?

References

Auqui‐Caceres, M., & Furlan, A. (2026). Why do defensive routines persist in organizational contexts? Results from a two‐year ethnographic action research. European Management Review. https://doi.org/10.1111/emre.70055

De Vries, M. S. E., & De Vries, M. S. (2021). Repetitive reorganizations, uncertainty and change fatigue. Public Money & Management, 43(2), 126–135. https://doi.org/10.1080/09540962.2021.1905258

Haxhiu, E., & Marc, M. (2026). Unintended consequences of management control systems: a systematic review and conceptual framework. Journal of Management Control. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00187-026-00422-2

Kesting, P. (2023). (Ex)Change of Routines: an Action-Based Microfoundation. Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research, 75(2), 173–194. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41471-023-00162-2

Mohaghegh, M., & Größler, A. (2021). Exploring organizational problem-solving modes: a dynamic capabilities approach. Management Decision, 60(1), 254–277. https://doi.org/10.1108/md-08-2020-1097