By Erika Scanlin, President, EG
Most organizations are very good at reacting to problems.
A leadership hire isn’t working—so they replace the leader.
Hiring is taking too long—so they try to move faster.
A facility isn’t being maintained properly—so they escalate to the vendor.
These responses are logical. They’re also incomplete.
Because in most cases, the real issue isn’t where the problem shows up.
It’s where it starts.
Problems Don’t Start Where They Appear
One of the patterns I see consistently—across hiring and operations—is that failure becomes visible far downstream from where it was created.
By the time something feels broken, the root cause has already been in motion for weeks, sometimes months.
That’s what makes these problems so persistent.
They’re not being solved at the source.
Leadership Hiring Doesn’t Fail on Day One
When a leadership hire doesn’t work out, the assumption is that the wrong person was selected.
But more often, the issue started earlier.
Before the search even began:
- The role wasn’t clearly defined
- Success wasn’t aligned across stakeholders
- Evaluation criteria were inconsistent or incomplete
By the time candidates are being interviewed, the outcome is already heavily influenced.
The decision may feel difficult—but the real issue is that the foundation wasn’t clear.
Hiring Breaks Before the Interview
We see a similar pattern in hiring more broadly.
Organizations often frame the challenge as speed versus quality:
- Move fast and risk making mistakes
- Slow down to protect the outcome
But that’s not the real tradeoff.
In most cases, the process is slowed down because teams don’t have enough confidence in what they’re seeing.
That lack of confidence comes from weak signal:
- Candidate pools that are too broad
- Screening that relies on resumes instead of real indicators
- Evaluation that varies from one interviewer to the next
When signal is weak, time expands to compensate.
And even then, outcomes are inconsistent.
Operational Issues Start Before the Complaint
In workplace services, the same dynamic plays out in a different way.
Problems typically surface as complaints:
- Something wasn’t cleaned
- A standard wasn’t met
- Service feels inconsistent
But those issues rarely start in the moment.
They’re usually the result of:
- Staffing instability
- Lack of clear accountability
- A model built around tasks instead of outcomes
By the time a complaint is raised, the system has already been underperforming.
The Pattern Behind the Problem
Across all three areas—leadership hiring, recruiting, and workplace services—the pattern is the same:
We react to outcomes instead of designing for them.
We try to fix what’s visible:
- Replace the hire
- Add more interviews
- Escalate the issue
But we spend less time addressing:
- How roles are defined
- How candidates are evaluated
- How services are structured and delivered
That’s where the real leverage is.
What High-Performing Organizations Do Differently
The organizations that consistently get better outcomes take a different approach.
They focus earlier.
They invest more time in:
- Defining success before execution begins
- Creating structure around evaluation and decision-making
- Designing systems that produce consistent results
As a result:
- Hiring becomes faster and more reliable
- Leadership transitions are smoother
- Operations feel stable instead of reactive
Not because they’re working harder—but because they’re working from a stronger foundation.
A Different Starting Point
If there’s one shift that changes everything, it’s this:
Stop asking, “How do we fix this problem?”
Start asking, “Where did this problem actually begin?”
Because in most cases, the visible issue isn’t the root cause.
It’s the result of something earlier that wasn’t clearly defined, structured, or aligned.
Final Thought
Better outcomes don’t come from reacting faster.
They come from starting earlier.
And in hiring and operations, the organizations that understand that are the ones that consistently outperform.