Elevate Weekly - Cheat Code #9 Fix The Flow, Not Just The Fire.

Cheat Code #9: Fix the Flow, Not Just the Fire.

By Dave Machovsky, CEO – Mindset Innovations Consulting

Leaders love to solve problems. But if you’re always solving the same ones, you're not solving — you're surviving.

We chase the fire. We fix the breakdown. We slap on the patch.

And in doing so, we miss the root. The flow is broken. Until you fix the flow, the fire’s just going to reignite.

THE HARD TRUTH:

You don’t have a “people” problem. You don’t have a “work ethic” problem. You’ve got a flow problem.

Work is clunky. Expectations aren’t clear. Handoffs are fuzzy. People are improvising in silence and you’re mistaking it for disengagement.

They're not lazy. They're lost in a broken system.

SHIFT THE QUESTION

Stop asking: ❌ “Why can’t they get this right?”

Start asking: ✅ “Where does the system make it hard to get this right?”

Flow problems look like:

• Chasing down missing info
• Rechecking the same errors
• Waiting on unclear decisions
• Fixing the same issue three times

✅ QUICK CHECKPOINT

Ask your frontline this week:

• “What slows you down every day?”
• “What’s confusing that shouldn’t be?”
• “Where do you just have to ‘figure it out’?”

If they say, “That’s just how we’ve always done it,” — that’s the fire alarm.

🏁 FINAL WORD

You don’t need more urgency. You need more clarity.

The best leaders aren’t fixing the fire — they’re fixing the system that allowed it to start.

Fix the flow. Not just the fire.

Let’s keep elevating, — Dave

Subscribe to Elevate Weekly Golden nuggets. Real stories. Practical leadership from the floor up — delivered every week.

#LeadershipDevelopment #CheatCode9 #FixTheFlow #ElevateWeekly #DaveMachovsky #MindsetInnovations #TWI #ContinuousImprovement #LeanLeadership #GoldenNugget