Fix the System, Not the Symptom

In the factory years I learned a rule that never stopped paying: a recurring problem is never an event. It is a design flaw wearing an event’s clothes.

When something breaks once, you fix it. When it breaks twice, you are no longer allowed to just fix it — you owe the operation a system: a cause found, a process changed, a check automated, an owner named.

The test I use

• Can this exact problem happen again? Then the fix is not finished.
• Does the fix depend on someone remembering? Then it is not a fix — it is a wish.
• Would a new employee hit the same wall? Then document or automate the wall away.

Systems are not bureaucracy. Systems are how you respect your own time — and your team’s.