“We already fixed this.” It might be the most expensive sentence in any organization. You ran the reorg, bought the tool, rewrote the process. And here the problem is again, six months on, wearing different clothes.

Ronald Heifetz drew a line that explains the return. Some problems are technical: the solution is known, an expert applies it, and it holds. Others are adaptive: they require the people involved to change how they work, what they value, or what they’re loyal to. Adaptive problems love to disguise themselves as technical ones, because a technical fix is faster, less threatening, and lets everyone skip the harder change.

Here is why it keeps happening. A technical fix to an adaptive problem doesn’t fail loudly. It works just enough to release the pressure, which removes the urgency that might have forced the real change. The problem goes quiet, not away. It comes back, you reach for another fix, and each round teaches the organization that this is simply a recurring cost of doing business. The problems that return on a timer are rarely the ones people lack the skill to solve. They are the ones no one wants to feel.

So next time something you “solved” comes back, resist reaching for a new mechanism. Say it plainly to the people involved: “I don’t think this is a process problem. I think it’s asking us to change something, and I’m not sure any of us wants to.” Naming a problem as adaptive is the first move that actually shifts it.

What’s a problem your team has “solved” more than once?