When a problem lingers longer than it should, it’s likely due to one thing.

Have you ever wrestled with a problem for weeks, only to watch someone else fix it in five minutes? That’s not luck. It’s a pattern. When the right pair of eyes lands on a problem, the problem goes away.

I’ve seen it play out more times than I can count, in schools, in businesses, and in everyday life. Let me share a few stories that prove it.

The Computer in the Corner

Think about the last time your computer gave you trouble. You tried everything. Nothing worked. Then someone else walked in, looked at the screen for five seconds, hit a few keys, and it was done. Same problem. Different eyes. Different result.

The Case of the Flickering Lights

Early in my years as a principal, the lights in our school would flicker. Not a full outage. Just a quick flash. But it was enough to reboot every computer in the building and interrupt the school day.

I assumed it was a passing issue. It wasn’t. Parents told me their part of town had dealt with it for years. I finally reached a representative from Alabama Power. The conversation quickly pointed to one transformer nearby. Within days, it was replaced. The flickering stopped. The computers stopped rebooting.

For years, people who experienced the problem talked only to each other. The person who had the ability to fix it never knew the issue existed. One conversation changed everything. The right pair of eyes saw the problem, and the problem went away.

The Person Who Answers the Phone

In most businesses, the person who answers the phone hears everything. Every complaint. Every frustrated customer. Every issue that keeps coming back.

The best of these people have a gift. They know who to call. They move a problem from the customer to the right person quickly and without a lot of fanfare. The ones who struggle apologize and leave things as they are. They have neither the knowledge nor the drive to connect the dots. So the problem stays unsolved and the customer stays frustrated.

If you manage a team, pay attention to who handles your incoming calls or messages. That person is either a bridge or a bottleneck.

Follow-Through Is Everything

Most stubborn problems linger because following through is hard. It’s exhausting to get the runaround. It’s tempting to give up and accept a bad situation as the new normal.

Don’t.

When you’re stuck in a cycle of getting nowhere, start writing things down. Note the name of each person you speak to, the date of the call, and what they told you. The next time you call back, read those notes out loud to whoever picks up. Something shifts when you do that. You stop sounding like just another complaint. You start sounding like someone serious. People pay attention differently.

Keep going until you reach the person with the power and the knowledge to actually fix the issue. It may take a few tries, but eventually you get there. And when the right pair of eyes finally lands on the problem, the problem goes away.

Your Move

The next time you’re stuck on a problem, stop and ask yourself one question: Have the right eyes seen this yet? If the answer is no, that’s your next move. Find the person who has solved something like this before. Get your problem in front of them.

The solution may be closer than you think.

“It isn’t that they can’t see the solution. It is that they can’t see the problem.”
— G.K. Chesterton

“The measure of success is not whether you have a tough problem to deal with, but whether it is the same problem you had last year.”
— John Foster Dulles

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