Take one problem that keeps coming back. Before approving the next fix, check what it changes — the action, or the rule that keeps producing the problem.
Name the problem
Not “we have execution issues”. One problem that has come back, or is likely to, and the fix now on the table.
Four checkpoints
Each checkpoint comes from an Executive Insight Brief. Answer for this problem and this fix, not for the organization in general. “Don’t know” is an answer — often the most useful one.
The fix history
A recurring problem has a history of fixes. What those fixes changed, and what happened afterwards, is the evidence for the next one.
Your map
This map shows whether the next fix reaches the rule that may be producing the problem, or only corrects the action again. Changing the rule is not automatically wiser: reopening core rules too often slows execution and blurs accountability, and a fix that works later does not prove why it worked. Every checkpoint rests on a published brief; none of them supplies a cutoff.
Next step
You now know, for this problem, whether the next fix is likely to correct the action once more under the same rule — and what the review has not yet examined.
The harder part is deciding which rule to reopen, who holds the authority to revise it, and how to verify the result without destabilizing what works. That is the conversation worth having.
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Short answers first, then the briefs that read them, then essays and pages.