Beyond Blame: Make “Unacceptable” the Start of Design

Saying "It is unacceptable" focuses accountability and sets a non‑negotiable standard. Asking "How do we…" turns raw judgement into constructive action. Setting an aggressive timeline to find and implement a permanent solution builds urgency and enforces follow‑through. Together these three moves stop polite explanations from becoming endless excuses and create a clear pathway from problem to durable change.

Recently I sat in a review meeting with a manufacturing client who ran out of product on two lines in less than 24 hours. The room filled with reasons: supplier delays, inaccurate forecasts, last‑minute customer demands, and shift coverage gaps. Teams described what they did reactively to get product flowing and how they redeployed people to short‑term training. Nobody said, "It is unacceptable that we ran out of product," nobody asked, "How do we design our systems so this never happens again?" and nobody set an aggressive deadline and held anyone to it.

The three moves that change outcomes

• Say it plainly: "It is unacceptable."
  This declaration elevates the issue from an operational hiccup to a leadership priority. It signals that explanations will not substitute for delivery and gives permission to challenge existing practices and reallocate resources.

• Ask the right question: "How do we…"
  Replace defensive explanations with forward‑looking, solution oriented questions. Examples: How do we detect shortages earlier? How do we ensure critical SKUs never fall below a minimum days of cover? How do we automate escalation to the right decision makers? These how‑questions produce actionable options, not stories.

• Set an aggressive timeline to implement a permanent solution.
  Time‑boxing forces decisions, clarifies tradeoffs, and prevents the slide into slow projects with no owner. The timeline should be demanding enough to prioritize the work while remaining realistic enough to allow a properly resourced remediation.

Categories of work to produce the permanent solution

• Containment actions
  Identify what must be done immediately to stabilize customers and restore production while long‑term fixes are developed.

• Diagnosis and root cause analysis
  Map where the system failed across forecasting, inventory policy, supplier lead times, production scheduling, and decision rights.

• System redesign proposals
  Draft concrete changes to inventory rules, thresholds, escalation logic, sourcing strategies, and automation or reporting needs.

• Ownership and governance changes
  Define who makes which decisions during routine and emergency states, and what authority and guardrails those decision makers have.

• Measurement and feedback loops
  Specify the KPIs that will show the fix is working and the cadence for reviewing them so the system continuously improves.

• Training and practice
  Plan how teams will be trained on new processes and how the organization will rehearse the response to ensure the design works in practice.

Ensuring the senior sponsor receives a full plan by the deadline

• Single owner and single deliverable
  Appoint one accountable owner for the end‑to‑date plan and require a single consolidated deliverable that the senior person who called for the action can review.

• Clear contents for the deliverable
  The plan must include scope, root causes, proposed systemic changes, resource needs, decision rights, measurable success criteria, risks, and a phased implementation approach.

• Regular checkpoints and visible milestones
  Institute short, frequent check‑ins so the senior sponsor sees progress, raises obstacles quickly, and removes barriers where needed.

• Named owners for each element
  Every action item in the plan must have a named owner, a due date tied to the aggressive timeline, and a clear acceptance criterion.

• Escalation path
  Define how unresolved issues will be escalated to the senior sponsor and what decisions the sponsor will be expected to make.

• Final acceptance criteria
  Before the deadline, the sponsor and plan owner should agree the metrics and tests that will constitute a successful handover.

When failures occur, use these three deliberate moves together: 1) say "It is unacceptable," 2) immediately ask "How do we…" to generate concrete, owned solutions, and 3) set an aggressive timeline to implement a permanent fix. Combine those moves with a clear structure of containment, diagnosis, systemic redesign, and tight ownership so the senior person who called the action receives a full, actionable plan by the deadline. That combination converts reactive firefighting into prioritized, measurable change that reduces the chance of the same crisis repeating.