Organisations often start with a solution in mind: a new strategy, a stronger brand, a different agency or a new marketing leader. But the problem they are trying to solve may sit somewhere else entirely.
01 — The question you’re asked
Most questions arrive with a solution already attached.
Organisations rarely start by saying: we need to understand what is really going on.
They usually arrive with something more concrete. We need a new strategy. Our positioning needs work. Marketing isn’t performing. We need a new website. Perhaps we should change agencies. Maybe it is time to hire a marketing director.
Those can all be perfectly reasonable conclusions. But they are still conclusions. The more useful starting point is to separate the proposed solution from the problem behind it. What has changed? Where is the organisation trying to go? What is getting in the way? And why has this particular question surfaced now?
Because the question being asked is not always the question that needs answering.
02 — What sits behind it
A marketing question can be a symptom of something much broader.
When positioning feels unclear, the immediate response is often to revisit the brand. When marketing underperforms, the instinct may be to change the campaign, agency or team. When growth slows, the answer can quickly become: we need more leads.
But marketing does not operate independently from the rest of an organisation. It reflects the proposition, commercial choices, customer experience, internal priorities, leadership and the organisation’s ability to execute.
A positioning problem may actually be a strategic problem. A communication problem may originate in an unclear proposition. Poor marketing performance may be caused by fragmented ownership, conflicting priorities or a team that has never been given a clear direction.
That changes the nature of the conversation. Instead of asking how do we improve our marketing?, the more useful question might be: what is preventing the organisation from creating the impact it wants to create?
03 — Start with diagnosis, not solutions
Before deciding what to change, understand what is actually happening.
That requires looking beyond the visible problem. I want to understand where the organisation is going, how it makes decisions, what customers experience, how teams work together and where ambitions get stuck between strategy and execution.
Sometimes the answer is visible in the numbers. Sometimes it becomes clear by talking to customers or colleagues. And sometimes there is no single piece of evidence that explains it. The picture emerges by connecting observations that individually seem unrelated.
This is where analysis and judgement meet. Data matters, but so do experience, context and the ability to recognise patterns. Not everything that matters can be captured in a dashboard, just as intuition alone is not enough to make a strategic decision.
The objective is not to make the problem more complicated. It is to make it clearer.
04 — The choice comes later
Once the problem is clear, the right intervention becomes easier to see.
Sometimes an organisation needs a sharper strategy. Sometimes the strategy is perfectly reasonable, but the organisation is not structured to deliver it. Responsibilities may be unclear, capabilities may be missing or too much may depend on external partners.
In other situations, the organisation simply needs experienced leadership for a period of time. Someone who can step inside, establish priorities, make decisions, strengthen the team and create momentum without immediately adding another permanent management position.
And sometimes the conclusion is that very little needs to change. A few sharper choices, clearer priorities or a better division of responsibilities may create more progress than another major programme.
That is why I prefer not to start with a predetermined service or solution. The intervention should follow the problem — not the other way around.
05 — Questions worth asking
Before choosing the solution, it helps to ask a different set of questions.
What are we actually trying to achieve?
Not what are we trying to produce, launch or change — but what should be different when we succeed?
What has changed?
In the market, the organisation, the customer, the team or the ambitions?
Where is progress getting stuck?
Is the problem strategic, organisational, commercial, creative or operational?
Are priorities genuinely clear?
Or is everything important at the same time?
Do people have the mandate to act?
A good strategy achieves little when every decision becomes an approval process.
Do we have the right capabilities inside the organisation?
And which capabilities should actually be built internally?
What kind of intervention does the situation require?
Advice, organisational improvement, temporary leadership — or perhaps something much simpler?
Moving forward
Better questions don’t make decisions slower. They make them sharper.
There is a natural temptation to move quickly from problem to solution. Especially when an organisation is growing, changing or under pressure, action feels productive.
But speed without direction easily creates more activity rather than more progress.
Taking the time to understand what sits behind the original question can prevent months of work on the wrong problem. It helps distinguish symptoms from causes, activity from progress and immediate needs from capabilities that should be built for the future.
The objective is not analysis for its own sake. It is clarity that makes action easier.
Understand what is really going on. Make the choice. Then move.
