Don’t Confuse Symptoms for the Source
A patient shows up in the emergency room with shortness of breath. Their pulse is racing. They're pale, sweating, and weak. You wouldn't just hand them a glass of water and tell them to rest, right?
You’d ask: What’s really going on?
You’d look past the obvious symptoms to assess the underlying systems. You’d check vitals. Run diagnostics. Because you know that unless you identify the root cause, any treatment is temporary — or worse, dangerously misleading.
And yet, in organizations, we treat symptoms every day while ignoring the source.
Turnover? Let’s throw in a bonus.
Low morale? Let’s host a pizza party.
Lagging performance? Let’s send everyone to a training workshop.
Burnout? Let’s talk about self-care for five minutes in a team meeting.
These are well-intentioned responses. But they’re often short-term fixes applied to long-term problems.
Until we treat the root cause of poor organizational health, we’re just putting a bandage on something that needs surgery.
Symptoms vs. Systems
Let’s be clear: symptoms matter. Just like in medicine, they tell us something is wrong. But symptoms are just signals, not solutions. If we keep responding to signals without asking what’s driving them, we never address the real disease.
For example:
Turnover may be a symptom of poor engagement or weak culture.
Missed goals may reflect a lack of clarity, ownership, or accountability.
Low morale could be caused by toxic team dynamics, change fatigue, or inconsistent leadership.
Stalled innovation might point to fear, bureaucracy, or low resilience.
If you’ve ever found yourself solving the same problem over and over again, it’s time to pause and ask:
Are we treating symptoms… or are we curing the disease?
A Leadership Protocol for Diagnosing the Source
In the Vital Signs series, we introduce a leadership diagnostic tool called the HEART Protocol — a simple but powerful framework for understanding the systems that fuel organizational health (or dysfunction).
The HEART Protocol identifies five essential components that must function together for your organization to thrive:
H – Healthy Strategic Culture
Do your vision, values, and daily behaviors align? Are people clear on what matters and how to act on it?
E – Engaged Workforce
Are people connected to purpose? Do they understand the “why” behind their work and feel motivated to contribute?
A – Accountable Individuals
Is ownership clear? Do people take responsibility for both results and relationships?
R – Resilient Capability
How well does your organization respond to change, challenge, and complexity? Do your systems and people bounce forward?
T – Team-Oriented Collaboration
Do your teams trust one another? Are silos broken down? Is collaboration a cultural norm or an occasional exception?
When all five HEART components are healthy, the organization hums. When even one is failing, the others feel the strain.
It’s about HEART Health
Here’s the critical insight: you can't treat one part of the H-E-A-R-T and expect full health.
Just like a human body can’t function with a strong heart but failing lungs, your organization can’t thrive if you only focus on one factor — say, engagement — while ignoring accountability or collaboration.
A team may be highly engaged but unable to adapt if resilience is weak.
You may have strong accountability, but if culture is toxic, people will leave.
You may have great collaboration, but if no one knows the strategy, the energy is misdirected.
Healthy organizations aren't the result of one good initiative. They're the product of interconnected systems working in harmony.
Stop Chasing the Wrong Problems
Too many leadership teams spend months chasing the latest symptom without ever asking: What’s driving this?
If your organization has a high turnover rate, don’t start with retention bonuses. Start with a HEART check:
Are people engaged?
Do they feel accountable for outcomes?
Do they trust their teammates?
Are they aligned with the mission?
Can they recover from setbacks?
These questions don’t just identify the what — they uncover the why.
The Real Work Is Under the Surface
Treating symptoms is easier. It’s faster. It feels productive. But if you want lasting results — higher trust, better performance, lower burnout, stronger culture — you have to go deeper.
Here’s what that looks like:
Diagnose the whole system — not just the problem area.
Treat the cause, not the consequence.
Look for patterns, not isolated events.
Invest in prevention, not just crisis response.
In medicine, we call that best practice. In leadership, we call it wise stewardship.
Ask Yourself:
What recurring problems are we solving again and again?
Which “quick fixes” haven’t worked — and why?
Have we ever examined how all parts of our organizational HEART are functioning together?
Are we willing to go beyond surface-level interventions?
A Call to Depth
Healthy organizations don’t happen by accident. They require intentional assessment, brave diagnosis, and evidence-based intervention. That’s the work of leadership. That’s the promise of the HEART Protocol.
In future blog posts, we’ll dig deeper into how HEART components interact, and why improving one can’t substitute for investing in them all. Because just like in medicine, treating the source leads to real healing.
To learn more, visit vitalsigns-book.com.