Some problems only become visible when the workaround stops working.
Something can look like it works simply because someone has become very good at compensating for what doesn't. The problem often becomes visible only when they can no longer do it.
Some things in organizations work for reasons that have very little to do with how they were designed.
A process can look perfectly functional because the same person quietly fixes the same problem every week. A responsibility can appear clear because someone always steps in when nobody else does. Two teams can seem well coordinated because one person has become very good at connecting what happens between them.
The work gets done.
So, from the outside, the system appears to work.
But there is a difference between something working by design and people becoming good at compensating for what doesn't.
The second can be surprisingly difficult to see.
People are good at filling gaps. They remember the exception that isn't documented. They know who to ask when the process leads nowhere. They notice what has been missed and fix it before it becomes a problem for someone else.
Do that often enough and the workaround becomes part of how the organization operates.
Except we rarely call it a workaround anymore.
We call it the process.
The organization works. Just not always for the reasons we think it does.
This can continue for a long time.
Until the person who always fills the gap leaves. Or the volume becomes too high for one person to keep compensating. Or more people need to use a process that only works because a few people know how to navigate around it.
Then something that appeared reliable suddenly starts failing.
It is easy to think that this is when the problem began.
Often, it is simply when the compensation became impossible.
And that distinction changes what we see.
The person who kept stepping in wasn't evidence that ownership was clear. The person fixing the process wasn't evidence that the process worked. The person connecting two teams wasn't evidence that the organization had figured out how those teams should work together.
They were making the gaps less visible.
When the workaround stops working, we finally get to see what it was holding together.