Sue Hawkes, YESS - Your Extraordinary Success Strategies, Inc.

09/04/2026

This week I’ve been talking about the gap between naming an issue and actually solving it. That gap is where most teams live; not because they lack a system, but because getting to the root is a skill, and skills need reps to improve.

What issue are you going to get your reps in on next week? Let's talk about it in the comments.

09/03/2026

A leader once told me her problem list was the problem, too long, nothing ever came off it. The length wasn’t the issue. The same items coming back every month was.

When a problem keeps returning, you are not looking at a list problem. You are looking at a problem that got named at the surface and never taken to the root. Swipe through for what that looks like, and the one question that gets you underneath it.

09/02/2026

There’s a question I ask every team when I can see they're skirting around accountability : “If I paid you a million dollars cash to have that done on time, could it have gotten done?”

The answer is always yes, every time.

This means the missed deadline was never the issue. The capacity was there. What was missing was a commitment someone made and didn’t keep ,plus a leader willing to say that out loud instead of accepting the story about why it slipped.

Here’s what effective leaders do instead of collecting explanations: they ask one question that separates the symptom from the root. Not “why did this slip,” which invites a reason. Something closer to “what did we actually commit to, who owned it, and how often is this happening.”

That's the skill. It’s not intensity and it’s not confrontation for its own sake. It’s the discipline to keep asking until the real issue has a name, an owner, a next action -- and the courage to hold it all accountable. On repeat.

You can build that, it just takes reps.

09/01/2026

Every problem that keeps coming back has two versions: the surface one your team names, and the real one underneath it.

“We keep missing deadlines” is the surface. The real problem is a commitment someone didn’t keep, and the fact that nobody said so. Fix the surface and it comes back. Get to the root and it goes away.

Save this one. Next time a problem won’t die, before moving towards a solution, ask: are we solving the symptom, or the root?

08/31/2026

Your team keeps solving the same problem. And it keeps coming back.

Here’s what’s usually going on: The team names the problem, but they name the surface version of it. “We keep missing deadlines.” Then everyone starts explaining why, and within two minutes the conversation’s off in the weeds, nobody quite sure what they’re even trying to fix.

Missing the deadline is not the problem. The real problem is a commitment someone made and didn’t keep, and the fact that nobody wanted to say so out loud.

Naming where it hurts isn’t the same as finding what’s causing it. If you only treat the symptom, it comes back. Every time.

I walk through how to get to the root in five minutes here:

Most teams can name an issue. Far fewer can actually solve it — bec...

08/28/2026

Everything I've written this week has been about seeing the issue clearly. But seeing it was never the hard part. Most leaders can name what's wrong before the meeting even starts.

The real gap is the distance between knowing and saying it out loud. You thought about it repeatedly, but you still haven't said it.

Next week I want to talk about what closes that distance, and why it's a skill you can build rather than a trait you're born with.

But before then, I'm curious: what's an issue on your team that everybody already knows about but nobody's said out loud yet? You don't have to name names. Just name the pattern you're seeing.

08/26/2026

You put the system in place because you were tired of guessing. The dashboards, the weekly meetings, the process for working through problems. All of it was supposed to make the hard things automatic.

But weeks or months in, the same problem is still on the list. It gets reworded, re-prioritized, or pushed to next week.

Your system didn't fail. It did exactly what it was built to do: put the problem right in front of you.

What your system can't do is make you say the thing out loud. It can hand you the problem. It can't hand you the courage.

08/19/2026

Here is what changes when a team learns to close issues instead of circling them: meetings finish faster, the same issue stops reappearing every week, and decisions get made in the room instead of the hallway after.

That is the work we do live in the Issues Gym. We kick off Sept. 28, and enrollment closes when the first session begins. Enroll for all three here: https://ow.ly/1fjr50ZAbhr

08/17/2026

A problem that keeps coming back usually is not a hard problem, but a simple conversation nobody has had yet.

The thing that stays on your list week after week is rarely complicated. It is simple and uncomfortable, so everyone talks around it. And every week it stays, it costs you: wasted meeting time, and a little team trust each time it goes nowhere.

The conversation is cheap. Avoiding it is what gets expensive.

08/13/2026

There's a question I've asked leadership teams for years: "If I paid you a million dollars cash to hit that deadline, could it have gotten done?"

The answer is always yes. Which means the deadline was never the issue.

Getting to what the issue really is? That's the work we do live in the Issues Gym. Next session August 24. Come get one solved for good:

Join an exclusive 3-month partnership between Ninety and YESS! -- the room where you practice the part the system can't teach: interrupting the pattern in real time, on a real issue, live.