05. My Gut Is Not Evidence

My gut tells me where to look.

Then I go find the evidence.

That distinction matters.

Because I have very strong instincts about systems.

I can usually walk into a process and feel pretty quickly that something is off.

The handoff is weird.

Two people are doing the same work.

Someone built a workaround around a workaround.

A person is manually fixing the same problem every single day.

Everybody says the process is fine, but one employee is quietly holding the whole thing together with duct tape and spite.

My brain notices that stuff.

Fast.

But noticing something is not the same thing as being right about it.

Pattern recognition is useful.

It is not magic.

I have done enough operations work that certain things jump out at me.

If someone is keeping a private spreadsheet because they do not trust the system, I notice.

If customers keep asking the same question, I notice.

If a process only works because one specific person remembers twelve invisible steps, I notice.

If three departments all have their own version of the same information, I notice.

If someone says:

“That only happens sometimes.”

and I hear it four times in an hour?

I am definitely looking there.

That is experience.

It is pattern recognition.

It is useful.

It is also not proof.

Your gut can be right for the wrong reason.

This is where people get themselves in trouble.

You walk into a situation and immediately think:

I know what the problem is.

Maybe you do.

Or maybe you have seen something similar before and your brain is forcing the new situation into an old pattern.

Maybe the person you think is causing the bottleneck is actually compensating for something broken upstream.

Maybe the “inefficient” workaround is the only thing keeping the process alive.

Maybe the customer behavior that looks irrational makes perfect sense once you see what they are seeing.

Maybe everybody hates the software because the software sucks.

Or maybe nobody was ever taught how to use it.

Those lead to very different fixes.

So I do not trust my instincts enough to skip the investigation.

I trust them enough to know where to start.

I look for the weird stuff.

The official process is useful.

The unofficial process is usually more interesting.

Show me what people actually do.

Not what the SOP says they do.

Not what the manager thinks they do.

What happens Tuesday at 3:42 when something goes wrong?

Who gets called?

What spreadsheet gets opened?

Whose desk does everyone walk over to?

What gets written on a Post-it?

What gets copied from one system into another?

What does everybody know not to click?

Where does someone say:

“Oh, yeah. We don’t really use that.”

There.

That is where I want to look.

Because people are extremely good at adapting to broken systems.

So good, in fact, that eventually the workaround starts looking like the process.

Workarounds are evidence.

I love workarounds.

Not because they are good.

Because they are clues.

A workaround means somebody encountered friction and solved it well enough to keep moving.

That is information.

Duplicate spreadsheets?

Why do they exist?

Manual reminders?

What is the system failing to remind people about?

Someone checking every order before it goes out?

What keeps going wrong?

Employees creating their own cheat sheets?

What was too hard to remember?

Customers calling instead of using the website?

What are they unable to do themselves?

I do not look at those things and immediately say:

Stop doing that.

I ask:

What problem is this solving?

Because if you remove the workaround without fixing the reason it exists, congratulations:

You just broke the only part that was working.

Then I try to prove myself wrong.

This is the part people skip.

You have a theory.

Great.

Now attack it.

If I think a handoff is causing delays, I want to see where the delays actually happen.

If I think people are duplicating work, I want to know why.

If I think customers are dropping out at one step, I want to watch them hit that step.

If I think a tool is the problem, I want to know whether changing the tool would actually change the outcome.

Because there is nothing particularly impressive about correctly spotting a problem if you then fix the wrong thing.

And I have been wrong.

Of course I have.

Sometimes the thing that looks stupid from the outside exists for a very good reason.

Sometimes the person everyone thinks is the bottleneck is actually preventing ten other problems.

Sometimes the beautiful solution I imagined creates three new headaches nobody asked for.

Fine.

That is what the evidence is for.

I am not trying to win an argument with the process.

I am trying to understand it.

That means I do not need my first theory to survive.

Actually, if the evidence kills it quickly, excellent.

We just saved a lot of time and money.

That is much better than becoming emotionally attached to a solution because it was clever.

I do not care if my original idea wins.

I care if the problem gets better.

Those are not the same thing.

So yes, I trust my gut.

Just not the way people usually mean that.

My gut tells me:

Something is weird here.

Look at that handoff.

Ask why that spreadsheet exists.

Watch what happens after the customer clicks that button.

Find out why everyone keeps going to Susan.

It points.

Then I go look.

I ask questions.

I watch.

I test.

I count.

I try the thing.

I look for evidence that I am wrong.

And then I decide what to do.

Because intuition is useful.

Experience is useful.

Pattern recognition is incredibly useful.

But none of them get the final vote.

My gut tells me where to look.

Then I go find the evidence.