I felt this acutely when I was leading contact centres.

The bias to action was strong, driven by a deep desire to solve problems for my team and customers. However, it often took multiple misfires before I understood what was happening.

Sometimes those quick fixes deepened the problem or took us off into entirely new problems to solve. But the pressure to respond is intense.

This isn't incompetence or carelessness.

It's a deeply human response to discomfort.

When we face uncertainty, action relieves the anxiety of not having answers, even if we head off in the wrong direction.Who hasn’t enjoyed the dopamine hit of spending time on a plan to solve a problem?

If last year has taught me anything, it’s the power of taking a break, stopping even briefly to reset rather than reacting from an emotion or desire to relieve discomfort.

There's a tension here we should all examine.When we jump to solutions before properly understanding customer needs, we risk solving the wrong problem.

Quick fixes tend to address symptoms we can see from our internal perspective, not root causes grounded in the customer's reality.Real progress often requires sitting with discomfort longer than feels natural.

Doing proper discovery. Listening systematically and empathetically. Challenging our initial assumptions with evidence.

The question isn't whether to act.

It's whether we've understood enough to act on the right problem.

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Counterintuitively, the most productive thing to do might be to do nothing, at least for a minute.

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