When Workarounds Become Doctrine
The problem: I was drowning in unnecessary texts and emails because leaders weren’t making decisions, they were just telling their teams to forward everything to me.
My solution: I made a slide deck explaining best administrative practices and process that enable solutions at the team level, which I blasted out to everyone.
My old operations manager, the kind of leader who could see around corners, responded with what looked like feedback but was actually an intervention. As you might expect, he was right.
The Real Problem Wasn’t the Problem
What I saw was confusion about medical admin processes. What actually existed was an organization operating on informal knowledge, workarounds, and whoever-knows-who-to-ask. I built a slide deck, when what we needed was knowledge management infrastructure.
The operations manager’s response included organizational knowledge management standards, formatting requirements for official documentation, and pointed questions about buy-in from HR, operations coordinators, and team leaders. Every item was a signal of system misalignment I’d ignored. I was trying to solve a documentation problem when the actual problem was organizational architecture, or the lack of it.
Red Flags I Should Have Caught Earlier
“Ready, Fire, Aim” was the approach I saw myself taking, but I wanted to get a fix out fast. That should have been the moment I stopped and asked what I was actually doing.
“Looks good” from stakeholders when I attempted to gather feedback. When people give you a thumbs-up without pushback, they’re humoring you. Real buy-in generates friction.
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” and from their perspective, it wasn’t broke. The friction lives elsewhere, which brings us to the actual question I should have started with.
Who Actually Absorbs the Friction?
Clinicians get unnecessary referrals - we filter manually
Team leaders don’t know the process - they ask us directly
Operations coordinators aren’t sure - they CC: us on everything
New leaders come onboard - we re-explain the same things
The system “works” because subject matter experts act as human API endpoints. When you email the clinician instead of following a documented process, you get an answer. Fast, personalized, correct.
It’s not sustainable. It just hasn’t collapsed yet.
The Operations Manager’s Actual Feedback (Translated)
What he said: “Is HR brought in on this process?”
What he meant: You can’t implement what you don’t control.
What he said: “Recommend doing a knowledge map”
What he meant: Show me the information architecture, not just the content.
What he said: “Getting buy-in is important”
What he meant: You’re trying to change organizational behavior without authority or budget.
The Actual Decision Point
I had three options.
Polish the slide deck. Make it pretty, format it correctly, add an agenda slide, include all the topics he suggested. This keeps me busy and produces a better artifact that still nobody asked for. Performance art masquerading as productivity.
Build KM infrastructure. Learn organizational knowledge management standards, create information architecture diagrams, establish formal processes with HR buy-in, run the training session, socialize the change. This is the right answer if you have positional authority or dedicated time. I don’t.
Acknowledge system boundaries. Stop trying to solve problems I don’t own. Recognize that fixing organizational knowledge management is not my job, not my lane, and not happening without executive sponsorship. Provide the guidance, but still expect point-of-need support.
I chose option 3. Mainly.
Which is to say I did polish the slide deck. I couldn’t help myself! But I stopped trying to will organizational change into existence through sheer force of documentation. The slide deck exists now as an artifact. If leadership ever decides they want formal knowledge management infrastructure, it’s ready. If not, at least I’m not the guy still sending unsolicited process improvement emails to people who never asked.
This feels like retreat, and maybe it is. But it’s also correct problem classification. I can’t fix what I don’t control, and burning energy on fights I can’t win just makes me less effective at the things I can do.
The Meta-Lesson: Systems vs. Symptoms
I was treating a symptom, confusion about medical processes, without addressing the system: no formal knowledge management infrastructure, no information architecture, no sustained ownership.
The operations manager wasn’t telling me to try harder. He was showing me the shape of the problem I’d misidentified. Knowledge management isn’t just documentation. It’s information architecture, stakeholder alignment, change management, sustainment planning, and formal authority.
I had enthusiasm and a slide deck. That’s not infrastructure. That’s a hobby project with delusions of relevance.
What Changed
I stopped trying to be the solution. Now I’m documenting the problem clearly enough that someone with actual authority might take notice.
I finished it anyway. The slide deck is formatted to organizational standards, not because I think it’ll get traction, but because if conditions change, it’s ready. Future-proofing against the day someone cares.
I reclassified my role. From aggressive pilot to advisor. When asked, I explain. When given authority, I’ll act. Until then, I maintain continuity documentation and let the system operate as designed.
The Broader Pattern
This dynamic shows up everywhere: individuals trying to refactor systems they don’t control.
You can see the problem clearly. You can build a solution. You can even be right.
But if you can’t change incentives, can’t reallocate resources, and can’t enforce adoption, you’re not doing systems work. You’re doing personal growth work disguised as organizational change.
Portable Takeaways
Informal steps signal system debt. When “just email X” is the actual process, that tells you everything. These are load-bearing workarounds. Remove them and the whole thing collapses.
Diagnose who absorbs friction. If it’s you, and you’re okay with that, fine. If it’s you and you’re trying to change it, ask who benefits from the current state. Systems persist because they work for someone.
Match your intervention to your authority. Documentation? You can do that. Process redesign? You need stakeholders. Organizational change? You need executive sponsorship. Mismatching these is how you end up exhausted and ineffective.
“Looks good” is a red flag, not validation. Real stakeholder engagement generates questions and pushback. Polite approval means they’re waiting for you to go away.
Bandaids are sometimes correct. Temporary relief while waiting for conditions to change is not failure. This is pragmatism, not defeatism. Save your energy for fights you can win.
What’s Next
I still think the medical administrative process needs better documentation. I still think knowledge management infrastructure would reduce friction. I still think new team leaders shouldn’t have to learn tribal knowledge through trial and error.
But I’ve stopped treating my role as “fix the organization” and started treating it as “provide continuity and clarity within my actual scope.”
If leadership decides they want formal infrastructure, I have artifacts ready. If not, I’ve stopped burning energy fighting system inertia.
That’s not cynicism. It’s just correctly identifying what I control versus what I care about. They’re not always the same thing, and that’s fine.
Sometimes the most systems-oriented move is recognizing you’re not in a systems-changing position.
I’m still learning to tell the difference before I build the next slide deck.