“I know we are missing a couple of Managers,” admitted Derrick. “We intentionally allowed these positions to be open. We thought we could get by, save some salaries. We thought other people could cover for a short time.”

“And now you are paying the price,” I responded.

“I guess we thought our systems were solid,” Derrick hopefully floated.

“Perhaps they were, but things change. Your systems have to be constantly monitored, constantly tweaked. Other people can cover some of the daily work in your manager roles, but they are not going to look at your systems. Not only did you lose the predictability of your momentum, but glitches in your system cost you backtracking to re-locate the source of the problem. That’s why you felt, at times, that you were playing Whack-a-mole.”

“So, what’s the next step?” asked Derrick.

“Two-fold. You have to keep a handle on the Whack-a-mole and you also need to find a new manager.”