The great comedian Henny Youngman once joked that when he said he couldn't afford an operation, his doctor offered to touch up his x-rays.
Many managers resemble the doctor. Rather than directly addressing a problem, they "touch up the x-rays" so they can pretend that the matter either doesn't exist or that it has been resolved.
The question for any major action: "Does this stand a reasonable chance of genuine progress or is it touching up the x-rays?"
Excellent point. Sadly, we get in the habit of going through the motions to the extent that sometimes we are touching up the x-rays with the sincerest of belief that we're actually performing brain surgery. Thanks for pointing up this excellent commentary.
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