The Wrong Question

Anette, Senior Account Executive at a workforce solutions and HR outsourcing provider, has been given a coveted meeting with the Chief Human Resources Officer of a mid-size retail chain with 4,200 employees across 68 stores. It is the kind of account her company has been trying to land for two years. She has prepared thoroughly. She has reviewed the company's LinkedIn presence, researched their benefit structure, and compiled a list of service gaps she believes she can fill.

The meeting runs for fifty minutes. Anette asks about turnover rates. The Chief Human Resources Officer mentions that onboarding is inconsistent across regions. Anette asks about compliance challenges. The officer describes some friction with the payroll system. Anette asks whether they have considered outsourcing parts of their HR function. The officer says it has come up.

The meeting ends well. The officer is warm and engaged. A follow-up is agreed. Anette leaves confident.

She does not know that the company is eighteen months into a significant expansion: twelve new store openings planned across two new regions before the end of the following year. She does not know that the Chief Executive Officer has told the board that workforce quality and consistency will determine whether the expansion succeeds or fails. She does not know that the officer has a personal mandate to build a commercial-grade people function before the expansion reaches full speed, and that getting this wrong would delay the entire programme.

Anette asked what HR challenges the company was facing. She never asked why solving them mattered.

The follow-up happens. A proposal is submitted. It is reasonable and competitively priced. It addresses the payroll friction and onboarding inconsistency Anette identified. It sits in a committee review for six weeks and is declined on budget grounds. No one mentions the expansion. No one connects the proposal to what the business is actually trying to do. The proposal answered a different question than the one the organisation needed answered.