Reporting Addiction
Reporting Addiction (n.) The organizational habit of producing more reports instead of making more decisions.
Explanation
When something goes wrong, the response is another report. When leadership wants visibility, the response is another dashboard. The organization becomes addicted to documenting problems instead of solving them.
Operational Example
After a major incident, the post-mortem recommends weekly reporting on the failure category. Six months later, the team produces the report religiously. The same failures continue.
Why It Matters
Reporting addiction delays action by creating the feeling that something is being done. Documentation is not intervention.
What Most Teams Get Wrong
They confuse producing a report with solving the problem the report describes.
What Strong Teams Do Differently
Every report must answer: who acts on this, what do they do, and by when. If it cannot answer those questions, it is not a report — it is a record.