Taped vs. Tailored (1): When “Temporary” Taped Fixes Become Permanent
We had a hemming emergency an hour before an event. No time to use a needle and thread. So we had to use strong tape.
It worked great...for about an hour. Then, the hem started falling apart.
This got us thinking: Some organizations and teams are held together by workarounds and quick fixes. When their operating system does not provide a long-term solution to challenges, teams improvise on the spot to meet deadlines, deliver services, and keep promises.
Those workarounds are what we call taped solutions: They resolve issues quickly, so teams can act and move forward with the task at hand. They create short-term stability when there is no time to redesign the underlying system.
Tape is sometimes the right choice in the moment. The risk is when tape becomes the default operating model.
Why taped solutions show up
Taped solutions tend to appear when:
Information and communication is scattered across sources or held in “need to know” buckets
Ownership and decision rights are unclear
Workloads exceed team members’ capacity for extended periods of time
Common examples
Tape fixes do not always look like shortcuts. They often look like effort, commitment, and doing the responsible thing. Over time, the pattern becomes familiar: the same issues resurface, and the same fixes get applied again. A few common patters we see are:
Communication glitches: adding more updates instead of clear agreements and using one source for information
Role confusion: “everyone helps” instead of defining roles, ownership, and accountability
Overload and burnout: adding wellness days or overtime instead of rebalancing work and priorities
The hidden cost
Even when a taped solution “works,” it creates debt:
time and rework
attention and to-do lists
decreased trust that changes will stick
an environment where “being the hero” is substituted for long-term solutions
A simple prompt to notice tape
Try this as a quick diagnostic: Where is your organization using a workaround that was meant to be temporary, but has become permanent?
If the answer comes quickly, it is usually a sign the organization is ready for tailoring: clearer roles, simpler workflows, and systems built to support how work actually happens.
Do you need support moving from taped to tailored solutions? Contact us today.
Where this series is going
This is the first entry in our Taped vs. Tailored Solutions series. Next, we will share what tailored solutions look like in real organizations, plus a simple prompt leaders can use to start shifting from workaround to long-term solutions.