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A number of years ago, I learned a painful lesson by wasting my time and a client's money by treating the external symptoms and ignoring the underlying disease.

Two departments (sales and credit) were constantly at war, and I used team-building and interpersonal training trying to get them to "make nice" to each other. The reason it didn't work was that "making nice" was artificial and contrived because they had fundamental, conflicting objectives (selling as much as possible versus eliminating bad debts). Until this basic issue was resolved, treating the symptom -- conflict -- not only didn't help, it got in the way by masking the fundamental problem.

Getting beyond dealing with symptoms and focusing on basic problems is vital to our extended community.

Here are four recent examples that illustrate that our public leaders have yet to learn that treating symptoms and ignoring the underlying disease is a seductive, but shallow activity trap:

The Warnersville bench

The fundamental problems are homelessness, prostitution, public drunkenness and drug abuse, not a new artistic bench on the urban greenway. These are immensely difficult problems worthy of all of our creativity and problem-solving skills.

Let's leave the bench and work on these problems. Removing the bench accomplished nothing except to pacify a small number of residents and, in a classic example of irony, symbolically remove "endurance," "triumph," "faith," "strength" and "hope" -- the themes promoted by the bench and the very traits that are necessary to deal with the underlying issues.

The Dell plant closing

We (Forsyth County, Winston-Salem, the Triad and North Carolina) were seduced by the glamour of technology.

In reality, workers at Dell assembled electro-mechanical components that were designed and developed elsewhere. Just as in the mills, employees worked with their hands, not their heads. Dell came here, not for our brains, but because we were a source of relatively cheap, nonunionized labor, and because Dell was bribed by the potential of nearly $280 million in incentives.

Personal computers are all alike in one respect -- they are commodities -- and, like all commodities in tough times, are targets for cost-reduction and movement to the low-cost producer. We knew that going in, but we were seduced by the short-term external symptoms: the promise of jobs and the allure of technology.

The fundamental issue is that we need to develop a work force with head skills, not hand skills. Electro-mechanical assembly skills are not the currency of the realm in today's global economy.

We need to invest in education, not in corporate bribes. With a work force grounded in head skills, organizations will be attracted to our area by a demand pull, not because of artificial incentives or because we represent a nonunion culture.

Blake's reinstatement

The decision by then-interim City Manager Bob Morgan to go against a police administrative board recommendation, and Chief Tim Bellamy's concurrence, to fire officer Ahmed Blake not only compromised the institutional decision-making process, it was another example of taking the easy way out and masking the basic issue.

Blake had been suspended following allegations that he assaulted his fiancee and another officer's girlfriend after a night of drinking with other officers at the Greensboro Police Club.

Although the reasons for Morgan's decision have not been made public, I think it is in response to a fear of more legal entanglements in a police force already plagued by discrimination suits. Far better, I think, to not cut the knees out from under our police chief, fire Blake, and continue the difficult but necessary task of dealing with the root cause of the epidemic of litigiousness.

The City Council has asked for new rules for police conduct, which, again, seems to deal with the symptoms -- protection against lawsuits -- but does not get to the real issue.

The Gucci Mane issue

This is a case of too little leadership involvement, too late. Mane's "entertainment" consists of sexism, violence and gang connections. This is not the image A&T Chancellor Harold Martin or Student Government Association President Syene Jasmin wanted to portray at their Oct. 31 homecoming concert. Martin rightly removed A&T's name from the concert publicity -- and Mane ultimately did not show because a court's ruling following a parole violation prevented him from leaving his home state of Georgia. But that only dealt with the symptom.

Dealing with the fundamental issue requires two things, one easier than the other. The first action is that the university administration and student governance become involved much earlier in the process. The harder issue involves a collective soul-searching and discussion of the appeal of a so-called artist who celebrates murder, drug abuse and sexual abuse. What does that say about student values and the role of public education?

Although different in scope, complexity and context, when taken collectively, all four of these events present some important lessons for our greater community:

l The fallacy of the seduction and political expediency of dealing with symptoms and not addressing root causes.

l The necessity, courage and patience to move beyond treating symptoms and focus on the underlying disease. If we are to truly advance as a community, this is where we need to spend our energy.

l The need to hold our public leaders accountable for dealing with fundamental issues. The reciprocal of this is to not collude with them and be satisfied with shallow, symptomatic solutions.

David Noer (dnoer@elon.edu) is a professor emeritus at Elon University. He writes a monthly column on leadership and organizational behavior.