Staying in the Problem Longer

Most of us are trained to be decisive. After all, the market rewards speed, our boards reward action, and our colleagues reward confidence. So when a problem surfaces, the expectation is to do something about it ... and fast!

It should be no suprise how many of us got here, as it is what much of our schooling in the United States rewarded: decision making from the indivdual to the bubbleed-in answer on the scantron. No time for collective problem solving (if that's even allowed), and no patience for ambiguity. Solve the problem fast, and solve it correctly the first time.

This is what gets people promoted and rewarded. It is also what keeps the hardest problems alive and perpetual.

The pattern that shows up in nearly every organization facing a persistent challenge is fairly straightforward. A problem surfaces, management responds realtively quickly. Sometimes it makes sense (at least it does to them), and it may even work for a while. But then the problem comes back...oten worse than before. Management responds again, with more energy and more resources pointed at the same logic that did not work the first time! They run the playbook of formerly successful responses until either someone gets fired up top, a org reshuffle happens, or the company flops (usually during economic downturns in their market or the market at large.

Hardly anybody stops to ask why the problem came back. Even fewer ask tougher questions, like what type of thinking and behavior led to this problem in the first place. Most are simply back into problem-solving mode. People should start asking those questions more, as it would lead to better dialouge towards a more thorough diagnosis of the challenge(s) being faced. Ever heard a varition of the Albert Einstein quote, "you can't solve a problem the same thinking that created it?". That is especially true with complex challenges.

But why? And furthermore, why do they keep recurring again and again?

The answer is due to not looking . Most people look at a problem from only the beyond the surface level evidence or data or the challenge. To look deeper and broader at a challenge, it is helpful to know what levels of the challenge you are looking at. For simplicity's sake, there are 3 levels to be aware of: Events: This is where most people are focused on. The market crashed. The nation is at war. The company lost 20% of market share "overnight". While helpful in many cases, this level of view is limited to understanding complex challenges. Behavioral: Some people focus at this level. This where patterns and trends can be determined. Those who produce financial or economic forecasts are focused at this level. Other examples include tracking quartrly profits and revenue, sales over time, etc. This level requires a level of skill and discipline to both understand the patterns of behavior occurring, and then translate them to those who are not as keenly aware. But that is not always deep enough to understand how and why the problematic patterns continue to occur over time. Structural: This is the level very few get to or understand. But it is the level that produces the most useful insights into how the problematic patterns continue to occur. This type of thinking and analysis requires the participants to shift from a linear process (A causes B), to loop thinking (A causes B, which over time B eventually effects A). This is where structural issues in organizations, like pervasive incentive structures in sales departments that reward individual effort over collaborative work, reporting requirements that pull people away from the work the reports are meant to measure, or cost-cutting cycles that erode the capacity needed to generate future revenue.

Note I didn't claim that structural levels of view answer the "why". I believe that that the discovery of how a challenge or challenges' system is structurally built can lead to the why, with good inquiry skills and awareness around the mindsets and assumptions that created the governance of the challenge. Asking questions like "what assumptions are we making that allow this challenge to continue?" is a great type of question for uncovering the "why", for example. This all sounds nice and neat, but that could not be further from the truth. In practice, it is remarkably difficult to do. A room full of smart, experienced people will instinctively move past the diagnosis phase. Years and years of this behavior governs this instinct. Someone will say "what we should do is..." within the first five minutes. You may or may not get some disagreement, and another idea or two on how to act isw presented. The best of the few will get elected to move forward. Solution-forward thinking is not a bad instinct, per say. But in complexity, it is simply being executed too early in the process. A longer and more thorough diagnosis is typically needed. Then, with the discipline of experimentation, can a solution or solutions be offered. This is important for groups that like to sit in diagnosis far too long, and fear any kind of action!

Staying in the problem is a discipline. It does not require special tools or training, necessarily. But it does require a willingness to sit with discomfort ... sometimes for far longer than people can currently tolerate. Sometimes that may look like holding a question open when every instinct says to close it with an answer. It may also look like say "we do not understand this yet" when the room is ready to move on. Sometimes, it is about naming the elephant in the room that everyone knows but dreads naming.

In short:

The biggest breakthroughs on the toughest challenges are rarely from the best solutions. They are the from those who are willing to stay in the problem longer than everyone else, and look a bit deeper and much wider at a challenge.