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White Paper: Tackling Tough Problems
Leaders and managers view their work as problem solving
When people talk about being leaders and managers, problem-solving plays a big part in the way they see their roles. They are expected to take problems apart, break them into small pieces in order to understand what is going on and to find the causes, and devise solutions to deal with the problem. The results of their efforts are easy to see all over organizations: IT systems, marketing campaigns, budgets, pay structures, and so on.
When it comes to solving problems, organizations like to have a template that enables people work in a linear way from problem to solution.
Recognize problem >>> Get data >>> Analyze data >>> Come up with a solution
How do you create a new business proposal or set up a retirement fund? You start here, follow this outline, and apply these principles and in no time at all you will get to the solution you were looking for. That is how organizations like to work and in some cases it is an approach that works well.
But, only for certain kinds of problems, where expertise can lead to resolution, where we can apply existing tools, and where existing tools are adequate.
This standard approach to problem solving is becoming less and less useful. The complex problems we face now require more than expertise or the application of the "right" tool by the "right" individual.
Top-down works for simple problems
We can call the conventional way of solving problems a "top-down" approach because it usually entails giving the problem to an expert, have him or her figure out what needs to be done, and then tell other people what to do to solve it. If you are having a problem with pay structures you give it to a remuneration expert. She may bring together a team of H.R. people to work on it and in the end they will have a new set of procedures and they'll tell everyone else how to implement them. The whole approach rests on people complying with directives from "above".
Everything about this approach seems right. It has a clear beginning and a clear-cut ending, when the problem is solved. Many people actually believe it is the only way to deal with problems. In fact organizations are structured to solve problems this way, by compliance. There are many separate departments and levels, each with their own leaders and experts. When a problem comes along you find which of these has the right capabilities and put them in charge of dealing with it.
Reframing problems
There is another - and growing - category of problems which have to be dealt with differently. To describe this category, we use the expression 'tough problems,' borrowed from Adam Kahane's book, Solving Tough Problems.
The most prominent examples of tough problems include: what to do in the aftermath of a hurricane that has devastated a city; how to protect a country against terrorism; how to take a society from chaos to stability; how to combat poverty; how to deal with global warming. Tough problems are an entirely separate category from technical problems, like fixing a car that won't start. It is the nature of the problem, not its size, which makes it a tough problem. Even small problems, like getting a team to work collaboratively, can be tough. The following are some features of tough problems and you might recognize aspects of your own problems here:
- there are no clear-cut endings to tough problems
- when you've dealt with one aspect of the situation, another needs attention
- you can't hand these problems over to experts because, no matter how experienced and enthusiastic your expert is, these are not problems one person can solve
- tough problems have many stakeholders; you have to satisfy the stakeholders to deal with the problem
- most of the time an outsider can't do that; the stakeholders have to become their own problem solvers
- you cannot solve tough problems by asking people to comply with your solutions; all the stakeholders have to be accountable and responsible for what happens
Most organizational problems are tough and they include: improving an organization's performance evaluation system; restructuring a department; dealing with staff retention and/or rapid growth; reorganizing your IT infrastructure; and developing a new area of business in an existing organization.
Kahane describes three types of complexity that contribute to tough problems and usually operate together: generative complexity; dynamic complexity; and social complexity. When any or all of these forms of complexity are present, the people who are affected have a difficult time knowing what to do and their responses are often varied and inconsistent, depending on which side of the tough problem they find themselves on. The real challenge in dealing with the problem - in finding a way through it - is to find the common ground that (a) allows people work together because they see it as 'their problem' and (b) enables them to work towards a sensible solution.
Working on tough problems
There are two reasons why tough problems matter. One is that the problems themselves are important. Organizations want to do something about the issues. For example it is important for them to deal with employees' dissatisfaction with the performance evaluation system or they need to streamline their IT infrastructure in order to achieve greater integration across departments. The need to deal with tough problems is all about making organizations work better.
The other reason is that unless you see the difference between simple and tough problems and know how to work with tough problems, you won't be able to deal with them because tough problems don't respond to simple-problem approaches -and may actually get worse if you treat them as simple problems. The fact is that in most organizations, from the top management downwards, people don't understand the distinction and don't know what to do about it. Organizations are using management expertise and problem-solving approaches developed for solving simple problems to try to solve tough ones - and the approaches they are using don't work. The tough problems remain; they don't get resolved.
So, how do we help organizations to deal with tough problems?
If you've followed the logic of the argument so far, dealing with tough problems is not about tools but about a mindset. The tough problem really exists in the way different people see things. If everyone agreed that global warming was a major issue that affected us all and that everyone had a joint responsibility to find ways of dealing with it, global warming would quickly cease to the problem it is. But that is clearly not the case. Different countries, different industries, different political groupings see it differently and it is their perceptions and attitudes that matter. Working on tough problems means working with people at the level of attitudes, perceptions, values and responsibilities.
We help organizations to deal with tough problems in two ways; each is part of an integrated learning processes. One is learning to understand tough problems and how to deal with them. The other is developing new practices - new ways of working and managing - so that when tough problems arise, people can formulate effective responses. The key to working on tough problems is identifying and establishing people's accountability and responsibility for dealing with the issues at hand. This requires a non-conventional form of leadership, like stewardship. Conventional leadership generally means making stakeholders accountable to the leader: demanding compliance with the leader's requirements. Stewardship is enabling people to see their roles in both creating and solving the problem and holding the stakeholders accountable to each other for doing so.
Steps in solving tough problems
Framing the problem: The different elements of tough problems are not obvious. Why doesn't the performance evaluation system work? Who created it? Why did they do so? What is wrong with it?
Bringing the right people together: Who are the stakeholders? Often that isn't clear until people begin to frame the problem. Who is party to the process of getting the performance evaluation system right? H.R. people? Managers who administer it? Employees who are evaluated and dissatisfied? Divisional heads who want different systems for different divisions?
Learning from dissonance: Who disagrees and why? What do we understand form the people who see things differently? Do we consider these perspectives?
Understanding the problem: This takes conversations among the stakeholders about what is going on. Who is dissatisfied and what does that tell us about the real problem? What roles do different stakeholders play in the problem? Do the problems with the evaluation system have it do with what is being evaluated or with how people are using the evaluation process?
Finding the common ground: What can we agree on? What needs to be changed? Who is going to be responsible and for what?
Stewarding the process: Tough problems aren't easily resolved, no matter how 'small' they are. It takes ongoing conversations (discussions and negotiations) and ongoing commitments from the people involved to keep finding their way around obstacles (because the problem tends to morph as people work to solve it). It needs someone to facilitate those conversations and to hold people to the commitments they have made to solve the problem. From the beginning to the end, that takes hands-on stewarding, helping the stakeholders to find their common ground and encouraging them to meet their commitments to one another in order to complete the process.
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