driving the solution

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Peter Drucker is often quoted as saying “All first rate decision makers I’ve observed had a very simple rule. If you have a quick consensus on an important matter, don’t make the decision.  Acclamation means nobody has done their homework”.   

It would seem our minds pay more attention to being in agreement, confirming existing dogma, and thinking alike, while paying less attention to non-confirming information. In other words, we have a tendency to invoke the principle of least effort, i.e., the path of least resistance, the tendency to use the most convenient solution method in the least exacting mode available. Solution seeking behavior stops as soon as minimally acceptable results are found

Consider groupthink, the energy saving tactic based on the flawed premise that consensus is always good.  Groupthink has the unfortunate tendency to regress toward the lowest common denominators of safety, obviousness and the inconsequential.   

In business, it is common to recognize the decisive, quick to the right answer manager as a successful manager. 

The focus on growth relies on speed to market and the avoidance of ambiguity.  A sufficient solution is found, implemented, and the issue relegated to the past.  But, is this necessarily the best for the long run?

There are numerous reasons why sufficient solutions may not be the best approach.  Sufficient solutions (often inefficient) tend to overlook the multi-faceted reasons that the problem exists (or persist). This results in the potential for missing out on other more lucrative opportunities.

Properly stating the problem may be the single most important step in a search for solutions. Whether solutions are sufficient, creative, or innovative is derived from the context in which the problem is stated. 

Consider Dee Hock [1,2], founder and former CEO of Visa credit card association. As a mid-level manager of a Seattle bank he attended a meeting in Columbus, Ohio, in 1968.  The meeting was held to find a way out of the credit card chaos that was threatening the industry. At a low point in the meeting he suggested a committee be formed to find a way out of the dilemma. As usual, those with the suggestion, by a vote of apathy, are assigned the responsibility.

In 1969, Hock’s committee undertook what would seem to be an insurmountable task. They were to find the best way out of the issues troubling the credit card industry.  But this meeting had an unusual premise.  The team, at Hock’s direction, would not talk of the problems that existed.  Rather, they would discuss the notion that the problems did not exist. In Hock’s words, “Set aside all thoughts of the problem and address a single question. If anything imaginable was possible, if there were no constraints whatever, what would be the nature of an ideal organization to create the world’s premier system for the exchange of value?”  The result of this question was Visa Inc., the largest electronic payment network in the world.  

The question Hock asked of his team moved them away from the perspective that a problem existed. Away from sufficient solutions. Away from quick fix bandages, to a creative and innovative approach building a new environment for the credit card industry. Creative or innovative solutions result from how opportunity is positioned within inefficiency, or ineffectiveness.  In doing so his team avoided fixating on the problem and the resultant visionary blindness and thinking alike that accompanies the singular perspective.   The problem was turned inside out. The team was asked to create, not solve.

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A question to you the reader: what if meetings about problems started with the premise that the problem did not exist? That nothing was wrong?  What direction would this take you?

Thom Nichols is the author of The Iconoclastic mind: the recombinant process of creativity and innovation, available on Amazon, or at www.theiconoclasticmind.com

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References

1. D. Hock, One from Many: Visa and the Rise of Chaordic Organization, San Francisco, CA: Berrett Koehler Publishers

2. J. Nocera, Piece of the Action: How the Middle Class Joined the Money Class, New York, Simon and Schuster, 2013