Much of day-to-day management consists of solving problems, especially the problems of the people around you. As the late leadership guru John Adair said, management is about getting things done through other people, and very often effective management means solving problems for those people so they can get on and do their jobs effectively. A good manager is a good problem solver.
Unsurprisingly, there are numerous tools and frameworks which aim to help managers solve problems swiftly and well. Many of them come with handy four-letter acronyms, like PDCA (plan, do, check, act) or OODA (observe, orient, decide, act) or GROW (goal, reality, obstacles, way forward) or FMEA (failure mode and effect analysis). Properly employed, these tools can be quite useful, helping managers to analyse problems and understand their true nature.
However, one criticism that can be levelled at all these tools is that they are essentially reductionist and Cartesian in nature; that is, they operate on the principle that problems can be broken down into component parts, and that solving the problem is a linear process which begins with analysing the nature of the problem and ends when a solution is implemented. This may be true of small and relatively simple problems, but when dealing with more complex problems this approach quickly runs up against its limits. Simple tools will not always solve complex problems.
In an article in Management Science in 1967, the systems thinker C. West Churchman introduced the concept of ‘wicked problems’, complex problems that seem to evolve randomly and have no fixed, right-or-wrong solutions. Each wicked problem is also unique, meaning that fixes developed for previous problems may be only partially effective, or not effective at all. The spread of coronavirus is a classic example of a wicked problem. Although we have had viral pandemics before, this is a new virus that spreads in different ways and whose epidemiological patterns are not yet known. Although coronavirus is no more lethal than flu in terms of death rates among those who contract it, health authorities simply don’t know what the bug will do next. Hence the extreme caution with which it is being treated.
In their book Complex Problem Solving, Robert Sternberg and his colleagues classify problems along four dimensions:
- complexity: many elements to the problem, all of which are strongly interconnected in some way like an extremely complex knot;
- dynamics: time considerations, in that the problem must be solved in a limited space of time, or the problem may be evolving and changing over time;
- intransparency: the problem is opaque, and/or those trying to solve it lack sufficient knowledge to do so; and
- polytely: those involved in the problem-solving process have multiple different goals, some of which may be contradictory, thus making the problem harder to resolve.
Problems that exhibit all four of these dimensions are correspondingly harder to solve. Knowing the difficulty also puts the problem solvers under higher levels of stress, which in turn inhibits their ability to solve the problem. This creates a vicious circle in which the problem itself becomes more and more complex and our ability to solve it is correspondingly reduced. This is particularly true when there are high levels of intransparency – ie, we don’t know enough to solve the problem – and there are tight limits on time.
Problem solving without knowledge
Not understanding a problem or not knowing how to solve it means that many of the traditional problem-solving techniques do not work. OODA and GROW, for example, rely on our ability to observe accurately the nature of the problem and the obstacles in our way, but if we lack sufficient knowledge to do so, following these frameworks is nearly impossible. Imagine, for example, that you have never seen a computer before in your life and have no understanding of how they work, and someone gives you one and tells you to use it, without any training or instruction. Where would you start?
The answer to the lack of knowledge is to fall back on heuristic techniques: instinct, guesswork, trial and error, common sense. We all use heuristic techniques every day, probably far more often than we are prepared to admit to ourselves. And, heuristics can be very effective. In 1999 the Indian educational scientist Sugata Mitra placed a computer in a hole in a wall in a slum district of Delhi and invited local children to teach themselves to use it. Within a couple of weeks, with no additional instruction, many of the children had taught themselves computer skills simply through a process of trial and error, and working it out.
However, there are problems with heuristics. The first is that they don’t always lead us to the right solution. Mitra’s ‘Hole in the Wall’ project has been replicated many times around the world. Sometimes it works, and children learn new skills and abilities quickly. Sometimes it does not, and no detectable improvement can be found. Nor is there any real clarity as to why some children succeed and others fail.
The second is that innate biases and fallacious thinking can cloud our thinking and mean we do not search broadly enough for solutions, meaning that some viable options get overlooked. The British tennis player Andy Murray wrote recently in The Observer about the bias in sport that assumes only men can coach other men, with the result that when top tennis players are putting together a coaching team, they overlook female candidates. In fact, as Murray pointed out, women are just as capable of coaching men, if not more so.
Problem solving under time constraints
The third problem is that heuristics require time, and we do not always have time at our disposal. Writing nearly 50 years ago, the Canadian management theorist Henry Mintzberg described in his book The Nature of Managerial Work how managers make decisions and solve problems. They are nearly always under time pressure, Mintzberg said, reacting to situations that have arisen and needing to make decisions immediately to resolve them. Even simple decision-making frameworks like PDCA and OODA take time; they require managers to sit down and assess the situation, go through the options, make a decision and implement it. But practising managers rarely have the luxury of this much time; they have to make a decision within minutes, sometimes within seconds.
As a result, said Mintzberg, managers fall back once again on heuristics, solving problems based on trial and error, instinct and prior experience. If they get it right, all is well and they move on to the day’s next problems. If they get it wrong, though, the consequences can be considerable. In rapidly moving and dynamic work environments like the ones Mintzberg describes, there is only a limited amount of time to correct mistakes and try again; and sometimes, with wicked problems in particular, there might only be one shot.
Approaches to problem solving vary, from the rationalists who take their time and try to work out the problem even while the clock is ticking, to the guessers who hit and hope, trying as many options as possible in the limited time available. Fans of TV quiz show Only Connect will recognise the types. In one puzzle, the ‘connecting wall’, contestants are asked to sort 15 words into connected groups of four, with a two-minute time limit. As the clock ticks down, some teams step back and look at the problem, trying to work it out before they push the buttons, while others press buttons rapidly and at random, hoping to get lucky. Although I know of no research to back this up, anecdotally it would seem that the rational analysers tend to do slightly better.
If anything, the situation has worsened since Mintzberg was first writing. Most managers I know speak of constant time pressures, with deadlines becoming both shorter and more numerous, meaning there is a question of which problems must be prioritised and which can be delayed. Despite the proliferation of problem-solving frameworks, managers continue to use heuristics, and probably always will.
Making good decisions quickly
So, in the absence of formal frameworks, how do we ensure that we solve problems both swiftly and correctly?
The first principle, despite the time pressures and the ticking clock, is to draw a deep breath and look at the problem for a second time, and then try to decide if you are solving the right problem. Management consultants often say that when they are called in by a client to solve a problem, four times out of five the problem the client thinks they have is not the real problem. The issue that needs addressing is down deep, somewhere under the surface. Very quick analytical tools like the 5 Whys, the famous concept developed in the Japanese automotive industry, can help with this.
The 5 Whys, also known as ‘root cause analysis’, consists of asking why a problem occurred, and repeating the question anything up to five times to get at the underlying issues. For example:
Q: Why did the Titanic sink?
A: Because it hit an iceberg which tore a hole in the hull.
Q: Why did the iceberg tear a hole in the hull?
A: Because the steel at this point was weak.
Q: Why was the steel weak?
A: Because an earlier fire in the coal bunkers had damaged its integrity.
Q: Why did the fire occur?
A: Because of spontaneous combustion in the coal bunker.
Q: Why did the spontaneous combustion occur?
A: Because the coal in the bunkers was stored near the boilers, meaning the air was hot and dry and conducive to combustion.
It follows that the Titanic’s sinking could have been prevented had more attention been paid to safe coal storage.
Of course, this raises again the issue of how to solve problems when we don’t necessarily know enough about it. The second principle is, don’t try to solve the problem alone. Bring in other minds, other perspectives, other experiences and backgrounds, as many as are needed, and pool their knowledge and direct it at the problem. Employ the ‘hive mind’ principle and get everyone thinking about the problem and working towards a solution. The manager’s job is not to solve the problem; it is to bring other people together and give them the tools and information they need to solve it. If enough minds attack a problem, eventually they will crack it.
Finally, be aware that some problems, especially wicked problems, never really go away. It is tempting to think of the end of problem solving as sealing the problem, wrapping it and tying up with a ribbon, but in practice that does not always happen. Sometimes the problem resurfaces; sometimes it just goes on and on and we can never make it go completely away; which is, very possibly, what is going to happen with coronavirus. Some problems can be solved. Others just have to be lived with.
About the author
Morgen Witzel is a Fellow of the Exeter Centre for Leadership at the University of Exeter Business School. His book The Ethical Leader was published in November 2018.
Related resources
More support on human resources
Read our articles, eBooks, reports and guides on HR and employment law
Human resources hubeBooks on human resources