When solutions are the problem--Part I
How problem solving only makes bigger problems
Robert Fritz, The Fritz Group, Tipton, Pennsylvania and Charles M. Boyles, C.P.E.
The problem with problem solving is that it is the way in which someone describes or defines the
problem that survives the solution. If someone says the problem is outdated technology, then
what is the solution? If someone states that the problem is that our people are not trained, then
the solution is to train them. What if someone says that the problem is that raw materials cost too
much? What's the solution? A manager says that our financial systems really don't give us the
information we need. What is the solution?
Each of those situations may be accurate descriptions of what confronts managers. But, these are
only symptoms of structural conflict. Resolution of these questions begins with a different
question.
The real question is: "What do we want?" "Where are we now in relation to what we want?"
And, further, "How do we move from where we are to where we want to be?"
It is too easy to organize activities around problem solving because there are a lot of problems
vying for attention. Additionally, problem solving is entertaining for many people, especially
those with technical background. No one has ever heard of a bored engineer. However, the
difficulty with problems is that one doesn't have to think and it can lead to managerial laziness.
What should we ask?
Yet, it takes enormous organizational discipline to ask what do we want to create and what is the
end result we are trying to achieve. Rather than seeking a solution to the questions directly, we
have to conceive of the whole business. One must consider the whole enterprise thematically in a
unified way. How does it all work together? How do the parts fit together? Often in the
organizational scheme, the thing that is most harmful to many organizations is a sense of
fragmentation, manifest in fragmented thought and fragmented decision-making.
Even putting in various systems like enterprise-wide systems may introduce fragmentation as
built-in conflicts of interest between those trying to support processes on the one end and those
gathering financial information and make financial decisions on the other. It would be wonderful
if those things could really work harmoniously with each other. But, too often, they are in
conflict with each other. When you support one, you find yourself denying the other.
Who is qualified?
This leads us to thinking about the entire premise of the company. Anyone can do that from any
position within the company. You don't have to be deciding policy or in a decision making role
to really re-think, what it is we--the company--are about, what are we trying to accomplish, why
are we trying to accomplish it, how are we trying to get there? Does what we are doing make
sense? And, is there a better way to do it?
Conflicts of interest
If we look simply at the reward system in an organization, we can see the built-in conflict of
interests. This is evident when a company rewards one division for cost cutting and rewards
another division for innovation and product development. Similarly, if a company rewards one
group for quality and another group for time-to-market, by default, the company arranged a
conflict of interest.
These are classic product development-versus-marketing conflicts and engineering-versusmarketing conflicts. The honest assessment of these organizations is that the basic structure of
the organization of a company is primarily designed to fight itself. This, of course, is by
structure, and does not refer to reporting relationships. These issues deal with the parts, their
function, the way they fit together, and even the way in which they are energized.
That translates into the question: "What are you commissioned to do?" This is similar to hiring
someone to cut personnel while hiring another to improve productivity. One must answer the
question of how many people can be downsized while the other must address how many people
are needed to beef up productivity. These new people are not going to like each other even if
they start as best of friends. Since their functions are diametrically opposed or in some way in
conflict, they have a real conflict of interest.
If a company rewards one group for quality and another group
for time-to-market, by default, the company has arranged a
conflict of interest.
Further, people tend to personalize these things. And, after living in such a system, it seems like
everyone is up against the system and that people are crazy. What you see is behavior induced by
the structure.
You may notice this in many industries in which it seems that some people act like they are
walking on eggshells, others seem to be completely oblivious to everything going around them.
For example, there was a pharmaceutical company that wanted some guidance. The company felt
it needed to sort out a personality problem. The clients believed the problem was between the
Head of the Laboratory and Head of Clinical Research. Here was the situation. The Head of the
Laboratory was developing research virology. The Head of Clinical Research--the department
that deals with the processes that companies use to get products approved through the Federal
Drug Administration--was told the company wasn't doing virology and further that there was no
budget for it.
Yet, the fact of the matter was that the company never made the decision as to whether or not to
be in virology. So, some people were in favor of it and some people were against it. The issue
bounced back and forth as to whether the company was going to do virology.
In the meantime, the Head of the Laboratory was generating virology products that would have
to go through the clinical research process. At the same time, Clinical Research was busy
processing other compounds that it was asked to research for which the department had no
capacity
From the point of view of the folks in Clinical Research, "Gee, the folks in the lab are out of
control." However, the Head of the Laboratory says, "Gosh, we're trying to generate these
wonderful products for the company so it can make money and we're getting no support and
Clinical Research is obstructing us."
Resolution of the issues came with sitting down and discussing the situation. Once the concerned
parties discovered the actual situation, they realized that there were no personality problems.
These people had competing goals and the organization itself had not sorted out which of those
goals was more important
The organization needed to decide. If it intended to support virology, then it needed to give extra
capacity to the Head of Medical Research team. If it wasn't going to support virology, the
organization needed to let the Laboratory know that so they weren't assigning resources to
develop virology.
This example is a situation that appears as if there are personality conflicts but what we really
have are structural conflicts.
However, often the solution to problems of this type consist of replacing the Head of the
Laboratory, or management may decide to replace the Head of Medical Research. In that
problem-solution context, a personality is the problem and another personality becomes the
solution. However, if you come back to review the solution in three or six months, the new
combination of personnel has the same kind of problem with each other. The people are
operating the same way.
It is too easy to organize activities around problem solving
because there's a lot of problems vying for attention.
Many people have had this experience. Yet, they haven't really drawn the lesson that we need to
draw from that experience. They tend to think that the issues hinge on those things that we think
matter--things like genetics, education, and cultural background, and so on and so on.
But, in reality, it's a situation in which you can take someone from a different genetic make-up,
different cultural background perhaps, different personality, maybe even different gender, age
group, educational background and none of those variables matter. What does matter is the
structure of the position in relation to the whole organization. Many times it's in the re-design of
the position that makes performance go from inferior to superior.
Performance
Now let's extend this notion of performance as a function of two things. When we talk about
performance, many people usually think only of execution. But performance is actually made up
of design and execution. Here are the possibilities.
We can have good design and good execution and that is what we want. Also, we can have bad
design and good execution. Some highly capable and motivated people ensure the process
performs. This occurs when things were not well-designed but the professionals are so good at
what they do that they make it work anyway. This is common in the asset care business
We also see good design, bad execution.The process works but people really don't have enough
proficiency. For example there are good systems in manufacturing situations, but the
manufacturers don't have competent people. They have to look at competency and they either
have to train people or get new people. Sometimes you can see that the system was working fine
and then there was turnover followed by problems. That is one way to tell the system, at least,
was well-designed. It was functional and highly productive and suddenly was no longer
productive. The competence of the individuals is the variable.
The last possibility is bad design and bad execution. When that is the situation, you just don't
know what's going on, is it a design inadequacy or is it execution inadequacy?
With so much attention given to problem solving as managerial focus in our companies, we need
to step back and rethink the basic premise of problem solving. Is there a better way? Without
doubt, we must drive our actions by what we want to create rather than driving them to rid
ourselves of what we don't want by problem solving. This shift is a profound transformation for
any organization.
Look for Part II of this management series in coming issues.
Copyright June 1998 Plant Services on the WEB