Problems and challenges in the workplace require solutions. The company's website goes down? Bring in the IT department. The numbers do not add up on the accounting ledger? Bring in the finance department. The company's services need a social media campaign update? Bring in the marketing department.
All of the above examples require one solution to the problem: an expert. These are problems that have a technical roadmap to solve from past experience and procedures. One solution, one expert. This is how we normally think about solving problems in our daily lives.
But what happens when the problem cannot be solved by expertise alone? Sales are slumping, but the sales consulting firm that's been hired in the past hasn't helped solve the problem this time. The company's work product keeps decreasing in productivity, but the new manager of the department has not been able to find the solution despite their expertise. The company is still spending beyond their means, but the layoffs of a few obvious culprits and strong directives to save money from the CFO where possible have not stopped the spending problem.
What has worked in the past is not currently working: these problems require a new way of thinking.
These problems require multiple people thinking about the problem. Multiple people provide multiple perspectives, which is essential for solving the problem. Multiple perspectives provide multiple interpretations for what's caused the problem and how to solve it. The key here is: try not to solve the problem based on the first interpretation that has been generated. Usually the first interpretation is the comfortable one, the easy one. That which is comfortable and easy is not going to solve a problem that goes beyond technical expertise to fix.
Do you think you have the answer on the first try? Think again!
It would be easy to find a scapegoat for your issue. Sales slumping? Must be the economy. Work product slumping? It must be the company's workforce is getting complacent and lazy. Spending is still out of control? It must be inflation of the cost of goods and services. These are easy interpretations that either point the finger at others or outside the organization. But this does not get you (and others) going deeper and generating more interpretations.
The same issue arises when the scapegoating is placed on indivduals or small groups (aka the "bad apples"). Take any of the previous examples, and name person 'x' or group 'y', and you have the formula for pointing the finger outward at a smaller target. Again, this prevents you (and others) from considering a wider set of interpretations that may be generated.
One of the goals of generating multiple interpretations is to explore the possibility that that you and your organization may have a part in your problem.
This is not to say you are the sole cause of the problem, or that your organization is another scape goat. Rather, it is a lesson in discovering that multiple people and multiple systems may be contributing to the problem. Our thinking tends to be too narrow or too broad. Too narrow, you miss the system's part of the mess and the other contributor's to the problem who may be tolerating or benefiting from the way things are. Too broad, and you risk not identifying any stakeholders in the problem.
What's the point to all this? Tough problems require multiple considered interpretations. If you think you have the right interpretation on the first guess (and you very well may), then you haven't done your due diligence to consider other points of view.
Here's a quick primer for questions to ask when exploring other (and tougher) interpretations:
What is my part of the mess?
What is the system's part of the mess?
Who benefits currently from the way things are?
What would an objective 3rd party say about the problem?
How much can I/we objectively observe around us before we make our interpretations (ex. patterns, behaviors, relationships, actions).
So going forward, ask yourself: did I/we spend enough time generating interpretations before we took action? Make this behavior a part of your diagnosis process before acting, and see if it does not open up a wider perspective on the problem your organization is facing.
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