Companies need to overcome jumping to solutions
It is no longer news that companies' ability to solve problems on a daily basis is what will increasingly make the difference between successful companies and those that will tend to fall behind.
It is what underpins the much-desired resilience and adaptability that everyone is seeking in these increasingly complex and unstable times. Correcting deviations as soon as they occur has become something strategic.
The great challenge, however, goes further: “how” companies go about solving problems is what will determine whether they follow an evolutionary path in terms of improving their performance, or whether they will keep thrashing about, expending an enormous amount of energy, without getting anywhere.
Many organizations, in their eagerness to solve everything very quickly, partly because of market pressures, put into practice what we can call “jump to solutions”.
It is the practice of people rushing to point out what they think should be done without clearly understanding the problem they are trying to solve. This is strongly reinforced in most corporate environments by leaders who value the image of “heroes” who put out fires every day.
In this rush, they do not realize that this attitude generally does not reach the source of the problems, and the fires multiply. Adopting a superficial or inadequate “solution” without understanding the causes of the problems is like throwing water on a fire caused by an electrical fault: not only does it not solve it, it ends up making the situation worse.
For decades, organizations have been discussing the scientific method of problem solving and the importance of seeking root causes when facing a deviation. It is rare to find a company where most people have not already taken part in training on these important subjects.
Why, then, is it still so common to observe “jump to solutions” in companies? Each case, of course, needs its own specific analysis, but I will share what I have observed.
In many situations, the difficulty begins with the way the scientific method of problem analysis and solving is viewed: whether it is seen merely as a set of tools to be used by operators, or whether it is part of the company's management culture.
Without encouragement from the top, some teams may even bureaucratically use a few forms to address specific problems, but “jump to solutions” continues to predominate for fundamental decisions in senior and middle management.
For the lean philosophy, developing problem-solving capabilities at all levels is the essence of management. This needs to be a daily practice, carried out in a disciplined way, from the president to all members of the work
teams. The way deviations should be addressed, systematically, needs to be spread by example, as a mental model repeated every day.
When a deviation occurs and someone brings a proposal for what they believe is a “solution”, everyone needs to be used to asking questions. For example: what problem are you trying to solve? What is the deviation from expected performance? How is the problem distributed? Have you analyzed all the facts and data? Did you go and see the problem with your own eyes and talk to those involved? What are the root causes? How can we prove these hypotheses? What simple alternatives can we think of to address these causes?
Only after the analysis triggered by dialogues of this kind will the people involved be able to arrive at effective countermeasures that use the minimum of resources and bring sustainable performance gains, so that the deviations do not return.
“Jump to solutions” is a real weed in companies. It gives the false illusion that we are “solving” problems when, in fact, an enormous amount of energy and resources is being spent on random actions. In this way, problems always come back, because the causes were not understood and tackled, or side effects arise that had not been identified.
Creating a true culture of problem solving with method, built into management models, is a fundamental task that leaders at all levels should prioritize. This requires changes in behavior and goes far beyond simply replicating training on the subject.
