December 24, 2015 On the night of May 13, 1994, Phil Jackson, coach of the NBA Chicago Bulls, came face-to-face with an unexpected and crucial choice point. How he handled it made a significant difference in his life and in the lives of the Chicago players. The Bulls were playing the New York Knicks… Read More »
December 15, 2015 Do you remember the “Good News – Bad News” jokes? Here’s a favorite of mine: The airline pilot comes on the intercom and says to the passengers, “There’s good news and bad news. The good news is that we are ahead of schedule. The bad new is that we don’t… Read More »
November 30, 2015 I first came upon the concepts of Wicked and Tame problems in the late 1980’s. I was reading Challenging Strategic Planning Assumptions by Richard Mason and Ian Mitroff, published in 1981. Their primary contribution to the literature of strategic planning was the introduction of tame and wicked problems into the language of… Read More »
October 30, 2015 In the early 1970’s, Berkeley professors Horst Riddle and Melvin Webber divided the world of problems into two categories: Tame and Wicked. It was then, as it is now, an important distinction, one that helps explain why individuals, as well as organizations and societies, can never seem to find solutions to some… Read More »
October 4, 2015 Alice: Every forty-five seconds someone in the United States sustains a head injury. Fred: Omigod! That poor guy! Fred’s misunderstanding is an example of a mismatch between a problem statement (There is a head injury in the United States every forty-five seconds) and the problem level (“Ah,” thinks Fred, “she… Read More »
September 7, 2015 Problems are not “out there” in the world waiting for us to find them. They are not like apples hanging from branches waiting to be picked. They have to be created. What exists “out there” are issues, situations and events that, once noticed and examined, are experienced as worrisome, problematic, and even… Read More »
August 10 Allison Rogers was frustrated. First of all, she was very tired. Charlie, her eight-year old had awakened at 2:30 am complaining of a stomach ache, and by 3:00 am he was throwing up. After a few trips to the bathroom, she had hoped that he would feel better, but no luck.… Read More »
July 15, 2015 For years I have had on my office wall a poster titled Success with these words attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson: To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal… Read More »
June 30 Steve Lewis had every reason to be pleased with the ways things were turning out. After finishing his graduate degree near the top of his class, he had landed his dream job as an analyst at a prestigious New York investment bank. While the work days were long, and the regular weekend… Read More »
June 18 In the wide world of problems, there are solved and unsolved problems. Solved problems are dead problems, and few people except historians have much interest in them. When people find themselves up against a problem that has been solved before, what is helpful is to look for previous solutions: Previous experience; recipes and… Read More »