Collaboration – Taming Wicked Problems

Infect Others, Become Infected

Joseph Bentley — Wed, 12 Apr 2017 18:37:30 +0000

March 31, 2017

“Infect others?” “Become infected?” Suggestions such as these seem to be not only unusual but possibly dangerous. Most of the time we resist becoming infected and are usually careful not to infect others. A recommendation to “infect” others goes against common sense and good hygiene and is contrary to everything we have been taught about good health since we were children.

Yet defining infection as a medical problems is not the only way to think about it. People often infect each other with enthusiasm and positive energy and when these are brought to bear on a difficult problem that is going badly, they can help turn things around. One person who dives into the problem with an upbeat attitude and positive resolve is contagious, and can infect others with his or her enthusiasm.

An example of infecting others toward positive attitudes is found in Karl Marlantes’ novel Matterhorn. It tells the story of a Marine company in Vietnam during the worst months of the war. Lt. Mellas, the protagonist in the story and commander of the first platoon of Bravo Company, is ordered to prepare a landing site in the dense jungle where a helicopter can land and pick up several wounded Marines. It was for Mellas an overwhelming task. The Company had been moving for days in impossible terrain and terrible weather with no food. Everyone was exhausted, frustrated and depressed. The only possible site was covered with an impenetrable mass of bamboo and elephant grass. “Mellas felt physically ill,” writes Marlantes. “His small K-bar and dull E-tool seemed useless in the face of this clotted, dense plant life…His mind wouldn’t focus. Clear the jungle – with no tools and no food. He closed his eyes.” For the first time since he had been in Vietnam, he felt defeated, and not by the enemy.

Suddenly he heard a commotion behind him, and without warning Jackson, a member of his platoon, came rushing past him, screaming at the top of his lungs, and threw his body into the wall of bamboo and grass. “The mass yielded slightly,” wrote Marantes. “Jackson ran back to the group, let out a whoop, and again threw himself at the tangled mass. It bent. He backed off and jumped into it feet first, cursing it. He began jumping up and down on it, shouting an exultant chant. The bamboo broke. The grass sagged and fell.” And then another marine charged into the mass of jungle, and then another and another, all screaming and shouting obscenities, until dozens of men were charging into the massed vegetation. One large marine picked up the smallest member of the platoon and threw him at the resistant bamboo. Within an hour the marines had cleared away the jungle with their bodies so the helicopter could land.

Infecting with Perplexities

We understand how people can be infected with unfriendly bacteria – and seek to avoid it – and also infected with positive attitudes and joyful enthusiasm – and seek to encourage it. But there is yet another way that we can become infected and can also infect others, a way that is extremely useful when struggling with wicked problems. A comment made by the American philosopher Hannah Arendt opens the way to thinking differently about becoming infected and infecting others. Her interest was in teaching people to think and her insight was that”…the only way to teach people to think is to infect them with the perplexities that one is confronting.”

She is interested in changing people’s behavior, helping them move from “not-thinking” about problems to “thinking” about them. Her approach was to share with them the perplexities she herself is confronting – her doubts, frustration, concerns, puzzlements, confusions – and in this process of self-disclosure, draw them into becoming interested in what in what interests her. In short, to infect them with what she is worried about.

Later I will come back to Arendt’s approach of “infecting others” in the context of grappling with wicked problems . For now, I want to return to an idea I have discussed in several previous essays: There is little we can do by ourselves.

“It Takes Two”

At the beginning of Stephen Sondheim’s musical play, Into the Woods, the principle characters – Cinderella, Jack, (from Jack and the Beanstalk), and the Baker – a member of that well-known group, The Butcher, The Baker and The Candlestick Maker – express their dissatisfaction with the way their lives are going and desperately want things to change. Suddenly, a witch appears and promises them that their wishes will be granted if they will go “into the woods” and find the answers to several complicated problems that she gives them.

As the Baker starts off on his quest, his wife wants to go, but he insists that he can do it alone and tells her to stay at home. After a number setbacks and failures, however, the Baker learns that going it alone is not a good idea. After his wife joins him in the woods and they work together to meet the challenges, they sing a lovely duet, “It Takes Two,” which makes clear the Baker’s new understanding of the importance of working together when facing difficult problems:

“It takes two,” he sings,
“I thought one was enough,
It’s not true:
It takes two of us.
You came through
When the journey was rough.
It took you.
It took two of us.

Previously I suggested that most of the important things we need in our lives – understanding, support, respect, different points of view, affection, recognition, different skill-sets and so on – come only when other people are willing to offer them to us. Cooperation is required and for this “It takes two of us” and usually more. However, cooperating with others is not something that we are good at, especially when our differences are wide and deep. Too many of us are like the Baker who think we can go “Into the Woods” by ourselves and be successful.

Being Willing to Cooperate Comes First

If cooperation it is to happen, the first step is to show a willingness to join in. People must sit at the same table and address the same issues, then stay with them long enough until they reach a shared understanding of the problem, With this, there is a possibility to keep moving forward. But even when people are willing, things still go badly. Good intentions, while important and even necessary, are never enough. When troubles arise, many people are unaware of what’s going wrong and what chould be done to get things back on track. Instead of pulling back from the conversation and shifting it from the task at hand to the fact that things are not going well- Meta-Talk – they often press forward with even more energy and volume and end up making things worse. Without making a deliberate decision to do so, they often find themselves participating in an escalation from differences, to misunderstandings, to frustrations, and finally to anger. “Things fall apart, The center cannot hold,” wrote the poet Yeats, and though he was referring to society in general, it fits people sitting around a table trying to reach consensus just as well.

Even when people express a willingness to work together and begin to see progress, there are more obstacles in the way. Many bring to the table baggage from previously failed attempts and spend their time complaining about how difficult it all is. Rather than plunge in and participate, they stand back and criticize. Others underestimate the difficulties they are facing and are unprepared for the moment when things start to go off the rails. What they do not understand is successful cooperation on important issues and dilemmas is a wicked problem and needs to be understood and acted upon as one.

And even we reach a successful level of cooperation, there is more wickedness ahead. After cooperation – a willingness to work together – must come consensus – an agreement about the nature of the problem – which then needs to be followed by collaboration – moving to action.

Michael Schrage’s Frustration

Collaboration and collaboration are not only desirable but necessary argues Michael Schrage in Shared Minds: The New Technologies of Collaboration. As evidence, he lists what calls “joint ventures: “Picasso and Braque creating Cubism and reshaping the geometries of art; Nils Bohr, Werner Heisenberg and the quantum physicists joining together to map the subatomic universe; Watson and Crick discovering the double helix of life itself; the Wright brothers launching the aviation industry; and seventy-five years later, the ‘Two Steves’ – Wozniak and Jobs- popularizing personal computing through Apple.”

But when Schrage moves to the table and tries to cooperate and collaborate in a joint venture with his colleagues, he is flummoxed:

A deep sense of frustration… came from an annoying inability to make my thoughts and ideas clear to my colleagues as we worked together. This was particularly galling because, as a bright and daily articulate journalist, I was supposed to be good at communicating. My colleagues weren’t stupid – on the contrary, they were all bright, articulate, and competent. Yet somehow, basic concepts we discussed became garbled, and vital nuances were smeared beyond recognition. Meetings called to remove confusion often ended up amplifying it. The same words meant different things to different people. As a result, things didn’t get done or they didn’t get done right. Something was fundamentally wrong: there had to be a better way.

Schrage’s dilemma is not unusual. Most of us could write our own paragraph describing our past frustrations in trying to cooperate with others. The consequences of these frustrating experiences are destructive: We avoid trying to work things out with others and attempt to go it alone; we boycott meetings; and we complain loudly that “meetings don’t work;” we lobby to have fewer of them. When we can no longer find an excuse for staying away and find ourselves at the table, we often adopt a stance of boredom and apathy. At the first sign of difficulties we move from boredom to irritation and, if things go badly enough, to outrage.

“Something was… wrong,” says Schrage. “There had to a better way.” I believe that there is, and it starts with reminding ourselves that the “reality” one person sees is very different from what someone else sees. Once we become clear about our differences, then, and only then, can we can move toward finding agreement on perspectives, definitions, or alternatives that makes sense to us both.

Walter Lippmann’s Insight

Why is cooperation so difficult? There is a clue in Schrage’s comment, “The same words meant different things to different people.” A recent review in a local newspaper of a new art project titled “Sonder” presents Schrage’s observation that we hear things differently as a remarkable achievement. “Sonder” was described in the paper as an” original,” a merger between arts, entertainment, design, and entrepreneurship. The producer claimed that “From the audience experience, this show is unlike anything else that is happening…Every audience member is going to have a different and unique experience.”

Reading this comment, my first reaction was “Duh!” Was he kidding or was it just hype? As individuals, “unique and different experiences” are all we ever have! We only get past these unique perspectives by sharing them with each other, and, then, if we are skillful and patient, reaching an agreement on what is happening “out there.”

In 1922, Walter Lippmann, in Public Opinion, described this human dilemma: “There is a world outside and there are pictures in our heads,” he wrote, and it is the pictures in our heads that that describe and define the outside world for us. “Man [sic] behaves not according to the world as it really is, but to the world as he thinks it is.” It is the pictures in our minds, then, that determine our actions. Unless confronted by contrary evidence, it is easy to believe that our “pictures” are the real ones. Until we are able to share these mental pictures with each other and made a successful effort to reach agreement about which pictures make the most sense, it is difficult if not impossible to cooperate. Without any awareness of why, we frequently get bogged down arguing over whose pictures are the “true” ones.

Twenty Men Crossing Twenty Bridges?

As is almost always the case, it is the poets and artists who most clearly understand the boxes we get trapped in. In the opening lines of his poem “Metaphors of a Magnifico,” the American poet Wallace Stevens translates Lippman’s observation into poetry:

Twenty men crossing a bridge,
Into a village,
Are twenty men crossing twenty bridges
Into twenty villages,
Or one man
Crossing a single bridge into a village.

This dilemma is clear: If we expect the men crossing the bridge to cooperate, they must come to understand that rather than crossing “twenty bridges into twenty villages,” their only hope is to cross on the same bridge to the same village. In this possible? Stevens is pessimistic. His next lines suggest that it won’t happen: “This is old song/That will not declare itself…” He is right that the “old song…will not declare itself.” But that need not be the end of the story. What is needed is to change the picture of bridges and villages we hold in our minds.

If we want to increase cooperation – as we must if we are going make headway with our wicked problems – we need to begin with an understanding that at the beginning of any conversation we are all crossing on our own bridge. And then, in order for all “twenty” of us to work together, we then must understand and accept that we must all cross on one bridge. We must become “infected” with new ways of seeing and understanding “bridges.”

Infect Others, Become Infected

I am more sanguine than Stevens. I believe that we can move from twenty bridges to one bridge. The question is how to do it. And the answer is to begin a conversation, one in which we first become aware that even though in the beginning there are twenty bridges, by the end of our sharing, we are able to get it down to just one.

Returning to Arendt’s metaphor, “…the only way to teach people to think [and to think differently] is to infect them with [my] perplexities,” – when I share with you my perplexities , as well as my preferences, perceptions, concerns, anxieties, fears and frustrations, I “expose” you to how I see things. My hope is that you will “catch” what I have.

And of course, this works both ways. I “infect” you by sharing my perplexities, and you infect me by sharing yours in return. Sharing one’s concerns, if it is done skillfully, is compelling, and opens the door to continuing conversations. As we become “infected” with each other’s perplexities and concerns, we increase the chances of cooperating with each other.

If this sharing is skillful, sincere and relevant, the gaps that exist between us can be narrowed, and we have, perhaps for the first time, an opportunity to examine our differences in an atmosphere of acceptance, mutual support and understanding. And learning more about our differences – and accepting them as valid – is an important first step in getting to “one bridge” – increasing the possibilities of cooperation between us.

I-Messages Are the Key

The remedy to the “twenty bridges” problem, then, lies with our abilities to infect others with our perplexities and be willing to be infected in return. I make you aware of what I see, think, prefer, etc. by sharing them with you and when you do the same, I listen without judging or criticizing. This is not always easy. As I said, in order to be successful in “infecting” each other, we must be skillful. Most of our concerns and frustrations involve what others do or don’t do, and talking about them may make one or both of us feel threatened or defensive. Effective conversations are required – fierce ones are best – and they are most successful when they begin with I-Messages. By beginning with an I-Message, I am able to make you aware of my perplexities and, at the same time, reducing the chances that you may be offended.

Here are some opening lines about “perplexities” that can open the door to longer conversations and, further down the road, lead to cooperation:

– I am worried about how much we are spending on recreation.

– I am frustrated we have not started a meeting on time once in the past three months;

-I am concerned that we are way over budget.

– This sounds like over-promising on results I’m not sure we can deliver. This worries me a lot.

– I left the meeting really upset. While I was trying to explain my idea for the Franklin project, you interrupted me three times.

– I am really uncomfortable right now, and would prefer to come back and talk about it later.

First sentences are not all there is to conversations that “infect” others. The next step is to encourage the other to share his or her perception of the situation or event, and then, once each understands the perspective of the other, work together to find a better way to handle the problems.

Encouraging Infections

“Infecting” others with our concerns and perplexities, and allowing them to “infect” us in return, offers us an opportunity to stand together on the same bridge and look toward the same village. For this task, helpful language is the key, and conversations that make frequent, skillful, and appropriate use of I-Messages greatly increase our chances of moving together in the same direction toward the same village. Then we can grasp hands and, whooping and hollering, cross the bridge and “throw our bodies” at a wicked problem with enough energy and for enough time that we eventually smash it to the ground.

Success Story: The 59th Story Crisis

Joseph Bentley — Mon, 22 Aug 2016 18:17:09 +0000

August 18, 2016

An important question for us to consider as individuals and societies is “Are we in trouble?” The answer is “Of course we are!” Throughout history individuals and societies, facing unpredictable and unfriendly futures, have always been convinced that troubles were just ahead. What they did not understand was the nature of the troubles or what would to do about with them. In the past – as now – even though many claimed to know how to solve the problems, no one possessed final answers to the questions that confused them or solutions to the problems that afflicted them. Their only option – as is ours – was to do the best that they could.

And this leads to a second question: “Are we in more trouble today than others have been in the past?”

I believe that we are. And so does Edward O. Wilson, a well-respected biologist at Harvard. In 2012 he explained his reasons for believing that the problems we face today are of a different order of magnitude than in the past:

Humanity today is like a waking dreamer, caught between the fantasies of sleep and the chaos of the real world…We have created a Star Wars civilization with Stone Age emotions, medieval institutions, and god-like technology. We thrash about. We are terrible confused…and a danger to ourselves and to the rest of life.

In other words, what Wilson is suggesting is that there is a huge mismatch between the problems we face and our abilities to cope with them. We are overmatched by their numbers, their complexities, and the risks to our survival because of these problems. Global warming is among the most serious of these problems. It is now clear that unless we move aggressively to mitigate the effects of massive climate change, disasters on a scale never before imagined are to be expected. Yet we dither, equivocate, deny.

Mohamed El-Erian, CEO of Primco Global Investments expresses the same ideas in different words: The Achilles heel of our times is that we are “driving without a spare:” “The world is on a journey to an unstable destination,” writes El-Erian, “though unfamiliar territory, on an uneven road, and, critically, having already used its spare tire.” And making things worse, we are not at all clear on where we want to go, what we need to do to get there, and who should be driving. And finally, to continue the metaphor, there are reasons to believe that the vehicle in which we are traveling is not up to the task of making the journey.

Another reason why we are in more trouble today is that no matter the efforts we make, our problems don’t disappear from the scene. Here is how Robert M. Gates put it when he was Secretary of Defense in the Bush Administration: “When I had been in government before, problems or crises more often than not would arise, be dealt with, and go away…Now hardly any issue or problem could be resolved and put aside. Instead, problems accumulated.” In the complicated times in which we live, our master list of problems only gets longer.

The Most Important Problem?

Is there one problem that we face today that is more important than all of the others? Psychologist and author Joshua Greene thinks that there is. It isn’t global warming, or terrorism, or even corrupt and dysfunctional governments, though these are serious enough. In Moral Tribes, Greene states that “the problem of cooperation is the central problem of [our]existence.” And when Greene says that cooperation is our central problem he means, of course, the lack of cooperation. Our poor record with cooperation is caused primarily two factors: The predominance of individual interests over collective ones; and serious deficiencies in the knowledge and skills required for effective collaboration. Almost all of the troubles we are in today arise, persist, and become worse because of our inability to cooperate in either understanding or addressing them.

Cooperation Requires a Common Language

If we are to manage successfully the problems that threaten to overwhelm us, increasing our willingness and ability to cooperate is essential. An important first step is learning to speak the same language. A second step, equally important, is using this language in order to enter into productive conversations about the nature of our problems and what should be done about them. And what is the problem language that we need to learn in order to increase our cooperation? Organizational theorist and author Keith Glint argues that it is the language of tame and wicked problems. It is the only way of speaking about problems that is up to the challenge of describing accurately what is happening, communicating to others the nature of the problems that concern us, and finally, increasing cooperation in order to decide what we need to do in order for us to plan and implement actions that deal effectively with them. In his recent analyses of the challenges that face us in this century, Glint insists that understanding the differences between tame and wicked problems is essential in deciding what can be done about them. Glint highlights these differences with the following examples: “A Tame problem, however complex, is teaching your children to pass their driving test; a Wicked problem is remaining a successful parent to them. A Tame problem is ‘winning’ the war in Iraq; a Wicked problem is securing a just and lasting peace in Iraq. A Tame problem is heart surgery; a Wicked problem is providing unlimited health services to all who need them on the basis of limited resources.”

Coming to terms with the chaos and confusion of our times is best achieved by understanding that the important problems we face are wicked, not tame, and that they must be understood and addressed as such. Glint makes this point when he concludes that “leadership is essentially about facing Wicked Problems that are essentially ‘unmanageable.'” The most important way to move toward cooperation in dealing with our problems is to talk about them in ways increase our understanding of what it is we are facing. Only conversations about problems make cooperation possible, and it goes without saying that effective conversations are better than ineffectual ones.

The 59th Story Crisis

Making the troubles that we are facing even more complicated is the fact that many of them arrive as crises, bringing with them a sense of urgency and the threat of danger. When the wicked problems of modern life are perceived as crises, deciding what should be done about them becomes even more difficult. William J. LeMessurier’s “59th Story Crisis” is the story of a person who faced up to a serious wicked problem, one that could have become a major catastrophe. He decided that rather than deny that there was a problem, or pretend that it wasn’t important, or procrastinate taking action, he would move toward the problem by initiating a series of conversations with the key people involved. And because of his courage, capability and skill in these conversations, he not only survived, but helped turn it into a positive and constructive experience for all concerned.

A Startling Discovery

On the afternoon of a warm June afternoon in 1978, LeMessurier (pronounced LeMeasure) was called out of a meeting to take a phone call. LeMessurier was among the most respected and accomplished structural engineers in the country. His proudest achievement was designing the Citicorp Tower that had been constructed the previous year in downtown Manhattan. The call was from an engineering student in New Jersey whose professor had assigned him to write a paper on the Citicorp Tower which once completed, was the seventh-tallest building in the world.

The student had a question about the four columns which provided support for the building. “My professor says that they are in the wrong place,” said the student, ” and in a strong windstorm, the building may fall down.”

“I was very nice to this young man,” LeMessurier recalls. “But I said, ‘Listen, I want you to tell your teacher that he doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about, because he doesn’t know the problem that had to be solved.'”

The “problem” that LeMessurier referred to was that the building had to be designed around an old church that occupied the northwest corner of the block which the building was to occupy. In order to clear space for the construction of a new church to replace it, LeMesssurier and Hugh Stubbins, the architect, had set their tower on four massive, nine-story-high stilts, and had positioned them at the center of each side, rather than on each corner.

When LeMessurier called the student back he described with pride that the peculiar geometry of the support columns, far from being a mistake, put them in the strongest position for the building to resist what sailors call “quartering winds” – those that come from a diagonal and, by flowing across two sides of the building at once, greatly increase the forces upon the building. “I gave him a lot of information,” recalled LeMessurier. “Now you really have something on your professor, because you can explain all of this to him.”

Later in the day, now interested in reviewing the design challenges he had faced, and deciding that his conversation with the engineering student would be an interesting anecdote to relate to his own students at Harvard, he began to review the decisions that went into the design of the building. The innovation of which he was most proud had been an unusual system of wind braces which, according to Joe Morgenstern writing in The New Yorker in May 1995, “had first been sketched out, in a burst of almost ecstatic invention on a napkin in a Greek restaurant in Cambridge: forty-eight braces in six tiers of eight, arranged like giant chevrons behind the building’s curtain of aluminum and glass.”

Over the next several days as he reviewed the decisions that had been made during the design and construction of the building, his confidence began to wane, and was gradually replaced, first by concern and then by the beginnings of panic. The most serious problem that he discovered was that the joints of the wind braces, which were to have been welded, had been bolted together instead. He had learned about this when he had asked Stanley Goldsmith, who had been in charge of the construction, about the welded joints. Goldsmith said, “Oh, didn’t you know? They were changed. They were never welded at all, because Bethlehem steel came to us and said they didn’t think we needed to do it.”

Over the next month, he made several additional discoveries that raised his level of anxiety. LeMessurier detailed a series of decisions into a thirty-page document, some of which with hindsight could be seen as mistakes, he called “Project SERENE.” The acronym, both rueful and apt, stood for “Special Engineering Review of Events Nobody Envisioned. ” On July 26th, LeMessurier flew to London, Ontario, and shared his conclusions with a Canadian engineer named Alan Davenport, director of the Boundary Wind Tunnel Laboratory, at the University of Western Ontario, and a world authority on the behavior of buildings in high winds. “And you have to tell me the truth,” LeMessurier told Davenport. “Don’t go easy if it doesn’t come out the right way.” Their analyses didn’t in fact, come out the “right way,” and they didn’t go easy on him. What they told him shocked him out of any remaining complacency that he had left.

When LeMessurier returned to Cambridge he told his wife, “I think we have a problem here, and I am going to sit down and try to think about it.” On July 28th, he drove to the northern shore of Sebago Lake, took an outboard motorboat a quarter of a mile across the water to his house on a twelve-acre private island, and worked through the numbers that Davenport had given him, joint by joint, floor by floor. He discovered that the weakest point in the structure was the thirtieth floor, and, taking the New York City weather records that Davenport had given him, learned that the bolted braces on that floor would fail in a storm that had a statistical probability of occurring as often as every sixteen years. “To put it another way,” said LeMessurier, “there was one chance in sixteen that in any one year, including that one, a storm could occur that would cause the building to collapse.”

The first thing LeMessurier did was devise an engineering solution to the problem. With money and materials, the bolted joints could be reinforced by welding heavy steel plates over them, like “giant Band-Aids.” Problem solved. But LeMessurier realized that the real problem was not an engineering one to be solved with a technical solution, but a human and cultural problem. How would the people in Citibank react when they learned that their new, landmark building could fall down in a windstorm. How about architect? The insurance company? The city of New York? If the possibility of disaster were to be averted, LeMessurier would have to blow the whistle on himself. He would have to tell others what he had learned, and then make every effort to convince them to work with him on the solution. Telling others about the problem with the building, Morgenstern writes, “meant facing the pain of possible protracted litigation, probable bankruptcy, and professional disgrace. It also meant shock and dismay for Citicorp’s officers and shareholders when they learned that the bank’s proud new corporate symbol, built at a cost of a hundred and seventy-five million dollars, was threatened with collapse.” And the time was short. It was the end of July, and the height of the hurricane season was approaching. Could 1978 be the year for a “once-in-a-sixteen-year storm?”

After his in-depth analysis and review, LeMessurier finally understood the seriousness of problem. The possibility of the Citibank Tower collapsing into the center of downtown Manhattan was a reality. He considered his options: Since he was the only one who knew the existence of a problem, he could choose silence and hope for the best. Another choice was suicide. “If LeMessurier drove along the Maine Turnpike at a hundred miles an hour and steered into bridge abutment, that would be that,” wrote Morgenstern. Or he could face up to the problem and do his best.

He quickly discarded the first two options and choose the third. He would sit down with all of the people involved and talk it out. What seized him moments after making this decision, writes Morgenstern, was an “unexpected almost giddy sense of power.” “I had information that nobody else in the world had,” recalled LeMessurier. “I had power in my hands to effect extraordinary events that only I could initiate. I mean sixteen years to failure – that was very simple, very clear cut. I almost said, thank you Lord, for making this problem so sharply defined that there’s no choice to make.”

Critical Conversations

With his plan clear in his mind, LeMessurier left the island and began a series of conversations, first with Hugh Stubbins the architect, then with the insurance company (who sent out a battery of lawyers who wanted to meet with him to “find out if I was nutty”), then with another design engineer brought in by the insurance company to provide a second opinion – and who told the lawyers that “if this is the case, you have a serious problem” – and finally with Citicorp executives. When LeMessurier and Stubbins were finally able to meet with John Reed, Citicorp’s executive vice-president, LeMessurier began the conversation by saying “I have a real problem for you sir.” In every conversation, LeMessurier described the problem in clear, unambiguous language, accepted full responsibility for causing it, made no excuses, blamed no one else, and outlined the technical solution that he had developed. And each conversation resulted in a strong commitment to work together to make the eventual solution possible. Finally, LeMessurier spoke with Walter Winston, Chairman of Citibank. “Winston was fantastic,” LeMessurier said. Rather than blaming or shaming, Winston signed on to help. “I guess my job is to handle the public relations of this, “he said, ” so I’ll have to to start drafting a press release.” But he didn’t have anything to write on, so someone handed him a yellow pad. That made him laugh. According to LeMessurier, Winston said, “All wars are won by generals writing on yellow pads.” His laughter put the others at ease. Citicorp’s general was on their side.

LeMessurier faced more difficulties. A decision was made that in the event of a high-wind warning, a plan needed to be in place to evacuate the building and the surrounding blocks of downtown Manhattan. Meetings were held with the American Red Cross and the mayor’s Office of Emergency Management which resulted in the creation of an evacuation plan for the area. Several weeks later, LeMessurier told the whole truth to the New York City’s Acting Building Commissioner and nine other senior city officials. For over an hour LeMessurier spoke about the effects of diagonal winds on the Citicorp tower, and spelled out in detail the failure of his office to anticipate the possible dangers. He also shared with them the technical solution that he had devised and what would be needed to implement it.

As the city officials left the meeting, they commended LeMessurier for his truthfulness and courage. “It wasn’t a case of ‘We caught you, you skunk,'” said one. “It started with a guy who stood up and said ‘I’ve got a problem, I made the problem, let’s fix the problem.’ If you’re going to kill a guy like LeMessurier, why should anybody ever talk.”

“Nothing Bad Happened”

During most of August and into September the welding of the steel plates to the wind braces was accomplished. The result was a building strong enough to withstand in excess of a two-hundred-year storm. But this is not the most noteworthy outcome of LeMessurier’s honest and courageous conversations about the problems in the Citibank Tower. Unlike many other attempts to resolve complicated problems, here there were no lawsuits, no blaming or accusing, no charges of incompetence or malfeasance. “The crisis at Citicorp Center was noteworthy,” wrote Morgenstern, in that “it produced heroes, but no villains; everyone concerned with the repairs behaved in exemplary fashion from Walter Winston and his Citicorp management team to the officials in the city’s Department of Buildings. The most striking example, or course, was set by LeMessurier, who emerged with his reputation not merely unscathed but enhanced.”

During the ensuing years, LeMessurier talked openly to his students at Harvard about the summer of 1978. His story, as he told it, was “by turns painful, self-deprecating and self- dramatizing – an engineer who did the right thing.” He also spoke often about the larger issues: the responsibilities that professions have to society. “You have a social obligation,” he would remind his students. “In return for getting a license and being regarded with respect, you’re supposed to be self-sacrificing and look beyond the interests of yourself and your client to society as a whole. And the most wonderful part of my story is that when I did that nothing bad happened.”

Success With Wicked Problems Requires Cooperation

Most wicked problems present us with a dilemma. They have the potential to affect negatively dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of people. The only feasible approach is collaboration – working with others to define the problem and develop an action plan which, when implemented, offers a chance to improve the situation. Yet we are inept, even incompetent, in cooperating effectively with others. In short, while cooperation is the sine qua non for success, we are not good at it. This weakness is, as Joshua Greene said, the most serious problem we face. When we grapple with wicked problems, what is needed is to cooperate effectively with others. Yet we often we fall short, either because we put our personal interests first, or even when we try, we lack the necessary skills.

The ending to the story that LeMessurier would tell his students – that he did the right thing and “nothing bad happened” – is an understatement. He did the right thing and many good things happened! Once he understood the nature of the problem of the Citibank Tower and identified his possible choices, he eschewed the individualist options of silence or suicide that, while they may have protected his reputation, would have put many thousands of others in jeopardy. He chose instead the more difficult and risky option of cooperating with others, and even though he opened himself up to the possibility that his career and reputation could be destroyed, he made it possible to eventually address the tame problem that would solve the problem.

Cooperation Requires Effective Conversations

Cooperation can only happen when people talk to each other. Silence leads to confusion, frustration and a guarantee that things will only get worse. Conversations between those who are involved in problems allow the possibilities of cooperation to flourish. And it is only when we cooperate with each other that we have a chance of making progress toward our goals. Excellence in working successfully with wicked problems requires us not only to cooperate with others but to be good at it. And being good at cooperation requires us to enter into and maintain effective conversations about the problems that concern us. A husband and wife are never going to make progress in managing their problems unless they are able to talk about them. Members of a work team will never move toward a greater level of effectiveness without helpful, open, relevant, and energetic conversations. And when they are skilled with difficult conversations, the chances of moving forward are greatly increased.

Earlier I named the two primary obstacles to cooperation: First, an excessive attachment to individualist goals and objectives; and second, a lack of conversation skills and abilities. LeMesseur’s decision to involve others in the problem with the Citibank Tower removed the first obstacle – his personal concerns about career and reputation were put on the back burners – and his conversation skills took care of the second. That “Nothing bad happened” was not an accident. LeMessierur was primarily responsible for “the good things that happened” because he chose to confront the problem openly and directly, and also because he had the conversation skills that created in others a willingness to cooperate.

Wicked Problem First, Tame Problem Second

In the “59th Story Crisis” LeMessurier faced two different of problems – one tame and one wicked. He had before him a problem that I have referred to in earlier essays as a “nested problem.” The tame problem, which was solvable, was nested in the middle of a wicked one. Once LeMessurier understood the nature of the tame problem – technical flaws in the building design and construction that threatened to bring it crashing down – finding a technical “fix” was relatively easy. Yet the wicked one blocked the way to getting to that solution and implementing it. Until the wicked problem was addressed – increasing awareness, understanding, cooperation and support from the key players in the situation – there was no way to solve the tame one. The complexities of dealing with a “nested problem” makes LeMessurier’s achievement all the more impressive. With no clear idea of how to proceed, with no understanding of how the other key people would react once they heard the bad news, and aware that there were great personal risks involved, LeMessurier moved toward rather than away from the problem. Rather than reject it or deny that it existed, he embraced it and began a series of skillful, effective, conversations that led to positive outcomes all the way around.

Wicked or Tame?

Joseph Bentley — Fri, 11 Jul 2014 17:00:48 +0000

July 10, 2014

Problems are either wicked or tame concluded Horst Rittle and Melvin Webber in the early 1970’s, an insight that has turned out not only to be interesting, but central to all attempts to solve problems. Whether a problem is one or the other determines everything that follows: what should be done, by whom, for how long, and so on. Perhaps the most important conclusion they arrived at is that while some problems can be “solved” and no more attention is required, other problems cannot be solved, and must be revisited over and over again.

Rittle and Webber made it clear that by calling some problems wicked, they did not mean that they were “bad” or “evil.” In 1973 they wrote:

We are calling them wicked not because [they] are ethically deplorable. We use the term ‘wicked’ in a meaning akin to that of ‘malignant’ (in contrast to ‘benign’) or ‘vicious’ (like a circle) or ‘tricky (like a leprechaun) or ‘aggressive’ (like a lion, in contrast to the docility of a lamb).

While wicked problems are not evil problems, there are times when there are moral and ethical issues involved, not in the problems themselves, but in how they are defined and addressed. Rittle and Webber believed that it was immoral to

confuse tame and wicked problems;
attempt to “tame” a wicked problem prematurely;
treat wicked problems as if they were tame.

Yet telling the difference between tame and wicked problems turns out to be a problem! Wicked problems are usually messy, confusing and complicated, but they need not be. They can also be simple and straightforward. Tame problems generally are more transparent and understandable than wicked ones, but not always. They can also be extremely complex, confusing, and opaque. For example, on September 12, 1962, when President Kennedy said “I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before the decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth,” what he proposed was a tame problem (though the process of making it happen was rife with wicked ones). It had a beginning, a middle, and an end. Everyone would know if the many technical problems had been solved and when a successful solution reached. In the beginning, however, the scientists who were in charge of the project had no idea what to do or how to begin. Most of the technology that would be needed did not exist and had to be discovered and invented. Yet when the astronauts returned safely to earth after walking on the moon, the problem was solved!

One of the best ways to tell the difference between tame and wicked problems is listen carefully to the disagreements and arguments over the nature of the problem and what needs to be done. When problems are tame and not wicked, the evidence that is introduced to support one side or the other can eventually be determined to be true or false. As a result, the intensity and frequency of serious disagreements diminish over time. “Getting to Yes” is more frequent as the parties converge toward a correct solution. Eventually, a spirit of cooperation and may emerge. People cease being enemies and may even become collaborators.

When the problem is wicked, however, it is a completely different story. The more time spent on the problem, the greater the gap opens up between them. Instead of “Getting to Yes,” it is more like “You are wrong, wrong, wrong!” Any evidence presented by one side is almost always rejected by the other as being incomplete or inaccurate. Rather than diminishing, arguments escalate, become louder, more shrill , more insulting and even more abusive. Rather than moving closer together, the people involved usually become more entrenched in their original opinions; rather than becoming collaborators, they continue being opponents, even enemies.

Here are examples that make clear these differences:

Bertrand Russell and Gottlob Frege

In June of 1902, British philosopher Bertrand Russell, weary of struggling to find an answer to a paradox that had surfaced in his work and threatened to derail his progress, disengaged from his own work to read the recent work of a German mathematician named Gottlop Frege. Frege had been working from 1893 through 1902 on a project that was in may ways similar to Russell’s, and had the goal of doing “for arithmetic what Euclid had done for geometry…reformulating the hodgepodge of arithmetical results that had accumulated over the centuries into some kind of logical format.” In 1902, declaring victory, Frege published his first volume and turned to finishing the second, both of which would be the culmination of his life’s work.

As Russell read the work of Frege, he was surprised to find the same paradox that had bedeviled his own work, and realized that one of the principle axioms upon which Frege’s work was based was false. On the 16th of June, Russell wrote a short note to Frege to tell him the bad news: “Dear Mr. Frege, I have discovered a paradox in your set theoretical approach.” He then named the problem: “Contemplate for a moment the set of all sets which do not contain themselves as an element…”

For Frege, Russell’s letter was a thunderbolt, one which presented him with a terrible predicament. He was 82 years old, and at the end of his very distinguished career. His book was the culmination of his life’s work. What to do?

Eventually, in a sad postscript to the second volume, Frege wrote: ” A scientist can hardly meet with anything more undesirable that to have the foundation give way just as the work is finished.”

Frege’s reply to Russell is remarkable for its candid acceptance of the catastrophe that had befallen him. As Russell’s biographer, Ray Monk observed, “his letter has become one of the most often quoted documents in the history of analytical philosophy:”

“Your discovery,” wrote Frege to Russell

of the contradiction surprised me beyond words and, I should like to say, left me thunderstruck because it has rocked the ground on which I meant to build arithmetic…Your discovery is at any rate a very remarkable one, and it may perhaps lead to a great advantage in logic, undesirable as it may seem as first sight.

Russell was amazed and impressed with Frege’s response: “As I think about acts of integrity and grace,” he wrote in his autobiography, “I realize that there is nothing in my experience to compare with Frege’s dedication to truth. His entire life’s work was on the verge of completion…and upon finding that his fundamental assumption was in error, he responded with intellectual pleasure, clearly submerging any feelings of personal disappointment.”

Frege’s admirable response can be seen not only as a sign of his personal integrity, but also an acceptance that he was wrong and Russell was right. Once Russell pointed it out, he could see it as well. If he had responded defensively, attacking Russell, accusing him of being jealous, insisting that Russell was at fault, nothing would have been gained and much would have been lost. As it turned out, Frege’s honorable acceptance of the error served to enhance his reputation.

“It’s An Act of Love”

Among the many wicked problems we face as a nation, the immigration “mess” is among the “wickedest.” Over 11 million people are in the country without documentation, and no knows what to do about them. There is no agreement on what should be done. And making things worse, hundreds of thousands more are making an effort every year to join them. Over the past several years, the shouting and the accusing and the blaming has only grown louder and more shrill, bogged down as it is in political wrangling and posturing. Each time someone comes up with an idea or a plan, it is attacked mercilessly by the opposite side.

In the midst of all of the anger and the rancor, a new voice with a very different perspective is heard. In April, 2014, Jeb Bush, former governor of Florida and possible future presidential candidate, addressed the question “Why are they here?” and then offered a dramatically different answer: “…they crossed the border because they had no other means to work to be able to provide for their family,” he said. “Yes, they broke the law but it’s not a felony. It’s an act of love. It’s an act of commitment to your family.”

Bush reframed the issue from breaking the law to caring for families. How was it received? As an opportunity for reasonable and respectful discussion? As a door opening so that new ideas for an intractable problem could be explored? On the contrary. “Bush’s ‘act of love’ comments ignited a firestorm of criticism from conservatives,” reported Politico on April 10, 2014. Rather that encouraging Bush to expand on his remarks so that a conversation could begin, his critics moved en masse to the attack, closing down immediately any possibility that new approaches could be explored. And any chance of the disagreeing parties moving closer together disappeared in a barrage of viscous and hateful attacks.

Tame or Wicked?

When the problem is tame, even though at the beginning the conversation may be heated and energetic, as people examine the evidence and listen to each other’s arguments, they tend to move closer together until usually they arrive together at the answer.

With wicked problems, one can expect the opposite. As soon as one side hears the others’ ideas or proposals, a “firestorm” of criticism is unleashed. Rather that subsiding over time, things usually move from bad to worse.

Tame problems, by definition, are “Right vs. Wrong” problems. At the end of the day, there is a “right” answer to be found. Wicked problems, on the other hand, are “Right vs. Right!” Both sides claim to be right, and since there are no true or correct answers to be found, they can usually make a case, even though it usually turns out to be “I’m right because I believe that I’m right!”

“Right vs Right” problems are the most difficult and intractable of all since each side makes its claim and then refuses to consider the position of other side.

How can you tell a wicked problem from a tame one? Listen to the conversations, the debates, the arguments. Whenever there is more heat than light, more shouting that sharing, more anger than respect, you can be sure that the problem is wicked.

Postscript to the Russell-Frege Exchange

Frege’s response to Russell’s letter left him favorable impressed with Frege’s honesty and integrity. In part, in a desire to collaborate, Russell decided to tackle the paradox that he had discovered in Frege’s work, one that was not unlike one that he had been wrestling with in his own work. Throughout June and July of 1903 and into 1904 he tried without success to find a solution. “Every morning,” he later wrote in his autobiography,

I would sit down before a blank piece of paper. Throughout the day, with a brief interval of lunch, I would stare at the blank sheet. Often, when evening came it was still empty…It seemed quite likely that the whole rest of my life might be consumed in looking at the blank sheet of paper.

Sometime in 1905, Russell found a solution: “The solution to the paradox is simple,” he declared. “I WON’T ALLOW IT! I FORBID IT!” and with this declaration he elaborated his Theory of Logical Types, a creative reframing of the paradox which allowed him to declare victory.