” “Right vs. Right.” – Taming Wicked Problems

Steve Lewis Finds a Third Way

Joseph Bentley — Tue, 30 Jun 2015 20:04:32 +0000

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 assignments a bit onerous, he was willing to put in the time. Among his most important values was the belief that hard work and sacrifice early in one’s career would bring future rewards. He was convinced that if he could build a reputation as a capable and dedicated worker, a person who could be counted on when things were difficult, there would be no limit to what he could achieve in the future.

Early one Tuesday morning, Lewis picked up a voice mail message asking if he would be willing to fly to St. Louis in two days to help with a presentation for an important prospective client. Lewis was surprised. The firm had a policy against analysts being included in the company presentation teams because they lacked adequate experience and relevant expertise. What made this invitation even more puzzling was that Lewis had no idea how he could help. He had no knowledge of the subject of the presentation, a specialized area of municipal finance.

Lewis immediately picked up the phone and called Andrew Webster, a friend and partner in the firm and his mentor during the time Lewis at been at the bank. “Andy, what’s the deal here? Did you know that I’ve been invited to go to St. Louis? Are you behind this?”

“Steve,” responded Webster, “come and see me in fifteen minutes.”

Fifteen minutes later, as Lewis settled into a chair in Webster’s office, Webster began by saying, “Steve, I hate for you to be introduced to this side of the business so soon, but here it is. The new state treasurer of Missouri is black, and he has let it be known that he expects to see one black professional on our presentation team or there is no chance the firm will be named manager for this deal. So, there are two possibities, either you or me. If you feel uncomfortable about it, I could try and change my schedule and make the trip.”

“Well,” said Lewis, ” let me think it over. I’ll get back to you this afternoon.”

For Lewis, the issue was important. He had spend years wondering if he had been included or excluded from things because of his race. The issue made him uncomfortable and at times, angry. And now, at a critical time in his new career, he was being asked to be on a high profile team, not because of what he could contribute, but because he was black.

His first impulse was to say no, that he would not be used this way. And yet Andy, his mentor and a partner in the firm had seemed to be at peace with race being used as a competitive advantage. After all, he had offered to go in Lewis’ place. Did his own sense of unease come from his youth and lack of experience? Would he come to understand that in the “real world,” there was little room for idealism and integrity, that you did what had to be done?

Between a Rock and a Hard Place

He felt caught. On the one hand, he had been invited to join the team that was making a presentation to the most important potential client the bank had on its agenda. If he said no, would that be seen as not being willing to show up and do what was required? Would it lead to being defined as “not a team player?” On the other hand, the reason that he had been invited was because of the color of his skin, clearly a form of racism tacitly approved by the organization.

He took a pad of paper and wrote on one side: “It is right to be a loyal and a contributing member of the firm.” He could see the obvious advantages, both for him and for the firm. Even if he could not make any substantial contribution, his presence with his black skin would not only be helpful, but necessary. And he would earn points for being willing to help.

On the other side he wrote: “It is right to refuse to be treated as a token, to be used because of one’s race.” He remembered a conversation he had in graduate school with several other black students. As they talked about their futures, they were in agreement that they should stand up against racism in all of its forms. He thought of Malcom X who condemned the “house slaves,” those who worked comfortably indoors and were willing to do whatever their masters wanted.

What is the right thing to do? What was wrong seemed clear. “It is wrong,” he thought, “to be treated as an object rather than as a person. It is right to stand up for one’s core values, to be true to one’s identity.”

Yet the other side continued to command his attention: “It is right to be loyal to the firm and to take on important assignments. Is it wrong” he wondered,” to be overly concerned with one’s personal issues and concerns.”

Right vs. Right: Self Respect vs. Loyalty

Lewis’s dilemma was that both sides of this issue were right. He could make a case for saying yes, and one for saying no. He could focus upon his personal sense of identity and worth – “I am a black man and I refuse to be treated as a token person or as an object.”- Or he could focus upon the organizational reality – “In order to get the business, we need to have a black professional on the team .”

“I didn’t make up this rule ,” thought Lewis, “it’s the way things are done at this time in our business. If I don’t go then Andy will. And where will that leave me? If I can’t live with this, then maybe I am in the wrong business.” Yet Lewis was also keenly aware that that if he chose to join the team and serve as the token black, he would be disappointing himself, his parents, and the larger black community.

Lewis Finds A Third Way

Lewis faced a serious dilemma. As Joseph Badaracco put it in Defining Moments: When Managers Must Choose Between Right and Right , “He needed to find a plan of action that would preserve the values he cared about without making himself a noble, unnoticed young martyr.”

After an hour of wrestling with choices and consequence, an idea came to him. Thirty minutes later, he reached for the phone and called the leader of the presentation team. “Jack,” he said, “I have been thinking about your invitation to join the St. Louis team and I would like to go. But there is something I would like to run past you before I make a final decision.”

Later in the afternoon, Lewis called Webster. “Andy,” he said, “I have been thinking all day about the invitation to go to St. Lewis. It’s no secret that I have felt uncomfortable in being asked to go just because I am black. But I also want to be supportive and help out. So I called Jack and told him that I would be willing to go if I could make part of the presentation to the client. Jack was doubtful at first, but he was willing to hear me out. We went over the presentation agenda and found a topic that both he and I felt that if I worked really hard over the next 24 hours, I would be ready to present. So I’ve signed on and feel good about it.”

Even though it was an enormous and stressful task getting ready, after it was over Lewis felt good about the way it went. No one on the client team had any questions for him (for which he was very grateful) and his colleagues seemed satisfied. On the flight back they thanked him for helping out, especially on short notice.

Steve Lewis had come face-to-face with what is often the most difficult of wicked problems. Both of his choices were “right,” yet if he chose one over the other there would be real costs, on one hand a personal one, and on the other, an organizational one. By working hard to find a Third Way, Lewis was able to find his way out of the dilemma with no cost and important benefits. “On balance,” Badaracco writes,

” Lewis was pleased and relieved about what he had done. He believed that he had defined the dilemma soundly, at least in terms of his experience and values. And on the whole, he resolved it without betraying his parents and himself by merely attending the meeting and serving a decorative function. At the same time his career prospects may have been strengthened. He felt he had passed a minor test, a rite of passage at his firm and demonstrated that he was willing to do what it took to get the job done.”

All of us, at one time or another, will come face-to-face with the wickedness of Right vs. Right problems. Spending the time and effort to look for a Third Way alternative, and when one is not clearly apparent, creating one as Steve Lewis did, is a valuable skill and a strategy worth pursuing. And when they are executed well, Third Way alternatives can bring huge benefits, both to us as individuals and to the organizations and institutions in which we work.

Working with Nested Problems

Joseph Bentley — Sat, 20 Jun 2015 02:45:40 +0000

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 formulae; answers in the backs of books; experts who know what to do and how to do it; our own memory banks.

On the other hand, unsolved problems are not dead but very much alive. They are challenging and often interesting as well. Some of them are troubling. Some eventually are solved, and so are killed. Others, however, do not get solved, and remain on our radar screens to be visited over and over. Eventually, some are determined to be mysteries. We understand that mysteries do not get solved, so we respond with contemplation and awe. Unsolved problems – the “Not-Mysteries” – tend to remain with us until we either choose to take them on or have no choice but to deal with them.

Tame or Wicked Problems

Problems that can be solved are tame: Fixing a computer; doing the shopping for the week; writing a short story; sending astronauts to the moon and bringing them home safely; making an omellete; getting elected to office. They have a beginning, a middle and an end. They can be defined, goals can be set and achieved and, once they are solved, they are put aside. Nevertheless, many tame problems reappear over and over (computers need to be fixed every now and then) but, since we know there are solutions, and we know what they are, we don’t lose much sleep over them. Facing up to them becomes routine.

Problems that have no single solution but still must be wrestled with are mostly wicked: Creating an effective work team; raising children; giving and receiving help; dealing with drug addiction; making a successful marriage; establishing quality in customer service; achieving excellence in education; reducing global warming; governing. While they seem to have a beginning, most have had a long and complicated history. The “beginning” of a wicked problem is when someone enters the picture. The first thing a wise person does when he or she begins to work on a wicked problem is to learn as much as possible about what people have done with it in the past.

What wicked problems especially do not have are endings. A person may give up and walk away, may choose another challenge, may ask for a transfer, may try to turn it into a tame problem (getting a divorce for example), but when a person is fully engaged with a wicked problem, what she or he cannot expect is that it will be over. What wicked problems consist of are only “beginnings” and “middles.”

Tame and Wicked Problems

In the world of problems that are alive then, there are solvable problems (tame) and unsolvable problems (wicked) and then there are problem that are both tame and wicked. These are what I call Nested Problems. They are problem situations that contain elements that can be solved, and elements that cannot be solved.

Here is the definition of Nested Problems that appeared in the previous essay: Nested Problems are to be found in problem situations which, while they have the appearance of being tame (and therefore seem to be solvable), are actually “bundled” problems consisting of tame problems nested within wicked ones.

Two points about nested problems: First, they often are perceived by problem solvers as tame problem and so are treated that way.

And second: It is only after the tame part of the problem has been “solved” and this solution is broadcast to others in one way or another that it becomes apparent by their reactions that the problem was not only a tame one but a wicked one as well.

An Example: Hong Kong’s Wild Boar Problem

The headline in the Wall Street Journal on June 9, 2015 describes Hong Kong’s problem: “In Hong Kong, Wild Boar Population has Locals Squealing.” The wild boar problem in Hong Kong seems to be straightforward: Hong Kong is being overrun with wild boars and the people want something done about them.

The Sai Kung Wild Pig Hunting Club has a solution: “Gun the pesky pigs down.” Chan Kang, 72-year old leader of the wild pig hunting club explains the logic of killing the pigs: “They are wild animals and not pets. They are fierce and not kind.” And now, said Kang, the boars are growing in number and “fear no man.” In years past, said Kang, when the hunters were allowed to shoot to kill, the city had no wild boar problem.

The times have changed. Today hunting of the boars is in decline. So far in 2015, only 3 boars have been killed, compared to “over a hundred a year” a decade ago.

Why no more killing the wild boars? The answer is the emergence of the Hong Kong Wild Boar Concern Group, which argues vigorously against killing the boars. “They are cute,” the members of the Concern Group argue, and tell Hong Kong residents to “enjoy the chance encounter” when they meet up with a boar, some of which can weigh up to 450 pounds. Members of the Wild Boar Concern Group view the boars as part of the natural world that, in an environment that has been heavily altered by humans, need to be preserved. Roni Wong, 31-year old co-founder of the Wild Boar Concern Society, hands out pamphlets that feature drawings of adorable, fuzzy boars, and urges residents to “keep calm,” when they meet a boar and “definitely do not call the police.”

Hong Kong’s wild boar dilemma is clearly a nested problem. What used to be a tame problem with a clear solution – shoot to kill – has become a nested one: People have organized successfully against the tame solution. Shooting boars as a solution is no longer the accepted thing to do.

Taking Action with Nested Problems

Step 1: Determine if the problem a nested one.

Although most important problems are nested, not all are. What is important before beginning to work on a problem is to determine if it is nested.

In Leadership on the Line, Ronald Heifetz and Marty Linsky use the term “bundled” to describe problems that have both tame and wicked elements. “Most problems,” they write, “come bundled with both technical and adaptive aspects” (their terms for tame and wicked). For them, the necessary first step in working with nested problems is to “distinguish between them in order to decide which to tackle first and with what strategy.”

Distinguishing the presence of tame and wicked elements in a problem situation can best be accomplished by identifying elements that correspond to the definitions of tame and wicked problems. The definition of tame problems includes the following:

Goals can be reached. The gaps between the present state and the future state can be identified and successfully closed.
Correct solutions and true answers can be found.
Problem solving processes can be used that are primarily convergent in nature. Problem solvers move forward by eliminating possible solutions until they converge upon the correct solution or answer.
There is a beginning (“Here is an interesting problem for us to take on”), a middle (“We think this will fix it”), and an end (“Problem solved”).
Several problem solvers working on the same problem in different places can be expected to arrive at the same answer.

The definition of wicked problem is quite different:

Goals exist, but they cannot be fully achieved. Moving toward the goal is possible – this is called progress – but what is achieved are “near misses.” Gaps can never be fully closed, only narrowed. We can get close to our goals, but never reach them.
Rather than finding true or correct solutions, what is possible are “solutions” that are Good Enough, Better Than the Others, or The Best We Can Do.
The problem solving process always begins with Divergent efforts: “Let chaos reign,” said Andy Grove, CEO of Intel. Finding and examining many possible alternative “solutions” gets us started. When there are on the table as many possible alternatives as can be imagined, then the group shifts to a process of convergence. “Reining in chaos” sets the new direction, resulting in the selection of the “best” alternative.
Rather than clear beginnings or final endings, what people face with wicked problems are “mostly middles.”
Five problem solvers working in separate room on the same wicked problem will end up with five different problem definitions, and five different plans for dealing with them.

Step 2: Solve the solvable problems.

Once it is clear that the problem being considered is “bundled” or nested, the next step is to examine the tame part of the problem, define it clearly, and decide if it can be solved without creating more problems. In my previous post I reported that the keepers at the Copenhagen zoo believed that the problem they had with Marius was a tame one and they assumed, falsely as it turned out, that it was one they could solve themselves. If they had paused long enough to ask the question, “If we go ahead with our plan to get rid of our ‘surplus’ giraffe by killing Marius, is it possible that other people might be upset?” By not rushing to their premature solution, they might have saved themselves a great deal of grief.

Over the past decades, psychologist John Gottman and his colleagues have worked with hundreds of couples who were struggling with marital problems. In the process they gradually came to a profound insight: All conflicts, they realized, “…fall into one of two categories: Either they can be resolved [tame], or they are perpetual [wicked], which means that they will be part of [the couples] lives forever.” Of the many problems presented to the psychologists, almost 30 percent were tame problems and so could be solved. The remaining 70 percent were “perpetual,” problems that could never be “solved” but only worked on again and again. “… [Perpetual] problems,” they wrote, “are inevitably part of a relationship, much the way that chronic physical ailments are inevitable as you get older. They are like a trick knee, a bad back, an irritable bowel, or tennis elbow.”

The most important problems that married couples struggled with were often nested problems consisting of “solvable” problems (tame) and perpetual problems (wicked) bundled together.

While important, this was not their only important finding. Gottman and his colleagues understood how difficult it is to tell people that some of their problems could not be solved, but could only be lived with. They worked to teach the couples how to deal with them. But the most serious obstacle they found was that the ones that could be solved – the solvable ones – seldom were! What was possible, and what could have been helpful in improving the relationship, was often ignored!

The psychologists were clear in their recommendations: The best strategy for working with nested problems in marriage as well as in other relationships, in teams, organizations and societies was to solve the solvable ones first!

Some possibilities:

– A short tempered boss who has a long history of blowing up over insignificant issues may not be able to gain complete control of his emotions, but he can start and end staff meetings on time.

– A husband may not be able to eradicate his feelings of frustration over the way his wife disciplines the children, but he can take a turn preparing dinner and then, afterward, do the dishes and clean up the kitchen.

– A supervisor at work may be uncomfortable with conflict and seek to avoid it at all cost, but she can learn to listen carefully and non-judgmentally to the concerns of others.

– A father may not be comfortable with his son’s choice of music and clothes, but he can show up at his soccer games.

– A VP for Finance in a large corporation may have difficulties not feeling resentful toward his new boss who is not only a woman, but in his opinion unqualified to be CEO, but he can make sure that his work is completed on time and with no mistakes.

-A new mother may be frightened by her feelings of resentment toward her new baby, but she can make sure the baby is fed when she is hungry, and bathed every day.

-A man suffering from Type I diabetes may not be able to cure his disease, but he can leave his house each morning at 6:00 am for a two-mile walk.

In summary, an important and necessary step for moving forward with nested problems is to define the tame problem, determine whether it can be solved without an excessive amount of collateral damage, and then solve it!

Step 3: Work with the Wicked

Once the solvable problem has been solved, and no disasters have been noticed, it is time to turn to the wicked part of the nested problem.

As I have said, while wicked problems cannot be solved, they can be managed. “We may not love these problems,” writes Gottman, but we can learn to “cope with them, avoid situations that worsen them, and to develop strategies and routines that help us deal with them.”

Here are some strategiesfor coping with wicked problems:

Strategy #1: Wicked Problem Talk:

Among the most important strategies for working with wicked problem is becoming a master of Wicked Problem Talk

While much of the work with tame problems is analytic in nature, (including observation, collecting data and organizing it in order to communicate it to others), wicked problems are first attacked with conversations, first with oneself, and then with others: “Can I figure out why this problems seems to be so important for me?” “How do I see the problem?” “How do others see the problem?” “Why is it important?” “Who is affected by it?” “What has been done with this before?” “By whom?” Central to the process is to be able to speak clearly and concisely, ask good questions, listen actively, express one’s opinions and preferences, seek a balance between advocacy and inquiry, agree, disagree, persuade, convince, and also be open to being persuaded and convinced by othrers. In short, wicked problem talk is Straight Talk consisting of the following

Meta Talk: Talk about how you are working on the problem;
Search Talk: Seek helpful and valid information;
Influence Talk: Seek to influence others toward one’s preference and point ofview; be willing to be influenced by others toward their point of view;
Self Talk: Saying what you see, hear, want, prefer, intend, and feel. An important part of Self Talk is an I-Message: Describing what you see, hear, prefer; sharing your cognitive and emotional responses to what has happened or is happening; listing carefully to the others’ perspective; and then jointly seeking a new direction.

Strategy #2: Find a Third Way:

In his foreword to Adam Kahene’s Solving Tough Problems, Peter Senge observes that Kahene’s great strength in working with tough problems was that between “a growing sense of powerlessness and an increasing reliance upon force” he was able to find a ‘third way:’ a transformation in our ability to talk, think, and act together. I am convinced,” adds Senge, “this is the only reliable path forward, not only for hierarchical leaders but for all of us – as parents, citizens, and people at all levels in organizations – seeking to contribute to meaningful change.” Finding a Third Way out of the dilemma of being trapped between opposite extremes is among the most important ways of working with wicked problems.

Problem situations are often defined as either Right vs Wrong, or Right vs. Right. For Right vs. Wrong problems there is a right solution amidst many wrong ones, a correct answer among many incorrect ones. Solving Right vs. Wrong problems is a relatively easy call (though often not practiced): Choose the right one. Right vs. Wrong problems are equivalent to tame problems.

Right vs. Right problems are almost always wicked problems and are much more complicated. Here is an example: A number of years ago, I sat in an executive staff meeting of a Fortune 500 company while the CEO brought everyone up to date on a decision they had taken several months earlier to close a major manufacturing facility in Dallas that resulted in the loss of over 2500 jobs. He emphasized once again that information could not be shared with others since all of the financial and personnel issues had not been resolved.

Later in the week, the CEO led a Town Meeting session with key managers designed to deal openly with questions and concerns. As the meeting drew to a close, a man stood in the back and asked, “There are rumors that the Dallas facility is going to be closed. Is it true? I am about to close on a house in Dallas and I need to know?”

This is an example of Right vs. Right problem: It is right to tell the truth, especially when asked a specific question, and it is right to hold back confidential information until it can be legally shared.

Here are some examples from How Good People Make Tough Decisions by Rushford Kidder:

“It is right to provide our children with the finest public schools possible – and right to prevent the constant upward ratcheting of state and local taxes;

“It is right to honor a woman’s right to make decisions affecting her body – and right to protect the lives of the unborn;”

“It is right to condemn the minister who has an affair with a parishioner – and right to extend mercy to him for the only real mistake he has ever made in his job;”

“It is right to ‘throw the book’ at good employees who made dumb decisions that endanger the firm – and right to have enough compassion to mitigate the punishment and give him or her another chance.”

Right vs. Right problems are among the most difficult of wicked problems.

Rather than choose one or the other side of the issue, the best way forward with Right Vs. Right problems, is to find a new way: a Third Way. For example, among the most contentious debates in our national conversation is a Right vs. Right issue: Should we move in our politics toward Freedom and away from Equality? Or increase Equality at the expense of Freedom? If natural forces are left free, then the strong and powerful will prosper and the weak will suffer. “Freedom for the wolf means death to the lambs,” was the way Abraham Lincoln put it. Or, in the interest of equality for all, should we curtail the freedoms of the powerful and give support to the weak?

In A Guide for the Perplexed, E. F. Schumacher uses the slogan of the French Revolution to illustrate what is meant by finding A Third Way. To the opposites of Liberte (freedom) and Egalite (equality) the revolutionaries added a higher-order value, Fraternite (brotherhood). When we see ourselves as brothers and sisters, we can find a third path between the two contradictory goals of freedom and equality.

A real-time example of finding a Third Way is a recent development with the problem of the wild horses and burros roaming the western lands of our country. In the last essay, I described how the ranchers wanted the wild horses removed from the range even if it meant killing them, while those who believed that wild horses were necessary in order for the West to be the West meant letting them roam free. It was right for the land to be used for the grazing of cattle, and it was right for wild horses to roam free.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM), with responsibility for preserving the land and protecting the wild horses, was caught in the middle with no answer that satisfied both sides. Recently, however, a Third Way strategy seems to be emerging. First, the BLM will round up enough horses and offer them for adoption to reduce them to a number that will not damage the land, leaving some wild horses to roam freely. And second, those horses that continue to roam wild and free on the range will be vaccinated with a birth control drug. Will this be successful? No one seems to know. At least the impasse seems to be broken. The BLM is putting in place a Third Way alternative that seeks a way forward.

Strategy #3: Become a Scrum Master

Borrowed from the sport of rugby, a Wicked Problem Scrum is an organized and productive clash of opinions, preferences, ideas, beliefs, and convictions among a diverse group of individuals who are knowledgeable and interested about an issue or situation and are committed to seeing changes made. A Scrum is the most effective way of extracting problems from “messes.” With the help of a “scrum master,” small groups and teams move first to increase the confusion and controversy inherent in the”mess” by suggesting all the possibilities they can think of. Next they move to reduce the confusion by extracting from the mess an actionable problem. Then they make every effort to find the “best” solution or action plan they can come up with.

The requirements for an effective scrum are:

Diversity: Get the “right people on the bus” and the wrong people off – no simple or easy task in itself. The “right people” are those who are knowledgeable about the situation, who care about it enough to work with it, and who are willing and able to make a difference.

Divergent thinking followed by convergent thinking: A scrum begins by “letting a thousand flowers bloom,” and then pruning them back until the participants come up with their very best effort. Divergent and convergent thinking requires open and honest communication, creativity, constructive conflict, confrontation, collaboration, and ends with a consensual agreement for the best way to move forward. Managing these processes effectively requires great skill, patience, and flexibility.

A skilled and effective Scrum Master: The presence of a team leader who is skillful in beginning the process, keeping it on track, and bringing it to a successful end is essential. He or she is able to:

Create an environment where team members can take risks by expressing themselves openly;
Create and maintain helpful structures and supportive norms;
Encourage wide and full participation;
Value conflict and disagreements;
Support, even protect, people when things get tense;
Avoid losing focus or falling off the path;
Produce results – bring the team in on time and under budget!

Strategy #4: Create an Early Warning System

Working on both the tame and wicked parts of a nested problem is in fact a system problem: other parts of the larger problem situation will inevitably be affected and new problems are likely to emerge, often without any awareness by those who are working on the problem.

What is needed is an Early Warning System (EWS), a way of detecting new and unexpected problems that are taking shape before they gain traction or momentum. While working on a culture change project with a Fortune 500 company a number of years ago, I put in place a system of “informants,” – employees and managers from all parts of the country and at all levels in the organization. Each Monday morning I would call them for their report on what was happening in their part of the organization in response to the change initiatives. I would organize this information into a brief summary and then in the afternoon share it with the CEO and the VP for Organization Change. This EWS detected a number of surprise developments that allowed us to take action before things got out of hand.

John Gottman and Nan Silver, working with couples who were struggling with the marriage relationship, discovered the value of an EWS in providing information about problems that, while partially hidden, were putting the relationship at risk. “…every marriage,” they wrote, “ought to be equipped with a built-in early warning system that lets you know when your [marriage] is in danger of deteriorating. We call this system the Marital Poop Detector because it is a way of saying that something doesn’t smell right!” An effective Marital Poop Detector can help locate incipient problems while they are still minor, “before they build up steam and become combustible.”

A Bold Stroke and the Long March.

One part of any nested problem is most often a “rattler,” a tame problem that can be killed with one shot. Shooting a rattler is an example of what Rosabeth Kanter calls a Bold Stroke: A dramatic action that solves the problem. At a GE Workout session a young woman shared her problem: “I publish a plant newspaper each month and before I can publish it, GE policy requires that I get seven signatures. Can you explain why?” Her boss was dumbfounded. After a minute or two he drew his revolver out of his holster and shot the rattler: “That’s crazy, he said. “OK, from now on, no more signatures.”

In nested problems, however, there are also “pythons”- wicked problems – lurking within that cannot be dispatched with one shot. Pythons can only be managed with a Long March. A long march is what its name implies: a long-term slog through the swamp requiring effort, dedication, persistence, and patience. The marchers are not looking for a solution since there isn’t one, but for a new and temporary arrangement that will make things better, at least for a while.

Success with nested problems requires bold strokes and long marches!

Nested Problems? Solving and Grappling Required

“Good scientists, says Nobel Prize winner P. B. Medawar, “study the most important problems they think they can solve. It is, after all, their professional business to solve problems, not merely to grapple with them.” And yet, when scientists, engineers, and physicians, as well as others, decide to apply the solutions they have discovered in their research to real world problems – infectious diseases, education, public health, obesity, suicide, abuse of women and children, global warming, AIDS – they are often amazed to learn that what is now required is something more: They must become grapplers! They must learn to move beyond the relative simplicity of solving the problem and get into the middle of grappling with the new challenges of preaching, teaching, persuading, and convincing others, something they were never taught to do in their professional training.

Working with nested problems?

Guidelines to reflect upon:

1. Determine if what you have is in fact a nested problem.

2. If the answer is yes, then define carefully the tame part of the problem situation to determine what could happen if you move forward.

3. Solve the solvable problem.

4. Address the wicked problem part of the sitution by

Using wicked problem language;
Finding a Third Way;
Convening and leading a Scrum and using it to extract a “wicked problem” from the mess;
Working through the newly formulated problem to determine the “best” possible plan of action to be implemented.

5. Put in place an Early Warning System (EWS), an equivalent to Gottman’s “Poop Detector.”

6. Keep in mind that both Bold Strokes and Long Marches are required.

The High, Hard Ground and the Swamp

Joseph Bentley — Tue, 02 Dec 2014 17:24:42 +0000

December 1

In the Land of Opportunity, Achievement and Despair where professional people spend their working days, there is a high, hard ground and a swamp. On the high, hard ground there is firm footing, good light, and useful, effective tools with which to work. Conditions in the swamp are dramatically different: There is no firm place to stand and people feel they are in over their heads; the light is bad – dark, gloomy and uncertain; and the tools that most people bring with them are either inappropriate or obsolete for the work that must be done.

High Ground

On the high ground there is a sense of order and predictability. The rules are mostly explicit and clear, and the roles people play in working on their problems are defined by education, training, and seniority.

Swamp

In the swamp things are in a perpetual mess. As the poet John Keats put it, “There is nothing stable…; uproar’s your only music.” The rules of engagement are murky and shifting, and the sources of legitimacy for the roles that are available are confusing.

High Ground

People who work on the high ground usually work in comfortable settings. They are well educated, well paid, and well respected. Interactions between them tend to be characterized by an atmosphere of civility and mutual respect, at least on the surface. To use T. S. Eliot’s illuminating image, people come and go “talking of Michelangelo.”

Swamp

People in the swamp may be well educated, but they are rarely well paid or well respected. The work is messy, frustrating, and often painful. Civility and respect are liable to be in short supply. People frequently divide into factions and define each other as “”the enemy.” They are constantly preoccupied by such questions as “How are we going to survive?” “How can we get those bastards?” and “When will we get a break?”

High Ground

The people who spend their working lives on the high ground bring specialized and expert knowledge to their work. They are mostly scientists, engineers, technologists, researchers, and skilled and experienced technicians. The work they do is usually theory-based, and often leads to hypotheses about causes and relationships. These hypotheses are then tested by gathering data using quantitative methods, expressed in numbers, and organized into tables and charts. Many of their “recommended solutions” to the problems they struggle with emerge from their efforts as reports, studies or academic papers containing suggestions and recommendations as to what needs to be done.

Swamp

Down in the swamp there are no “experts” who can tell others what to do. Everyone is struggling to figure out what is happening and what should be done. Those who can make the best case – and at times this means those who make the most outlandish promises or who shout the loudest – gain influence, while those who hold back tend to be ignored. Rather than formulating hypotheses to be tested, resulting in the generation of substantive information, swamp people rely upon hunches, intuition, beliefs and faith in order to make their case. When data do appear in the swamp, it is often ignored or distorted.

High Ground

The problems that are addressed on the high ground are problems that can be solved. As Nobel Prize winner P. B. Medawar observes, “Good scientists study the most important problems they think they can solve. It is, after all, their professional business to solve problems, not merely to grapple with them.”

Swamp

Down in the swamp, the people’s business is grappling with problems, not solving them (since that’s often impossible). People working in the swamp do not get to choose which problems they want to work on, but must take on the problems that are assigned or that they encounter on their own.

High Ground

While the “high ground” problems are often new, and sometimes even mysterious, the methods for working on them are generally well known. People know where and how to begin; they are confident that the methods they have been trained to use will yield positive results. When positive results do not appear, they move on to more promising prospects.

Swamp

In the swamp, all problems are new and mysterious. While there are some important principles which can provide guidance (“Don’t look for a solution until you a have a deep understanding of the problem.” “One person alone cannot hope to understand what is really happening.”), what is called for is improvisation, experimentation, and provisional tryouts. “Do something,” said the American artist Jasper Johns, “then do something to that, then something to that, and eventually you’ll have something.”

High Ground

While the people on the high ground are good at writing recommendations and making reports, most never actually attempt to put into practice their own recommendations. They leave this to others.

Swamp

Those who work down in the swamp are responsible for not only deciding what to do, but also for doing it! If anything is to be accomplished, they are the ones who must do it.

High Ground

When the people who work on the high ground experience failure, they are not punished. Failed experiments are seen as necessary steps toward success. When an important problem is “finally solved,” then honor, glory and financial payoffs follow.

Swamp

When it comes to the rewards of working in the swamp, things are grimmer. No rewards are given for failed attempts, and since the problems that people must grapple with never get solved, recognition, honor and glory are rare. As a result, those who expect that “solutions” to fix important problems will emerge from the swamp are perennially disappointed. People who spend their working lives in the swamp must be content with the personal satisfaction of having done Good Work.

Where Shall We Work?

After discussing the different challenges to be found on the high, hard ground and in the swamp in The Reflective Practitioner, Donald A. Schon asks the critical questions: Shall we stay on the high, hard ground where “the problems…however great their technical interest, are often relatively unimportant…to the larger society, while in the swamp are the problems of greatest human concern? Or shall [we] descend to the swamp where [we] can engage the most important and challenging problems?”

His questions cuts to the core: Where will we choose to work, and what kind of problems will we tackle?

Been There, Done That!

Schon’s questions, while important, are rhetorical:

First, because no matter one’s professional or vocational choice, eventually we all find ourselves in one swamp or another. Those who spend most of their working days on “high ground” must eventually leave the lab or the office and go to a meeting where people are engaged in activities of a very different nature: They are talking, and often arguing, about prospects, policies and practices, and they are engaged in the very tough work of making difficult decisions about which directions to take. Because the issues are complicated and because the behaviors of the people discussing the issues are often erratic, emotional, irrational, and self-serving, these meetings are swamp-like. While they may be referencing data and recommendations from “high ground” reports and research studies, the data and recommendations themselves neither make decisions nor resolve problems. In fact, the data and recommendations are often distorted or ignored. Making decisions is the work of human beings, each of whom brings to the table their prejudices, preferences, beliefs, values, and biases.

A second reason Schon’s question is rhetorical – “…shall [we] descend to the swamp where [we] can engage the most important and challenging problems?” – is because we are already there! We regularly “descend” down to one kind of a swamp or another: We struggle with complicated personal decisions and choices; we despair over family relationships that never seem to get solved; we find ourselves in serious conflict with bosses and colleagues at work; we struggle to hold together some of our important relationships; we face issues that are not “Right vs. Wrong,” but “Right vs. Right,” where both sides of an issue have legitimate claims. We are well acquainted with swamps!

From High Ground to Swamp and Back

Situations turn into swamps when we find ourselves confronting important and complicated situations and issues that are rapidly changing; that are confusing and complex; that often consist of a “damned if you do and damned if you don’t” dilemma; that involve other people who not only hold strong opinions and preferences that are quite different from our own, but seem unwilling to discuss them, let alone work together to make things better; where many of these people lack the knowledge, experience, or skills that could be helpful; and no matter what we do with these problems, they refuse to get resolved once and for all.

We have all spent time in swamps, and we will find ourselves continuing to muck around in them in the future. Three questions are important: “How can we survive in the swamp?” “How can we make sense of what is happening there?” and “How can we get out?” In the coming weeks I will address each of these questions. Stay tuned!

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.