OUR BRAINS NEVER RUN OUT OF PROBLEMS TO FIND

How to solve business problems in 2021 when the goalposts keep shifting.

The research that stayed with me over the holidays and explains why businesses get caught in problems is David Levari’s at Harvard. He tells us why problems are difficult to solve. The surprising reason is that we see problems in new places as we continue to solve them. We simply keep looking for further manifestations of the problem.

We might not like to think of ourselves this way but we have all experienced this when a team comes together to solve a business problem and an hour later know a lot more about the problem discovering more if’s and but’s along the way, creating more blockers to be removed, and leaving us frustrated.

This happens because our brains process information by making judgements that are relative to the current context, rather than using definite information. As we start solving some of the issues, the context of the problem shifts, which keeps fuelling issues that we think are relevant to solving the problem.

Levari asks “How can you know if you’re making progress solving a problem, when you keep redefining what it means to solve it?” How much more likely is this to happen for business 2021, when problems will be even harder to solve in continuing uncertainty.

The point is, he explains, that our brains process information relative to context in all areas. So if you ask people to say whether coloured dots on a screen are blue or purple, as blue dots become rare, people started calling slightly purple dots blue. They even do this when they know the blue dots are going to become rare, and are offered cash prizes to stay consistent in choosing blue and purple. He found similar relative judgments in the area of ethics.

In business relative standards can be harmful when we have to make complicated judgements on financial investment, or workplace bullying. Maybe our inability to recognise the impact of our drifting context in our business helps explain why businesses often only recognise that they are failing in certain areas very late in the piece. A bit like the fable of the frog who instantly knows to jump out when placed in boiling water, but boils to death if placed in cold water that is slowly heated.

So how do we up the chances of making good business decisions?

In some areas of business it’s easy. In engineering for example, it can be clear when some of our problems have been solved. If an assembly line stops and we discover that widget A is faulty, replacing widget A will solve the problem. In this case cause and solution are easy to see.

Where we get stuck is applying this problem solving method to areas where cause and solution are not as clear as an on assembly line. We make the mistake of assuming we can find the cause of problems in businesses when “causes” are multi-faceted, multi-layered, affected by change, affected by chance and the personal histories and experiences of those solving the problem.

For organisational problems “causes” aren’t necessarily causes at all. They have few of the objective qualities of an assembly line. But in the absence of an alternative way of thinking about problem solving, we can kid ourselves that our analyses of the problem are not growing the problem. But now Levari is showing us otherwise.

There is another assumption that we have also been stuck with which is that if you do find “cause” it will tell you what to do about the problem. Yet as business prediction is so difficult, this also cannot be true. Business are not simple assembly lines, which is why problem solving in traditional ways keeps us stuck. There are no direct lines between the problem, its cause and the solution for business problems which makes us more subject to the effect Levari is describing.

There is an alternative to this problem-solving conundrum of how you know when a problem is solved. This is to stop focusing your discussions around the problem in order to solve it.

Alternative problem-solving methodologies, that are highly effective and work by not wasting time on the problem at all, focus only on the way forward. We have lots of knowhow about how to discuss problems. Having some knowhow about how to have conversations that realise more of what you want to happen, removes you from redefining how the problem is solved, to moving straight to what works. It is a skill that can be taught and learnt.

Imagine if your problems had simply dissolved, what would you notice yourself doing in your business and how would you notice yourself moving forward?

Profile: I am an expert in change with ease. My work is based on the simple reality that change happens all the time and is not new to organisations or their employees. I work with individuals, teams and organisations to harness their own capacity for change rather than impose change upon them. Releasing their skills and knowledge of what works when they are stuck or when they just want to progress quickly allows change to happen without major disruption or resistance. My coaching has been cited by Harvard University’s Institute of Coaching. I am co-editor of the journal InterAction, devoted to adaptable and flexible approaches to individual, team and organisational change in complex environments. (sfio.org)

https://theconversation.com/why-your-brain-never-runs-out-of-problems-to-find-98990