How do you identify the problem in any situation?
At a recent meeting with a client leadership team around organisational change, one of them took time to cut like a laser in identifying and articulating a key problem sitting within the organisational behaviour.
However, they then apologised for taking time in talking about the problem without then giving a solution.
I challenged this directly.
Yes, we’ve all heard the management adage of “Bring me solutions, not problems”. This can make sense when the problem is related to processes or systems, but it often makes far less sense when we are talking about people, behaviour, and particularly deeply ingrained cultural norms, as, after all: “Business is simple, people are complex”.
My challenge began by giving thanks for how brilliantly and accurately they had seen the problem and then given us stories and anchors to feel it and truly understand it. When we are dealing with complex problems, it is vital to take time to get clear about the problem before we then move on to solving it.
I then talked to this amazing team and noted that I am certain, from my experience with such work, that we can “solve for that problem” and take the complex down to the merely complicated. It will be simple, though it won’t be easy.
From my experience, the model I use to do this is a holistic one, simply represented by the image above. It is also one of the few core articles I share at the base of every page on my site; “Cascading Leadership“. As my dear friend and mentor Suki Laniado Smith would say, “PCAV” (Principles are Consistent, Applications Vary), and with people and change this is always true, but this model does give a framework to anchor to.