Progress Doesn’t Always Follow a Straight Line

In an interesting blog post for Strategy+Business, Adam Kahane shares his perspective about solving tough problems. Tough problems or wicked problems are difficult to solve precisely because there is no one right answer and there are multiple root causes and motivations at play. It is wicked for the precise reason that there are seemingly contradicting interests at play, which makes it difficult to solve these problems permanently. 

In the post, Adam talks about the fact that trying to solve a complex or a wicked problem as if it were a simple problem will always lead to making the problem even more difficult to solve. 

Oftentimes, leaders want a straight-line solution. They make single-minded declarations of “the one most important consideration” and “the one right course of action.” But even if these stances sound visionary and heroic, they are simplistic and polarising and make the challenge even harder to resolve. What statements like these overlook is that there are many different interests and judgments at play. 

– Adam Kahane

The better way to go about solving this problem is by exploring and doing it slowly and deliberately. This is like untangling a messy, tangled threads or cords. You need to be slow, deliberate and look deeper than just cursary look. If we dont do it right, we end up making it more messy that it was at the start. 

But it is possible to find a way forward in such situations. It requires that at least some of the players work earnestly to recognize the multiple interests at play. This is simple but not easy. You need to engage others with curiosity about their reality, frankness about your own, and a genuine willingness to change what you are thinking and doing. Fundamentally, it demands that you abandon the fantasy that you can get others to see things the way you do and do things the way you want — that you can, somehow, find a way to control or manipulate the situation.

– Adam Kahane

As he says – 

Complicated compromises are a new normal. 

– Adam Kahane

The solution to this according to Adam: 

Success in building pipelines, and in other complex undertakings, therefore, requires a different approach: less resolute assertion and more flexible and patient listening, learning, accommodating, and adjusting.

– Adam Kahane

Of late, I have been seeing this come up again and again in different spheres of life, both personal and professional. The concrete and fully formed solution to a problem never seems the way to go about. The answer more or less seems to be – 

It Depends

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So much so that I have started work on a book with the very same name as the working title – “It Depends”. 

You can read the entire post by Adam Kahane here. He is the author of  the book – Collaborating with the Enemy: How to Work with People You Don’t Agree with or Like or Trust.