Share

BOOK REVIEW: Nipping problems in the bud

Know What You Don't Know: How Great Leaders Prevent Problems Before They Happen, by Michael A Roberto

THE psychiatrist Theodore Rubin pointed out that “the problem is not that there are problems. The problem is expecting otherwise and thinking that having problems is a problem”.

The background to this book is a conclusion the author came to: organisations may devote a great deal of effort and time to improving their staff’s problem-solving capabilities, but they spend barely any time improving staff’s ability to discover problems.

Mistakes tend to compound over time, with one error triggering another. “Many large-scale failures have long incubation periods,” Roberto explains. This is an advantage because it gives managers time to intervene and solve problems when they are small, and so avoid the large-scale ones.

Through his research, Roberto has identified seven capabilities leaders should hone to become effective problem-finders.

Seven skills leaders need

The first is to accept that your staff limit the information you receive, often with good intentions. There are many reasons for this, from the structural to the personal.

For example, many managers believe that they are supposed to solve problems quietly and efficiently without involving others. This is very misguided.

Toyota’s attitude to problems is that they are rarely isolated - they are almost always part of the bigger picture, providing a window on the system as a whole.

An American executive described his successful work at his first presentation to the Toyota senior management. The Toyota executive stopped him and said: “Jim-san. We all know you are a good manager. Otherwise, we would not have hired you. But please talk to us about your problems so we can work on them together.”

Organisational complexity, the curse of any organisation of size, makes spotting problems particularly difficult. Perhaps the best-known catastrophic consequence of organisational complexity is the 9/11 terrorist attack.

The US had a labyrinth of agencies responsible for combating terrorism against the country. As the Congressional Report disclosed, all the warning signs were there and adequate intelligence had been obtained, but the right information never made it into the right hands at the right time.

To identify problems, leaders need to behave like anthropologists who learn through observation of people in natural settings. This goes beyond simply listening to what people say; it is watching what they do.

David Neeleman, the founder of highly ranked US low-cost airline JetBlue, was diligent in not being too distant from the basic processes that ensure customers enjoy their flights.

Neeleman would introduce himself to passengers over the intercom and then join his flight attendants in serving drinks and snacks to passengers. He called this his “snack and schmooze” drill. He also interacted with pilots and flight attendants, to keep close to issues in their context.

While many executives interact with their current customers, employees and suppliers, not many speak to their non-customers, non-employees, and non-suppliers - groups that are not currently engaged with their company in some way.

Crucial to connect the dots

The ability to “connect the dots” among seemingly disparate pieces of information is a critical skill for problem-finders. Problems often appear as isolated and disparate issues, trivial in themselves, but collectively highly problematic. 

It is a chain of events and errors that typically leads to a specific disaster, rather than a single isolated event. Accident investigations of commercial aviation, the military and medicine confirm this.

The earliest warning signs do not come from large data sets, but rather from an individual’s intuition. It is intuition that is able to distinguish between the signals and noise long before the data is available. In Ricardo’s research among highly experienced nurses, for example, they identified trouble before the patient’s vital signs became abnormal. The inexperienced nurses often did not notice a problem until the quantitative measures were indicative.

While experience is clearly a factor among superb problem-finders, there are many ways in which people can develop their intuition before they have accumulated decades of experience. This book is full of techniques for this type of development.

Effective problem-finders need to encourage people to take risks and learn from their mistakes. Even false alarms can be remarkably good learning opportunities. It does require, of course, that staff do not sit on problems.

As General Colin Powell remarked: “Bad news isn’t wine. It doesn’t improve with age.” And, of course, good corporate communication skills are needed so both staff and management speak up more effectively and respond appropriately when someone raises a concern, identifies a problem, or challenges conventional wisdom.

There are three mindsets that are most helpful to leaders in finding problems.

The first of these is intellectual curiosity. Problem-finders need a restless dissatisfaction with their level of understanding of any topic, no matter how experienced they are.

The second mindset is embracing systemic thinking. This starts with the presumption that minor problems are rarely a function of an individual’s negligence or misconduct. Rather, they should be seen as indicators of a broader systemic issue in the company.

Retired brigadier general Duane Deal, who has been part of numerous teams investigating catastrophic failures, asserts that most complex failures do not have a single cause. As such, we must resist the temptation to stop when we have spotted the most visible problem, but rather probe more deeply into what is behind it.

The third mindset is a “healthy paranoia”. Effective problem-finders know that every organisation, no matter how successful, has plenty of problems hidden from view that could do it great harm. With a healthy paranoia, leaders do not wait for problems to come to them - their paranoia drives them to find problems.

Detecting smoke, rather than simply trying to fight raging fires, must be part of any competent leader’s repertoire. Problems are not the enemy - hidden problems are.

Readability:     Light -+--- Serious
Insights:        High +---- Low
Practical:        High -+--- Low

* Ian Mann of Gateways consults internationally on leadership and strategy and is the author of Strategy that Works. Views expressed are his own.

We live in a world where facts and fiction get blurred
Who we choose to trust can have a profound impact on our lives. Join thousands of devoted South Africans who look to News24 to bring them news they can trust every day. As we celebrate 25 years, become a News24 subscriber as we strive to keep you informed, inspired and empowered.
Join News24 today
heading
description
username
Show Comments ()
Rand - Dollar
18.94
-0.2%
Rand - Pound
23.91
-0.1%
Rand - Euro
20.43
+0.2%
Rand - Aus dollar
12.34
+0.1%
Rand - Yen
0.13
-0.2%
Platinum
910.50
+1.5%
Palladium
1,011.50
+1.0%
Gold
2,221.35
+1.2%
Silver
24.87
+0.9%
Brent-ruolie
86.09
-0.2%
Top 40
68,346
+1.0%
All Share
74,536
+0.8%
Resource 10
57,251
+2.8%
Industrial 25
103,936
+0.6%
Financial 15
16,502
-0.1%
All JSE data delayed by at least 15 minutes Iress logo
Company Snapshot
Editorial feedback and complaints

Contact the public editor with feedback for our journalists, complaints, queries or suggestions about articles on News24.

LEARN MORE
Government tenders

Find public sector tender opportunities in South Africa here.

Government tenders
This portal provides access to information on all tenders made by all public sector organisations in all spheres of government.
Browse tenders