From 'Solution Bias' to better leadership

In the mid-naughties, it was fashionable to say that meetings of every type and stripe were a waste of time. But the concept of meetings endured, and most of us can attest that they are alive and well in most workplaces - and especially in churches.

Now, I’m quite fond of meetings, mainly because I’m good at them. I enjoy the cut and thrust of identifying an issue, and vaulting with the collective group to the new solution which we celebrate with a quiet self-satisfaction of cracking world peace in the time it takes for a cup of coffee to get cold.

But what if I’ve been actually doing it wrong all these years?

'Solution Bias'

Shane Parrish, former CIA operative, in his book Clear Thinking, makes the case that we pour our time out on problems that aren’t the central issue, and so it’s no surprise that we don’t make the progress or grow the margin we think we will.

The reason for this chronic misdiagnosis, according to Parrish, is the social phenomenon known as "Solution Bias". This is where, in a meeting designed to find a solution to a particular situation, the first credible definition or diagnosis of the problem is likely to become the accepted reality of the group.

The reason that Parrish gives for this hasty short-cut is because we find sitting with problems uncomfortable, and we’d much prefer to be optimistically discussing potential solutions. The pattern is understandable but its consequences can be devastating. Time, energy and resources spent in the wrong direction, in the context of an easily disillusioned environment that many of us operate in, can make it difficult to retrace steps, do a U-turn or admit error. Worse still, it can leave us feeling unable to say, “We don’t know what to do!"

As a result, future efforts to bring about change can shrivel in the face of that familiar church mantra: "We tried that once and it didn’t work", or, "What’s the point? Nothing ever changes."

What do we do?

What then might be the solution to this inbuilt bias for reductionist problem diagnosis?

Parrish offers a simple but fiendishly difficult-to-employ guardrail: never hold a meeting that combines problem definition and solution finding.

Rather, he suggests, have two meetings: one to thoroughly explore the issue from multiple angles until the group is clear and agreed on the specific problem at hand, and another to explore the potential solutions.

There is a particularly contemporary logic to this intentional slowing of the decision-making process - in that leaders operate in an ever more complex and integrated environment. Keith Grint, Professor of Public Leadership and Management at Warwick Business School, describes how in the past, leaders used to predominantly face "tame problems" - that is, issues that could largely be fixed by throwing additional staff, time, or money at the situation. For example, the church roof needs fixing; money and an appropriately skilled roofer will suffice.

Yet, now in the complex, global society we live in, we face an increase in "Wicked Problems"; these are issues that cannot be fixed with more staff, time or money, but instead require a careful selection of a number of simultaneous decisions and actions influencing a number of variables, in order to improve a situation. Examples of problems in this category include: local homelessness or developing more leaders from the congregation to train for ministry.

The complexity of this contemporary environment lends itself to a slower and more considered problem-solving methodology, that shifts emphasis onto problem definition in the belief that, should the diagnosis be discerned with clarity, the solution part of the equation will follow with greater impact.

There’s a fascinating moment in 1 Kings 12, where the new King Rehoboam receives two different suggested solutions to the economic challenges of the kingdom. The older advisers identify that the central problem is securing the loyalty of the populace and so advise a measure that would increase the people’s trust and commitment to the king; the younger advisers identify the key problem as the disobedient laziness of the workforce, and so their solution is to multiply the taxation. Rehoboam’s failure to correctly discern the real problem ultimately leads to devastating consequences.

My personal leadership development goal this year is to resist conflating problem definition and solution finding into a single meeting.

Despite my good intentions, my old habits to reach for the quick-fix are hard to shake.

I was recently prompted to consider how we might re-vamp our membership structure so that we would see greater participation at membership meetings, more people stepping up in volunteer positions, and a deeper sense of ownership of the church’s finances. I enthusiastically created a gold-standard membership model with so many different facets and features that it was like a church organisational version of a smartphone.

After I passionately presented this model to the leadership team like I was a finalist on The Apprentice, there was murmuring consensus around the room that it was brilliant - a gold-plated cathedral to church membership - but with one crucial caveat: it did not actually address the problems we were specifically facing.

The model could be a "Swiss Army knife" of usefulness for many things but not what our church actually needed.

I could be disappointed by the lack of acknowledgement of my genius - or relieved that someone had saved us an immense amount of effort for little return.

The risk, of course, to this new model, which intentionally spends more time mining the definition of the problem, is that meetings will simply increase. However, given the fact that my former decision-making strategies haven’t yielded more personal margin but often seem to grow my to-do list, it’s worth a try – unless of course I’ve misdiagnosed the problem.