Archive for the ‘Wicked Problems’ Category
The consultant’s dilemma – a business fable
It felt like a homecoming. That characteristic university smell (books, spearmint gum and a hint of cologne) permeated the hallway. It brought back memories of his student days: the cut and thrust of classroom debates, all-nighters before exams and near-all-nighters at Harry’s Bar on the weekends. He was amazed at how evocative that smell was.
Rich checked the directory near the noticeboard and found that the prof was still in the same shoe-box office that he was ten years ago. He headed down the hallway wondering why the best teachers seemed to get the least desirable offices. Perhaps it was inevitable in a university system that rated grantsmanship over teaching.
It was good of the prof to see him at short notice. He had taken a chance really, calling on impulse because he had a few hours to kill before his flight home. There was too much travel in this job, but he couldn’t complain: he knew what he was getting into when he signed up. No, his problem was deeper. He no longer believed in what he did. The advice he gave and the impressive, highly polished reports he wrote for clients were useless…no, worse, they were dangerous.
He knew he was at a crossroad. Maybe, just maybe, the prof would be able to point him in the right direction.
Nevertheless, he was assailed by doubt as he approached the prof’s office. He didn’t have any right to burden the prof with his problems …he could still call and make an excuse for not showing up. Should he leave?
He shook his head. No, now that he was here he might as well at least say hello. He knocked on the door.
“Come in,” said the familiar voice.
He went in.
“Ah, Rich, it is good to see you after all these years. You’re looking well,” said the prof, getting up and shaking his hand warmly.
After a brief exchange of pleasantries, he asked Rich to take a seat.
“Just give me a minute, I’m down to the last paper in this pile,” said the prof, gesturing at a heap of term papers in front of him. “If I don’t do it now, I never will.”
“Take your time prof,” said Rich, as he sat down.
Rich cast his eye over the bookshelf behind the prof’s desk. The titles on the shelf reflected the prof’s main interest: twentieth century philosophy. A title by Habermas caught his eye.
Habermas!
Rich recalled a class in which the prof had talked about Habermas’ work on communicative rationality and its utility in making sense of ambiguous issues in management. It was in that lecture that the prof had introduced them to the evocative term that captured ambiguity in management (and other fields) so well, wicked problems.
There were many things the prof spoke of, but ambiguity and uncertainty were his overarching themes. His lectures stood in stark contrast to those of his more illustrious peers: the prof dealt with reality in all its messiness, the other guys lived in a fantasy world in which their neat models worked and things went according to plan.
Rich had learnt from the prof that philosophy was not an arcane subject, but one that held important lessons for everyone (including hotshot managers!). Much of what he learnt in that single term of philosophy had stayed with him. Indeed, it was what had brought him back to the prof’s door after all these years.
“All done,” said the prof, putting his pen down and flicking the marked paper into the pile in front of him. He looked up at Rich: “Tell you what, let’s go to the café. The air-conditioning there is so much better,” he added, somewhat apologetically.
As they walked out of the prof’s office, Rich couldn’t help but wonder why the prof stuck around in a place where he remained unrecognized and unappreciated.
—
The café was busy. Though it was only mid-afternoon, the crowd was already in Friday evening mode. Rich and the prof ordered their coffees and found a spot at the quieter end of the cafe.
After some small talk, the prof looked him and said, “Pardon my saying so, Rich, but you seem preoccupied. Is there something you want to talk about?”
“Yes, there is…well, there was, but I’m not so sure now.”
“You might as well ask,” said the prof. “My time is not billable….unlike yours.” His face crinkled into a smile that said, no offence intended.
“Well, as I mentioned when I called you this morning, I’m a management consultant with Big Consulting. By all measures, I’m doing quite well: excellent pay, good ratings from my managers and clients, promotions etc. The problem is, over the last month or so I’ve been feeling like a faker who plays on clients’ insecurities, selling them advice and solutions that are simplistic and cause more problems than they solve,” said Rich.
“Hmmm,” said the prof, “I’m curious. What triggered these thoughts after a decade in the game?”
“Well, I reckon it was an engagement that I completed a couple of months ago. I was the principal consultant for a big change management initiative at a multinational. It was my first gig as a lead consultant for a change program this size. I was responsible for managing all aspects of the engagement – right from the initial discussions with the client, to advising them on the change process and finally implementing it.” He folded his hands behind his head and leaned back in his chair as he continued, “In theory I’m supposed to offer independent advice. In reality, though, there is considerable pressure to use our standard, trademarked solutions. Have you heard of our 5 X Model of Change Management?”
“Yes, I have,” nodded the prof.
“Well, I could see that the prescriptions of 5 X would not work for that organization. But, as I said, I had no choice in the matter.”
“Uh-huh, and then?”
“As I had foreseen,” said Rich, “the change was a painful, messy one for the organization. It even hit their bottom line significantly. They are trying to cover it up, but everyone in the organization knows that the change is the real reason for the drop in earnings. Despite this, Big Consulting has emerged unscathed. A bunch of middle managers on the client’s side have taken the rap.” He shook his head ruefully. “They were asked to leave,” he said.
“That’s terrible,” said the prof, “I can well understand how you feel.”
“Yes, I should not have prescribed 5 X. It is a lemon. The question is: what should I do now?” queried Rich.
“That’s for you to decide. You can’t change the past, but you might be able to influence the future,” said the prof with a smile.
“I was hoping you could advise me.”
“I have no doubt that you have reflected on the experience. What did you conclude?”
“That I should get out of this line of work,” said Rich vehemently.
“What would that achieve?” asked the prof gently.
“Well, at least I won’t be put into such situations again. I’m not worried about finding work, I’m sure I can find a job with the Big Consulting name on my resume,” said Rich.
“That’s true,” said the prof, “but is that all there is to it? There are other things to consider. For instance, Big Consulting will continue selling snake oil. How would you feel about that?”
“Yeah, that is a problem – damned if I do, damned if I don’t,” replied Rich. “You know, when I was sitting in your office, I recalled that you had spoken about such dilemmas in one of your classes. You said that the difficulty with such wicked issues is that they cannot be decided based on facts alone, because the facts themselves are either scarce or contested…or both!”
“That’s right,” said the prof, “and this is a wicked problem of a kind that is very common, not just in professional work but also in life. Even relatively mundane issues such as whether or not to switch jobs have wicked elements. What we forget sometimes, though, is that our decisions on such matters or rather, our consequent actions, might also affect others.”
“So you’re saying I’m not the only stakeholder (if I can use that term) in my problem. Is that right?”
“That’s right, there are other people to consider,” said the prof, “but the problem is you don’t know who they are .They are all the people who will be affected in the future by the decision you make now. If you quit, Big Consulting will go on selling this solution and many more people might be adversely affected. On the other hand, if you stay, you could try to influence the future direction of Big Consulting, but that might involve some discomfort for yourself. This makes your wicked problem an ethical one. I suspect this is why you’re having a hard time going with the “quit” option.”
There was a brief silence. The prof could see that Rich was thinking things through.
“Prof, I’ve got to hand it to you,” said Rich shaking his head with a smile, “I was so absorbed by the quit/don’t quit dilemma from my personal perspective that I didn’t realize there are other angles to consider. Thanks, you’ve helped immensely. I’m not sure what I will do, but I do know that what you have just said will help me make a more considered choice. Thank you!”
“You’re welcome, Rich”
…And as he boarded his flight later that evening, Rich finally understood why the prof continued to teach at a place where he remained unrecognized and unappreciated
Objectivity and the ethical dimension of organisational decision-making
When making decisions, some people follow a structured process that involves gathering data, identifying options and analysing them to arrive at a decision. Others prefer an approach in which they seek to understand the diversity of perspectives on the issue and then attempt to synthesise a decision based on their understanding. To be sure these are stereotypes and, like all stereotypes, are somewhat exaggerated. Nevertheless, most decision-makers in organisations fall into one of these categories, at least as far as their preferred decision-making mode is concerned. Of course, people may change from one mode to another, depending on the situation. For example, a person who is predominantly an objective decision maker in his or her professional life might not be so objective when it comes to making personal decisions.
The differences between the two approaches roughly mirrors the divide between those who believe in an objective reality and those who believe that reality, or at least our perception of it, is a subjective matter. This is akin to the difference between CP Snow’s Two Cultures: the scientists and the artists. At the risk of making a gross generalisation, those who have a scientific or technical background tend to fall into the first category whereas those who lean towards the arts or humanities tend to fall into the other. Like all generalisations this one is, again, not strictly correct, but I think it is fair to say that a person’s training does have an influence on what they deem as the right way to make decisions.
The physicist and polymath Heinz von Foerster summed this up nicely when he noted that the difference between the two types of decision-makers is akin to the differences between discoverers and inventors. The objective decision-maker (the discoverer) attempts to discover the objectively correct decision based on what he or she believes to be true. On the other hand, the subjective decision-maker (the inventor) constructs or creates the decision based on facts and opinion (or even emotion) rather than facts alone.
The conventional view of decision making in organisations – that decisions should be made on the basis of facts – does not recognize this difference. To be sure, matters that can be decided based on facts should be made on the basis of facts. For example, a decision regarding the purchase of equipment can (often) be made based on predetermined criteria.The problem, however, is that most important decisions in organisations do not fall into this category – they have wicked elements that cannot be resolved by facts because the “facts” themselves are ambiguous. Unfortunately, decision-makers often do not understand the difference between the two types of decision problems. A common symptom of this lack of understanding is that when confronted with a wicked decision problem, many decision-makers feel compelled to clothe their reasoning and choices in a garb of (false) objectivity.
The above is not news to observers and scholars of organisational life – see this post, for example. However, a not-so-well-appreciated dimension to the objective/subjective debate on decision-making is that wicked decision problems invariably have an ethical dimension. I elaborate on this briefly below.
In a paper on ethics and cybernetics, von Foerster noted that the objective approach to decision making is but a means of avoiding responsibility. In his words:
…objectivity requires that the properties of an observer be left out of any descriptions of his (sic) observations. With the essence of observing (namely the processes of cognition) having been removed, the observer is reduced to a copying machine with the notion of responsibility successfully juggled away.
Objectivity…and other devices [such as rules and processes] are all derivations of a choice between a pair of in-principle undecidable questions [See Note 1] which are:
“Am I apart from the universe?”
or
“Am I a part of the universe?”
Although von Foerster may be accused overblown rhetoric in the quote, he raises a critical question that we all ought to ask ourselves when confronted with an undecidable issue:
When making this decision, am I going to avoid involvement (and responsibility) by hiding behind rules or processes, or am I going to take full responsibility for it regardless of the outcome?
An honest answer will reveal that such decisions are invariably made on ethical grounds rather than objective ones. Indeed, the decisions we make in our professional lives tell us more about ourselves than we might be willing to admit.
An undecidable question is one that cannot be decided on logical grounds alone – a wicked problem by another name. See my post on wickedness, undecidability and the metaphysics of organizational decision making for more on this point.
Wickedness, undecidability and the metaphysics of decision-making in organisations
Wickedness
A central myth about decision making in organisations is that it is (or ought to be) a rational and objective process. Although this myth persists, there is a growing realisation that many organisational issues are wicked – i.e. they are hard to define, let alone solve. The difficulty in defining such problems arises from the fact that they are multifaceted, which in turn gives rise to a diversity of viewpoints about them. So it is that people involved in a wicked decision problem will have different opinions on what the problem is and how it should be tackled. This makes it impossible to decide on wicked issues on logical grounds alone , and hence the ineffectiveness of rational decision making processes for such problems.
Often times the wickedness of a problem is a consequence of the way in which it is framed. I’ll have more to say about frames later in this post, for now I’ll just note that the term frame refers to the perceived assumptions and context regarding a problem, and I say perceived because these are often matters of opinion and belief . For example, depending on ones background and beliefs, the issue of crime may be seen as a law and order problem (lack of policing) or an economic one (poverty or lack of opportunity).
Although organisational issues are not as complex and multifaceted as social ones such as crime, most managers would have experienced situations in which they simply did not know what to do because the problem was not decidable based on their preconceptions regarding the facts and assumptions surrounding the problem, and the organisational situation in which it lives (the context).
Undecidability
My use of the word decidable in the previous sentence may raise some eyebrows because the term has a very precise meaning in mathematics. The notion of undecidability (or decidability) comes from the work of Kurt Goedel who proved that any system based on a set of axioms (premises) will necessarily contain statements that can neither be proven nor disproven within that system.
Now an axiomatic system is nothing but a framework consisting of a set of premises plus some logical rules using which one can derive statements that are true within the system (these true statements are theorems). One can thus make an analogy between axiomatic systems in mathematics and (for the want of a better term) decision systems in organisations: decisions in organisations are outcomes of a set of premises plus some rules (not necessarily logical ones!) using which one can make arguments supporting one or the other viewpoint. In terms of the analogy, it is clear that wicked problems in organisations are akin to undecidable problems in mathematics in that they are not solvable within the frame in which they are posed.
The interesting thing about undecidable problems in mathematics is that although statements may be undecidable within a particular system of axioms, they can sometimes be rendered be decidable within another, broader system. Put simply, a proposition that is undecidable may be rendered decidable by modifying or expanding the underlying premises or assumptions. In even simpler terms, the decidability of a statement depends on one’s frame or viewpoint. In terms of the analogy this amounts to saying that wickedness (or the lack of it) depends on how the problem is framed.
Wicked (or undecidable) decision problems can sometimes be managed (or rendered decidable) by an appropriate choice of frame.
The metaphysics of organisational decision-making
I should hasten to add that the foregoing cannot be used as a justification for making a decision based on a convenient frame that is aligned to one’s own interests and opinions. Indeed, an appropriate choice of frame is one that takes into account the entire spectrum of interests and opinions relating to the decision problem. So much so that the choice of a correct frame is a metaphysical issue because it forces the decision-maker(s) to choose how they view themselves in social and ethical terms – in short, as socially responsible human beings!
I realise this statement may sound over the top to many readers so I’ll try to argue for its plausibility, if not its truth, by drawing on a brilliant paper entitled, Ethics and Second-Order Cybernetics, by the eloquent cybernetician and polymath, Heinz von Foerster.
Noting that just about everything about metaphysics is controversial, von Foerster tells us:
When I invoke Metaphysics, I do not seek agreement with anybody else about her nature. This is because I want to say precisely what it is when we become metaphysicians, whether or not we call ourselves metaphysicians. I say we become metaphysicians whenever we decide upon in principle undecidable questions.
Why does our deciding on undecidable questions make us metaphysicians?
The answer lies in the difference between decidable and undecidable questions. The former are unambiguously decided by the framework within which they are posed whereas the latter are not. Therefore we are forced to make a choice (of framework and consequent decision) based on our interests and opinions. The point is, our interests and opinions tell us something about who we are, so the choices we make when deciding on undecidable questions define our individual human qualities.
As von Foerster states:
Decidable questions are already decided by the framework in which they are asked, and by the rules of how to connect what we call “the question” with what we may take for an “answer.” In some cases it may go fast, in others it may take a long, long time, but ultimately we will arrive, after a sequence of compelling logical steps, at an irrefutable answer: a definite Yes, or a definite No. But we are under no compulsion, not even under that of logic, when we decide upon in principle undecidable questions. There is no external necessity that forces us to answer such questions one way or another. We are free! The complement to necessity is not chance, it is choice! We can choose who we wish to become when we decide on in principle undecidable questions.
The claim that we choose who we wish to become becomes evident when one notes that organisational decisions often put decision makers into situations in which they have to make ethical choices. For example, cost cutting measures may lead to job losses, changes in work policies may affect employee well being, wrong choices of technologies may pollute the environment and so on. The point is that most undecidable (or wicked!) problems in organisational life have ethical dimensions, and we define ourselves as human beings when we make decisions regarding them.
No wonder then that we have so many devices by which people try to avoid the making decisions and the consequent responsibility that comes with it. As von Foerster states:
With much ingenuity and imagination, mechanisms were contrived by which one could bypass this awesome burden. With hierarchies, entire institutions have been built where it is impossible to localize responsibility. Everyone in such a system can say: “I was told to do X.”
On the political stage we hear more and more the phrase of Pontius Pilate: “I have no choice but X.” In other words “Don’t make me responsible for X, blame others.” This phrase apparently replaces: “Among the many choices I had, I decided on X.
Then, aiming squarely at rationality and objectivity, he writes:
I mentioned objectivity before and I mention it here again as another popular device of avoiding responsibility. Objectivity requires that the properties of the observer shall not enter the description of his observations. With the essence of observing, namely the processes of cognition, being removed, the observer is reduced to a copying machine, and the notion of responsibility has been successfully juggled away.
..and I take it as given that none of us wish to be reduced to mere copying machines.
Conclusion
The mechanisms of decision making in organisations encourage decision makers to avoid the burden of responsibility rather than accept it – “Sorry, but it is business” or “I’m just following orders” are common phrases that flag such avoidance. From personal experience, I’m painfully aware of how easy it is sweep ethical issues out of one’s field of vision when dealing with wicked problems…and I now also understand that metaphysics is not a rarefied academic discipline, but one that holds practical lessons for us all – you, me, our peers, and those who sit on the floors below and above us.
Eight to Late 