Another Fine Mess... and the clock is ticking

A frequent mis-quote of Oliver Hardy because he never said it was ‘fine’. Ollie often accuses Stan of getting him into another nice mess and on occasion Stan even got the dig in first admitting he had landed his friend in it. Of course from afar we can see you can’t in all fairness blame just one of them. The team had a few problem solving flaws, much to my amusement as a transfixed 8 year old. 

Something I have noticed about social media posts, articles and comments of a business bent is the predominant tendency of folks to claim to know the answers. ‘The answers to what?’ you might ask. Of course in many cases the answer lies in their product, business, system or that of their mates. Whatever your problem is they have the answer. The same might be said of many ‘White Papers’ that abound on the corporate side of the web tucked behind pseudo-independent and academic covers. 

In criticisng this ‘soIutionising’ tendency I realise I risk being hoist with my own petard but give me a hearing.

Nationally in the U.K. currently politicians, parliament, media, the public and businesses are in private and public hotly debating the whys and wherefores of whether to support a bill, whether put a motion, whether to call an election and so on as we try to work through the challenge of exiting the EU. 

The frenzy is exacerbated by the the fact that we don’t really know what the question is. This has not been helped by the framing of a referendum question as though we were dealing with a puzzle rather than a problem. 'Leave or remain' based on the assumption one of the two will give the correct outcome. Like doing a crossword or sudoku. Only there were many more views of what success looks like than a series of numbers or words on a page. Having then taken this route, the problem, which was pretty complex and certainly not a puzzle back then, has gotten even more messy in the meantime. 

Why? Because the world would be pretty straightforward were it not for the humans. We suffer human frailties such as hubris, exhaustion, envy, greed and fear. Because we organise ourselves in groups, teams, parties and communities - all social entities. Human nature is messy and chaotic, emotional and illogical despite our efforts to control it or delude ourselves otherwise. For sure we won’t harness it by applying puzzle solving logic to human problems. 

Okay so hands up I’ve got a process! 

Some 18 years ago I worked with colleagues to create an educational process to support business leaders work their way through what was to become another fine mess which became known as the global financial crisis or the GFC to give it its TLA. We had a good deal of success but clearly not enough to avert the crisis - those of you reading this from the financial institutions that completed your leadership qualifications using Action Learning Questions know the good work you did. And so do I. This was based on putting as much effort and time into working out your questions as you did working on solutions. You got to grips with the nitty gritty of big questions around themes such as motivation, engagement, branch network strategy, relocation, product innovation and more. Many more.

In retrospect I see a pattern. As the squeeze came on in the financial service sector around Summer 2008, the top cats helicoptered in with solutions to problems that they treated as puzzles. And as time was short and careers were at stake it just wasn’t acceptable to indulge in too much problem definition. However the problems were often ones that hadn’t been faced before and where a lift and shift approach to the fix was destined to fail. 

So what can we do when we face problems we haven’t quite experienced before and when we feel scared about the unknown?

On a very positive note we have a world class Civil Service which serves the government of the day whilst upholding and complying with the law. I have been most privileged to support in some depth over 500 intelligent and committed leaders in many of the ministries, departments and agencies over the past 5 years thanks to collaboration with #Mayvin the Organisation Development specialist and Chichester University as an accreditation partner working for the Organisation Design and Development service . 

See the paper linked here which provides details of how the Civil Service has been putting the H back and HR and the D into OD. Civil servants are loathe to brag however this paper includes remarkable examples of what can be achieved by asking intelligent, penetrating questions, working with constructive ignorance, embracing emotions, putting yourself at the centre of your inquiry, learning with and from others, researching from the ground up and taking informed action. And in the face of the utmost adversity such as the Ebola epidemic, Grenfell disaster and the Brexit challenge. 

‘Questioning’ beats ‘solutionising’ as far as I’m concerned. If you fancy joining a thousand or so on the Action Learning Forum group here then do so - but start by asking a decent question rather than accusing someone else of getting you into another fine mess!

Let’s embrace the mess and have a great and human 2019. 

Richard Hale, 17th January, 2019