The Art of Breaking Apart the Overwhelming into the Manageable

We're bombarded with claims of simple solutions to any and all of life's problems. Most of us seem to be eager consumers of these simplistic views. In my field, healthcare, you can't open a newspaper without reading an op-ed or article that insists all healthcare challenges would disappear if we would just do that ONE straightforward thing. Unfortunately, there's no agreement on what that one thing is: Turn all healthcare over to the government, turn it all over to the private sector, don't charge anybody for any care, make everyone pay more so they shop more wisely, increase hospital competition, regulate hospitals more tightly, imitate Canada, imitate Singapore, and on and on.

Simplistic claims play well to the crowds and in politics and plenty of experts thrive on making them. Leaders, in contrast, who are measured not by the catchiness of their claims but by the impact of their decisions, generally learn quickly that nothing is simple when it comes to solving real problems- particularly the complex problems in healthcare. Ask anyone who runs a large organization, in healthcare or any other industry. 

Robbed of the luxury of believing that big fixes are easy--or even that incremental improvement is easy--leaders have to break apart the messy, complex landscape of problems they face into manageable, actionable chunks. Doing so may seem in some ways the opposite of what leaders are best known for: Setting the vision, seeing the big picture, deciding the high-level strategies. Dealing with the components of those strategies, on the other hand, is by definition tactical, and is supposed to be delegated.

But strategies can't go anywhere if they're not effectively translated into the component tactics that will support them. So, yes, the leader must point out the bright light that the organization is aiming for. But he or she also needs to provide a prism for breaking that light up into the right constituents, and a lens to focus attention on the right constituents at the right time. Otherwise the delegated tactics won't move the needle in the right direction quickly enough.

Dividing up the problem pie into delegable tactics, and assigning priorities and resources to them, calls for taking a number of factors into account. Which tactics will most strongly impact the organizational mission? Which ones will, when properly implemented, ripple through the organization and enable making more headway with other challenges? Which ones will be closely watched and can serve as symbolic victories likely to raise organizational morale or outside profile?

 Once the component tactics have been defined, prioritized and delegated, it's up to the leader to continually reassess. There are few stationary targets these days, and changing market needs, competitive threats, regulation and internal resources are bound to require rejiggering how the big problems are carved up, and how attention is apportioned among them. It's an endless, hyperdynamic task.

 No wonder we all crave simple solutions. But handing them out like candy isn't leadership. Leaders have to provide ways to navigate the complexity, not pretend it doesn't exist.