Diagnose, then Prescribe

My 8-year-old granddaughter was visiting cousins this week and fell while playing outside. She came in crying that her arm hurt. She cried in pain as her mother examined the injured limb. Since they were away from home, they decided to wait over night to see how she felt in the morning. The next morning, she claimed it didn’t hurt as bad, but the arm was still slightly swollen and tender to the touch. 

Here’s my question for you. If you were the parent in this situation, what would you do? Would you go to a care facility, knowing that you are four hours from home? Would you wait until you got home the next day? Would you give it more time to see if her arm felt better in a couple of days? 

I’ll come back to this story in a moment. When we heard about our granddaughter’s injury, it reminded me of an experience with her father, my oldest son Matthew, about 15 years ago. As a teenager, he loved to play basketball. Actually, he still does. In the early minutes of a Saturday morning game when Matthew was 17, he jumped to compete for a loose ball and landed on the opponent’s foot, falling to the ground and clutching his right leg. 

Being a competitor, he got to his feet, limped down the court to play defense, stole the ball from the other team, drove the length of the court for a layup, and was fouled. He fell again to the floor, and this time he was really hurting. He had to shoot his free throws before the coach could substitute him out of the game. 

I met Matthew behind the bench and asked, “What is it? Where are you hurt?” He pointed to a spot about three inches below his knee on his right calf. “I think I pulled something around here,” he said. “I felt a little pop.”

There was a knot in his muscle, so I tried to rub it out, but that was too painful. We put a warming patch on the spot. He stretched the muscle and tried to walk it off. At the beginning of the second half, Matthew said he thought he could play, so the coach sent him back into the game. He took one shot and realized he couldn’t get any push off the leg, so he sat out the rest of the game. 

As we walked to the car after the game, my wife said, “Do you think we need to take him to the doctor?” I said, “Nah, it’s a muscle pull. It’ll hurt for a while, but he’ll be fine.” She wasn’t convinced by my answer. She asked Matthew. “I think I’m okay,” he said. “I just need to rest it.” 

Being the wise person she is, my wife ignored us and took Matthew to an Instacare facility to have the leg examined by a doctor. Matthew walked into the facility, talked briefly with a doctor, then walked down the hall to the x-ray room. When he came out of the x-ray room in a wheelchair, my wife knew this was more than a pulled muscle. He had a broken bone just below his knee. 

Think back to how we were treating his injury initially – rubbing it, stretching it, sending him back into the game. How would you feel? I felt awful. Fortunately, we didn’t do any additional damage and his leg healed fully. 

The experience was a good reminder to diagnose before prescribing. The mistake I’ve seen in business comes when we see a result we don’t want – sales are low, quality has dropped, we lose an important customer, a team isn’t functioning well. As leaders, we have a tendency to jump in with solutions. Hey, that’s what we’re here for, to solve problems. 

But if we fail to diagnose before prescribing a solution, we may come up with a brilliant solution to the wrong problem. Urgency leads us to act first, ask questions later. But asking first leads us to the right problem to solve and involves others in the solution. This leads us to a better solution and strengthens relationships as people work together to improve difficult situations. 

The impact of prescribing solutions before diagnosing the problem includes the potential for both a less-than-ideal solution and negative relationships with team members. Ask some questions. Include those closest to the problem as well as experts. Then prescribe the solution that address the real problem and has the most buy-in. Otherwise, you may be treating a broken leg like a pulled muscle. 

And my granddaughter? Her mom decided to take her to a doctor, despite being “out of network.” She’s now sporting a bright pink cast on her arm for three weeks, and we’re all glad they got an accurate diagnosis before making a final prescription. 

Mark Carpenter is a consultant, facilitator, coach, and co-author of the best-selling book "Master Storytelling: How to Turn Your Experiences Into Stories that Teach, Lead, and Inspire." www.master-storytelling.com