Leadership lessons in 2nd order thinking — From Covid

The migrant crisis, the mental health setbacks, the shortage of blood supply due to vaccination. All these are unintended consequences of the decisions made to control the Covid pandemic. Could these consequences have been prevented? Maybe. Maybe not. It’s a tough question to answer, as we don’t have all the information. But, there are clear leadership lessons here.

The pandemic is an example of an unprecedented, highly challenging situation with very severe consequences. The choices available are the devil on one side, and the deep sea on the other. Unfortunately, there are no perfect decisions in such circumstances, but there are guidelines which help make a well informed decision, backed by a sound thinking through of the consequences.

Second order thinking is an essential skill that a leader must cultivate for making decisions in uncertain, and highly complex situations. Thinking through the 2nd, 3rd, and Nth order consequences of a decision is known as 2nd order thinking.

First order thinking focuses only on the problem at hand, and its solution. 2nd order thinking delves deep into the layers of consequences of the solution. It examines the consequences of the consequences, and pushes you to think through the unknowns. It is the high order thinking of masterful chess players, where they think through the next 5 moves and possible scenarios, depending upon the move they make now. It takes conscious intention, time and effort. Here are some guidelines to help you leverage 2nd order thinking:

Conscious intention?— Internalise that this is an unprecedented situation, and decision making will need a lot of deliberation. A few questions a leader needs to ask himself before making a decision

“Do I have all the information I need?”

“Is it even possible to get all the information, or will a decision have to be made with incomplete information?”

“How can I get the available information, expertise and wisdom needed to make a well informed decision?”

“How much time do I have?”

Involve the experts and the stakeholders in the thinking?— Being the leader does not mean you know it all. There may be experts who understand the situation better than you. Involve both sets of stakeholders — 1) those who have to implement the decision, 2) those who are impacted by the decision. And listen to them. Barack Obama discusses this in his article “How I approach the toughest decisions”?https://barackobama.medium.com/how-i-approach-the-toughest-decisions-dc1b165cdf2d?. He says he would call for meetings with experts and his team when thinking through tough problems, and says :

“Of course, that only works if you listen — really listen — to others. For me, that meant asking everybody in a meeting what they thought about the problem at hand. I’d call on folks in the back row, including the most junior staffer. That required people to come prepared to share their views.”

Allow contrarian views to surface. This will sharpen and deepen the thinking, and get a better understanding of the consequences. The biggest obstacle to this process is the leader’s ego. The inability to accept that someone else could know better. A leader with a fat ego, who sees disagreement as disloyalty is setting himself up for failure. Humility is a leader’s biggest ally in situations where he does not have all the answers himself.

2nd order thinking needs a Systems Thinking mindset?— A Systems Thinking mindset understands the inter-relatedness of things. It knows that a change in one part of the system will affect another part of the system. It is the ability to understand the problem holistically, and see the big picture. When faced with complex problems, a leader can?invoke a collective Systems Thinking mindset?by discussing some of the following with the concerned stakeholders:

What are the systemic inter-relationships and inter-dependencies? Which other parts in the system will get impacted if we make this decision? How will they get impacted? What will be the consequences of that impact?

And then what? What else? Are we missing something here?

What could go wrong? What are the risks?

Think in terms of time. What could happen in a month from now? 6 months, a year and so on

Incubate the decision?— The subconscious has magical powers to sort out all the tangles in our thinking. Sleeping over a decision somehow makes everything much clearer. Obama calls this process “marination”, and says he would let decisions marinate in his mind, while he exercised or got his haircuts. Incubation or marination is the time when you are not consciously thinking of the problem. You allow the subconscious mind to work its magic.

So, give some time for all the information and perspectives to collide, create friction and then converge and synthesize into a compelling decision.

And here’s the punchline! Even after doing all this thinking work, there can be adverse outcomes of the decision you made. There maybe “unknown unknowns” which are impossible to predict. As a leader your only solace will be that you put in your all, considered everything that could have been considered, and made the best possible decision you could have made. And you will rest easy knowing that at times there are no perfect decisions, there are only better decisions or worse decisions.

Gulshan Walia - I am a leadership coach & HR consultant. My main areas of work are leadership development, coaching, behavioural skill workshops, performance management and HR processes. Here is an overview of my coaching practice. Drop me a note at [email protected] if you are interested.

View my website at?www.infinitzusconsulting.com?to learn more about my areas of work