Current Research

Periodically my colleagues and I will sponsor research into a topic of special interest. You are invited to participate either by attending a conference, agreeing to a short phone interview, or simply receiving a copy of the results.

How do they do what they do?

How could we pass on their talent to others?

Almost all organizations have a few individuals who are known for their extraordinary but largely intuitive ability to sort out the most complex of problems. When others have "broken their sword", these few Super Problem Solvers are brought in to work their magic. (For more on criteria for selection.)

Typically these rare individuals are unable to teach others their secrets, and most people cannot discern their talent just by watching. For those reasons, their talent is difficult to capture or clone.

The purpose of this first research effort is to bring together a small number of such unusual problem solvers and try to capture how they are able to make sense of the chaotic or complex situations where they are called in.

If you either see yourself as one of these special problems solvers, or if you know someone who would quality, please contact us if you are open to a short phone interview or possibly attending the one-day conference.

The main activity will be to sponsor, facilitate, and then write up a one-day conference built around 6-8 of these special problem solvers. Given my background in problem solving, I propose to guide the group meeting around the following points:

1. Prior to the meeting, interview each participant briefly to help identify a particular case where they were especially successful in unraveling a complex mess.
2. During the meeting, each participant presents their case, not as a memory, but by returning as much as possible to a "present tense" description of their experiences, their thoughts, their emotional reactions, and their insights.
3. It will be the responsibility of the other participants to watch for patterns, ask about gaps, and generally help to surface the deep structure behind the surface behavior.
4. We will have a graphic recorder to capture ideas as they emerge and keep the group focused on identifying this elusive process.
5. We will also have a psychologically oriented expert who will listen for the more subtle aspects of how people are modeling their experience and choosing their behaviors from that model.
6. The last segment of the day will be to summarize our findings, share observations, look for commonalities, understand differences, and generally speculate on the nature of the problem solving process.
7. After the meeting, I and others will write up the findings and send out copies to anyone who has requested the report.

We will do it again! We will keep going it until the ideas become redundant. The second time around we may ask 6-8 Super Problem Solvers to tackle a tough social problem (such as transportation in the South Bay) while others watch for the process.

We will also encourage as many conversations as possible about the content of the findings and how they might be translated into training materials, simulations, or other experiential trainings. The report will be free of copyright and anyone is encouraged to incorporate them in their own work.

The goal is first to understand, but then to extend the discussions.

Oftentimes problems are accommodated rather than solved. For example, do you have employees who should have been fired, but they were put on an elaborate performance plan instead? Is your organizational chart distorted by the need to separate two people who just cannot get along? Does your company routinely form a task force to investigate a problem when the solution is obvious? Is your company strategically challenged because no one is willing to tell the CEO it is time for him to move on?

The research question is how do problems get identified so poorly that we end up merely contributing to the dysfunctionality of the organization? What would it take for companies to bring a higher level of courage and insight to the initial definition of problems?