Right Answer, Wrong Question: How Our Brains Get In The Way Of Effective Problem Solving
Operations teams often face hard problems that are urgent and important such as lack of production, equipment breakdowns, quality issues, or underperforming assets. A common refrain in these moments is for a senior leader to ask their team, "Why is this problem happening?" It's the first step in the most commonplace of all problem-solving methods: The 5 Whys analysis. But the answer to this question is rarely apparent. (If it were, the problem likely would have been solved on the shop floor). With these hard questions, we often change and simplify the question as we process it in our minds without even realizing it. We then answer our substituted, more straightforward question instead.
For example, suppose I have a limited understanding of the system in which the problem is occurring. I may convert the why-is-this-happening question to: "How is this problem related to the parts of the process that I know?" The answer then biases toward something I understand, regardless of the evidence.
Suppose I'm feeling particularly anxious to resolve this problem. I may substitute the why question for: "What potential solution could we try out quickly and easily?" Answering this question, largely unrelated to diagnosing why the problem is occurring in the first place, will likely send the group down a rabbit hole of fruitless activity.
Question Substitution
Daniel Kahneman, a psychologist and Nobel laureate in Economics for his work on human decision-making, explains how question-substitution is a time-saving but lazy mental trick we use to preserve our energy when the stakes are low. We substitute our hard target question with a simplified question that requires less effort to solve.
However, allowing yourself or your team members to substitute questions when tackling operations challenges will guarantee that any headway you make will be by chance.
Question substitution leads to a lack of containment around where the discussion is heading, making it hard for teams to progress down a logical path. It causes more problems than it solves, just like in the story of Hercules battling the Hydra - his indiscriminate head-cutting resulted in each being replaced by two more, making the problem worse.
Just as Hercules eventually understood the Hydra and burned each stump with fire to stop the monster's heads from growing back, leaders and teams must ask more precise questions and strive for their true answers to create meaningful progress.
What makes question substitution so problematic is that we rarely realize when a target question is difficult to answer. The answer to the simpler question comes so quickly to mind. The next time you are in a meeting, look for instances where someone answers a subtly different question than what was asked, and take note of how this diverts the discussion. You might even catch yourself doing it later today.
The vaguer and more qualitative the phrasing, the more easily you can substitute the question. The question risks being substituted for simplified questions, limiting your team's potential if you can't answer it with data and evidence.
What Can I Do?
Instead of asking "why-is-this-happening", here are a few alternatives that are more immune to question substitution and will steer you towards solving your problem:
"What do we know about why this problem is occurring?"
"What would we like to know about why this problem is occurring (and how can we find it out)?"
"What potential causes of the problem can we rule out, based on the evidence?"
"How would you define this problem? What must be brought back into control for it to be solved?"
By understanding question substitution and avoiding its pitfalls, your team can stop guessing and start solving your hardest problems.
Like this insight? You might like:
