Problems Present An Opportunity
To Learn What Works(And What Does Not)
"The
illiterate of the 21st century, will not be those who cannot
read or write. They will be those who cannot learn, un-learn
and re-learn" - Alain Tofle
Our ability to improve in any area
of endeavour we embark upon is greatly dependent on how well
we learn from previous experiences, towards modifying our
knowledge, in preparation for future attempts at solving similar
- or different - problems.
Basically, in order to solve a problem
in any part of life - personal or business - it is important
to first achieve a sound understanding of the problem. That
is what a Formal Problem Solving system or tool can help an
individual or organisation achieve - in order to be able to
decide on actions that can be taken to make it work.
The American military, according to
a weekly electronic newsletter on "Management and Strategy"(published
by Zooba.com on Wednesday 6th June 2001) developed a process
- in the mid-70s - that enabled them actively improve their
ability - as a "learning organisation" - to successfully
tackle the various problems their teams faced in the carrying
out their duties. This "assessment and evaluation"
process was called "After Action Review"(AAR)
Basically, the AAR process involves
four self-questioning steps that those involved in and/or
responsible for the process or operation under review have
to undertake. It normally would occur in a meeting that holds
immediately after the activity (while it is all still fresh
on everyone's minds). This ensures the best results are achieved.
The four questions those in the meeting
have to answer are:
1.
What did we set out to do?
2.
What actually happened?
3. Why
did it happen?
4.
What are we going to do next time?
The Zooba.com newsletter gave an interesting
account of how the AAR was successfully applied during the
UN-backed US military invasion of Haiti, to return power to
the country's constitutional government. A military unit was
dispatched to a small town surrounding Port-au-Prince to collect
guns from suspected rebel hideouts located there. The first
round of searches did not lead to many recovered guns due
to unwillingness of the residents to allow soldiers into their
homes - and the soldiers had instructions not to force their
way in.
The subsequent AAR led to a revelation
that most of the locals were afraid of the German Shepherd
dogs that rear-guard military units employed in their work.
The dogs were therefore introduced at the next town where
searches for guns had to be done, with the result that little
or no resistance was encountered from the locals.
As a Best Practice Process Management
departmental champion in a large manufacturing organisation,
I was actively involved in developing sustainable solutions
to a number of nagging process problems via Formal Problem
Solving techniques that entailed the use of tools like the
Japanese Ishikawa(Fish-Bone) diagram and the Five(5) Why Questioning
technique.
One very obvious benefit of employees'
involvement in the various Continuous Improvement Groups,
was that we all over time achieved dramatic improvements in
our knowledge of what took place in various stages of the
manufacturing process. The result was that we understood the
process better, and therefore found it easier to solve problems
that occurred faster. We also became more comfortable teaching
new entrants how to run the process, and what important things
to look out for in order to ensure sustained output.
Experience sharing, ideas exchange
and other collaborative activities are also facilitated when
a multidisciplinary group of people is formally assembled
to tackle problems, using the techniques being discussed here.
Ideas that have been used successfully in one area, could
be easily adapted for use in resolving a nagging problem in
an entirely different area.
Formal Problem Solving techniques help
to quickly extract the most relevant information regarding
the cause of a problem being experienced, and also facilitate
development of appropriate alternative approaches/solutions
towards achieving the desired goals. One major reason why
they are so effective is that the ideas generated and solutions
developed get formally documented for future reference by
operatives. That way, whatever the organisation discovers
about what works or does not work in any area, is always made
accessible for use by all those who have to perform relevant
tasks towards achieving the ultimate goal of the enterprise.
How Can You Use This Information
You can start by seeing problems as
opportunities to learn MORE about how to do what you do better,
and ultimately become BETTER in doing it by taking needed
action. Problem-Solving is a challenge that every individual
or organisation has to deal with successfully on a fairly
regular basis, in order to make any meaningful progress. It
therefore means you need to have in place, a system that enables
you to effectively develop appropriate solutions or strategies
to tackle problems in whatever shape or form they appear,
so you can record more frequent successes.
1. As An
individual, you can take yourself through the four
AAR questions highlighted above, whenever you encounter a
problem or setback in your personal or work life as a deliberate
routine designed to enable you get the most out of every experience
you have. It really does not matter if you feel the experience
was negative or positive. What is most crucial is that you
extract from it an equivalent positive learning that you can
use to further your objective.
Incidentally, in a separate article
titled "How To Turn A Major Blunder At Work Into A Career
Advancement Opportunity" I described a formula(W x R
to the power of 3 i.e. Withdraw, Reflect, Refocus and Return)
that I developed for my personal use, based on application
of similar deductive reasoning to that used in techniques
featured in this article. By implication, nothing is cast
in stone when it comes to finding what works for you. So feel
free to find what does. :-)
2. As an
organisational decision maker, leader or business owner,
you could deliberately introduce the use of the techniques
mentioned here in the work place routines of your teams, or
challenge individual employees to apply them while at work
or on duty.
Your Guaranteed Minimum Benefit:
More Useful Knowledge That Enhances Performance
Your team members will become more
knowledgeable about how the various operations or processes
they handle work. They will also be more capable as a result
of that knowledge, since they will know (more frequently than
before) what they can do to successfully tackle problems when
they appear. This will happen most especially because the
AARs, like most formal problem solving techniques allow an
organisation bring all those with unique knowledge about the
problem or process/operation together in one place, to generate
a solution(s) towards resolving the problem(s) - permanently.
For new entrants to the organisation,
they will take much shorter times to become familiar with
what could go wrong and how to deal with it, since the documented
lessons from previous formal problem solving sessions would
be accessible - or possibly even deliberately made required
reading for their induction and entry training.
The most important benefit will however
be the organisation wide understanding that problems are not
about "Who did it" but "what happened and what
can be done to stop it from happening next time" so that
the organisation can progress faster towards its goal. This
practical perspective, and its consequent non-threatening
implications, will make members of an organisation more willing
to contribute to the process of improving existing systems
by readily saying what they did, exactly as they did it(so
that correct inferences can be made), without fear of reprisal.
The foregoing will facilitate accurate problem diagnosis and
solutions development.
Successful Organisational Problem
Solving Will ONLY Happen When People Are NOT Afraid
The AAR - and other successful formal
problem solving processes, operate based on an assumption
that all those who partake in a review will give a truthful
and accurate representation of events and occurrences that
led to the problem. If people are not CONVINCED it is safe
to do this, a lot of inaccuracies will enter the process,
evidence of this showing up, eventually, in ineffective solutions
that will be derived.
Let me therefore emphasise that if
you plan to adopt this strategy of using formal problem solving
techniques to quickly and more effectively LEARN how to deal
successfully with problems in your organisation, you must
be prepared to demonstrate to your people that providing full
details of their roles in the run up to the problem will NOT
lead to reprisals - even if they were at fault, though with
the proviso that such mistakes do not become habitual.
If that simple yet potentially limiting
aspect can be taken care of, your efforts to use formal problem
solving techniques to improve learning in your organisation,
will yield substantial and sustainable benefits - especially
by enabling your teams to effectively tackle problems that
threaten to limit the organisation's progress. 
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