Amp It Up

9Put Analysis Before Solutions

The Problem of Racing to Solutions

The medical profession is “diagnosis centric” in the way it goes about treating conditions. This isn't surprising—how can anyone treat a patient effectively without a correct diagnosis, especially in the age of huge malpractice lawsuits? So doctors are trained to spend significant time running tests and eliminating possible causes. Only after a diagnosis is established can treatment protocols be implemented. And even then, doctors are taught to remain vigilant in case the treatment isn't working, which might signal a mistaken diagnosis. Life science is a murky business, and even the experts can't take anything for granted.

But business, I've found, has the opposite cultural tendency. We tend to be “solution centric”—we spend most of our time discussing solutions rather than diagnosing problems. We race to conclusions about what's wrong and what to do about it. We pattern match, reacting to situations based on our individual experience rather than studying the specific situation in front of us from a broader perspective.

It's easy to be irrationally confident in our judgment and anxious to move forward with implementing solutions. But if we are wrong in understanding the problem, our solutions won't work. For instance, my first employer, Burroughs Corporation in Detroit, one of the so‐called B‐U‐N‐C‐H (abbreviation for Burroughs‐UNIVAC‐NCR‐ControlData‐Honeywell), concluded that the solution to their doldrums was ...