J.R. Hull Company Solves the Wicked Problems
In 2008 Neutron, a consulting firm, and Stanford University, surveyed 1,500 top American Executives and asked them to identify the wicked problems that were plaguing their firms. We have taken an approach to solving all of these on a permanent basis. The approach is outlined in our recently published book on Crisis Leadership the Navy Way. The following are the wicked problems and our suggested approach to overcoming them.
Wicked Problem |
Solution Approach |
| Problem: Balancing long and short term goal demands. |
Solution: Integrate long and short-term goal demands |
| Problem: Predicting returns on innovative concepts. |
Solution: Create returns on innovative concepts. |
| Problem: Innovating at the increasing speed of change. |
Solution: Setting the increasing speed of change. |
| Problem: Winning the war for world class talent. |
Solution: Create the benchmark for developing world class talent. |
| Problem: Combining profitability and social responsibility. |
Solution: Becoming more profitable by embracing social responsibility |
| Problem: Protecting margins in a commoditizing industry. |
Solution: Increasing margins in a commoditizing industry. |
| Problem: Multiplying success by collaborating across silos. |
Solution: Create a strategy for multiplying success by collaborating across silos. |
| Problem: Finding unclaimed yet profitable market space. |
Solution: Create a process for finding unclaimed yet profitable market space. |
| Problem: Addressing the challenge of eco sustainability. |
Solution: Create an investment strategy for eco sustainability. |
| Problem: Aligning strategy with customer experience. |
Solution: Creating customer experience as a result of effective strategy. |
All of these solution pathways are obvious once one realizes that the way the issue is posed is critical to the development of a potential solution. It is in the re-framing of the issue that lays the seeds for a solution.
Individuals and companies usually do not spend enough time thinking at this stage and launch into action. This leads to partial solutions, temporary solutions and unintended consequences. All of these are bad and can be worse than the original issue.
The solution is to slow down and understand that the way a problem or opportunity is posed is CRITICAL to the development of any value based action.
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