When people learn I’m a consultant, conversation often proceeds to problems and problem-solving. It’s true that I only get hired well after there is a problem. Typically a problem that has gotten so lousy that nobody wants to deal with it and it has therefore become worth the trouble—of spending time, money, effort, and reputation—to bring in somebody to sort it out.

That said, I like completeness. What other responses do I notice to problems? (Other than solving them.) I don’t know that any of these are universally good or bad. But I do see people having three additional responses, and acting based on them. These are:

• Solving problems (the first response we think of)
• Pushing problems around
• Preserving problems
• Promoting new problems

Let’s look at each of these three ‘P’s in turn.

No. 0001. Pushing problems around

When I was facilitating staff-led continuous improvement projects, this was the common outcome. Making things better here by making them worse there. This is what most problem-solving in medium and large organizations look like, because this is what local optimization looks like. This is fine, in a certain sense, and a huge waste of time, in another. A key point is to not blame people for pushing problems around. They’re playing the game in front of them, and playing to win. Instead, when you see this happening, look for their boss’s boss and fix the incentives and system view there.

No. 0002. Preserving problems

Clay Shirky wrote, in part of a 2010 blog post that is no longer online:

Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution.

Kevin Kelly named it ‘The Shirky Principle’ and wrote, also in 2010:

The Shirky Principle declares that complex solutions (like a company, or an industry) can become so dedicated to the problem they are the solution to, that often they inadvertently perpetuate the problem. … Because of the Shirky Principle, […] progress sometimes demands that we let go of problems.

A very easy thing to look for when there’s a problem are the people who depend on it. Who’d lose out if the problem were solved? You don’t have to agree with these people—the ones who preserve the very problems you’re working to eliminate. But you had better know who they are and include them in your plan.

Always ask this. It’s one of Neil Postman’s six questions about technology (from a 1998 lecture):

What problems do we create by solving this problem?

Jerry Weinberg wrote in one of his books:

Once you eliminate your number one problem, you promote number two.

The ability to find the problem in any situation is the consultant’s best asset. It’s also the consultant’s occupational disease. To be a consultant, you must detest problems, but if you can’t live with problems, consulting will kill you.

Does this mean you must give up trying to solve problems? Not at all. It means that you must give up the illusion that you’ll ever finish solving problems. Once you give up that illusion, you’ll be able to relax now and then and let the problems take care of themselves.

People who can solve problems do lead better lives. But people who can ignore problems, when they choose to, live the best lives. If you can’t do both, stay out of consulting.

In my own practice, the primary way of dispelling this illusion is to get a good diagram going so that everybody can see their problems, agree on what they are, and pick a few that are actually worth fixing. More on that soon.