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Hierarchical companies aren’t very good at solving problems
There’s another way
Problems get thrown at businesses every second of every day.
The most common type of problem solving approach I’ve experienced in 15+ years of working in business is a version of this :
If it’s a big enough problem, the boss gets involved.
Now the boss needs to find a way to help solve it.
A lot of times, the boss escalates to her own boss.
A couple of executives now get together, talk about it, and then some solution is found which is then communicated back down to the teams.
This is the worst kind of problem solving approach if I’ve ever seen one. Because when you’re solving a problem, you want the person or team possessing the right expertise to have a go at it. Not a bunch of executives sitting around a table pretending to have the expertise.
In other words, you want the people closest to the problem to solve it, and for them to pull the right people in as and when needed. Not the other way around.
The issue with solving problems in a hierarchical system is that most of the time, the right people aren’t necessarily around the table.
