The Conclusion Trap

Book excerpt: Organizations (and individuals) frequently struggle to make good decisions. They spend money, invest in new technology, and invest enormous amounts of time and effort reorganizing in fruitless efforts to solve thorny problems. Why?Years of training and reinforcement in school and at work, time pressures and deadlines, and inherent psychological biases cause us to jump to conclusions before we even understand the problem we're attempting to solve.This book will help you make better decisions by eliminating that tendency. You'll learn a powerful, four-step process that ensures you will deeply understand a problem before pursuing any given solution: (1) gathering both facts and data, so you can accurately grasp the situation; (2) properly framing the problem, so you can avoid cognitive biases; (3) isolating contributing factors, so you can manage complex situations; (4) finding the root cause, so you can avoid ineffective band-aids.Following this framework enables you to generate insight before you take action. Rather than needlessly hiring more people or spending money on new equipment and technology, you'll be able to identify the bottlenecks, root causes, and structural impediments that create the problems in the first place. It reduces the chronic fire-fighting your organization suffers from, while increasing the likelihood that your problem stays solved.