1. What Is the Problem?

Ever have one of those moments when a routine conversation finds someone saying something elegantly profound, yet practical? Something so logical you have to shake your head and wonder why you didn’t think of that yourself.

I was having lunch with a friend and discussing the ills of politics and the economy today. “You know,” he said, “When I listen to these politicians and commentators talk about what’s wrong, I never really hear them talk about defining the problem. What is the problem? These guys talk about the cause of and the solution to the problem, but never about the actual problem. How do you know if you have identified the cause of the problem, much less the solution, if you’re not talking about the actual problem?”

As my friend talked, I had to smile. I recalled seeing a humorous drawing of a military Staff Officer in the Pentagon burning the midnight oil to meet a project deadline. Over the Officer’s shoulder is a flip chart mounted on an easel with the standard military briefing sequence. On top of the flip chart is the handwritten note, “Problem: You must have a problem.” The implication is sometime in the Officer’s past is an experience with another briefing and having a superior say, “How do you expect me to make a decision to solve your problem when you don’t know what the problem is?”
 
Chances are you have seen the same phenomenon in your own workplace. If people are gathered to solve a problem isn’t the first step to define the problem?

Think about the simple truth of what my friend offered. In medicine, isn’t the saying that diagnosis is 90% of the cure? Isn’t healing the patient hampered when the wrong disease is being treated?

So why do most of our political discussions seem to center on the causes of the problem (and who to blame for those causes) and the proposed solutions to those problems? Why are these discussions taking place without an up-front agreement on what the actual problem is? (Could lack of an up-front agreement be because if the problem were accurately defined then blame would be self evident and undeniable?)

Or could part of the difficulty be the enormous gravity of some of these problems and the potential consequences of doing nothing? After all, if you’re working in an Emergency Room and the victim of a car accident comes to you with potential loss of life minutes away, then now is not the time to focus on what caused the accident. Now is the time to do what is necessary to preserve the life of the victim. Nor is it the responsibility of the medical technician to determine how or why the accident happened. Somewhere, though, some one in government, in industry or society at large has the responsibility and (hopefully) the vision to see a trend the rest of us haven’t yet seen and propose a solution.

To repeat one of the key sayings of a mentor, the key to the quality of your life is the quality of the questions you ask yourself. The Bible itself says, “Ask and ye shall receive. Seek and ye shall find. Knock and the door will be opened.” Asking no questions will yield no new knowledge. So ask questions. The better the questions you ask, the better the answers you’ll get. Will you occasionally ask a dumb question? Undoubtedly you will, but so what? Asking dumb questions is better than no questions and may actually lead you to good questions with (most importantly) good answers.

So the next time you come upon an intense political discussion and want to have some fun, try this. Ask these questions. “What, exactly, is the problem we’re discussing here? Is that really the problem or only a symptom of the problem?” Note how the tone of the conversation goes up when the focus is not on who to blame. You may actually find a better solution.

2. Themes from the Detroit Three Debate

The prime topic of conversation this week on Harry Douglas’ radio show Car Concerns has been the debate about whether to loan the Detroit Three money. So far I’ve identified four primary themes within that debate and an underlying agenda or questions for each. You may have others. Please share them if you do.

     Unions are the cause of the car companies’ unprofitability. Or are unions being made the goat as payback for the fact unions vote so predominately Democratic? There’s an earlier post on my blog de-bunking that $77 an hour wage argument.

     The Government is going to end up dictating what kind of car you buy. Whether the loan is given or not, this may become a reality. We are unlikely to achieve energy independence without a coordinated effort between government, business and consumers. Hopefully, persuasion will be an effective substitute for mandates.

     How come Wall Street was able to waltz in and get their money without having to jump through the hoops the car companies have? Follow the money. All 535 members of Congress see Wall Street as a constituent. But with the Detroit Three, you have the natural and historical divide between Republicans who support Management and Democrats who support Labor. See the first theme. Further you see opposition coming from members who represent states with right to work laws and automakers who are competitors of the Detroit Three. Those states have issues considerable tax breaks to those competing automakers. But don’t those states have representatives of the Detroit Three in their communities? Let’s not shoot ourselves in the foot and admire our marksmanship.

     What is the proposed Car Czar supposed to do? Who will it be and how much power will that person have? Bring in someone outside the auto industry  to do the job and you’ll hear complaints they don’t know what they’re doing. Bring in someone inside the industry (a retired executive like Lee Iacocca) and you’ll get complaints about the fox guarding the henhouse.

The real solution here is to get the credit markets flowing again, which was what the original “rescue plan” or TARP was supposed to be about. The current credit constraints has reduced the available customers for the auto industry (that’s everybody, not just the Detroit 3) by 41%. I consider myself a decent salesperson, but if you shrink my available pool of potential customers by 41%, I’m going to struggle. So will you.

Those are my main themes. Again, if you have others, let me know.