Fast, Slow & Far

One of the seemingly natural approaches to problem solving is to first jump to a conclusion and then change as little as possible from the status quo in order to “solve” the problem. Richard Shainin, executive vice president of Shainin LLC (Shainin.com), a problem-solving (and prevention) organization based on the statistical methodologies established by his father, Dorian Shainin (you may have seen the Chevrolet TV ad in which the “Red X engineers” are featured: people who have undergone training in the Shainin technology (youtube.com/watch?v=0HzN63Nt27Y&feature=PlayList&p=097491413319871F)) recalled a conversation he had with a manufacturing executive. After the executive learned of the Shainin approach of thoroughly investigating and determining the root cause of a problem, the executive responded with some surprise: “We never have a problem coming up with the root cause. We have a lot of trouble implementing the corrective actions.” Which, Richard Shainin says, is indicative of the approach of coming up with a “logical” explanation of why something is, claiming it to be the root cause. Consequently, the corrective action isn’t easy to implement because it isn’t addressing the real cause. He recalled one situation wherein there was a a $20-million-per-year problem that lasted seven years. During that time four different teams addressed it and came up with a combined 14 different solutions, product and process changes. None worked. The Shainin team solved it: with a $200 tooling change. The point is not the cleverness of the Shainin people but the difference in their approach, which starts with truly understanding what the issues are and what the evidence is, then methodically working toward the solution. It may seem to take longer. But if the “trouble implementing the corrective actions” or the 14 different tries over seven years are any indication, it is actually faster to seemingly go slow.

As for the doing as little as possible to “fix” the problem, this seems to be the case at the U.S. Postal Service (USPS). According to an op-ed that appeared in the July 23, 2010, edition of The Washington Post (washingtonpost.com) by Paul B. Carroll and Chunka Mui, principals in the management consulting firm Devil’s Advocate Group (devilsadvocategroup.com), “The debate over potential changes at the U.S. Postal Service is like a fight over the dessert bar on the Titanic. Raising first-class postage rates and eliminating Saturday delivery won’t matter much when the Postal Service hits the iceberg.” Carroll and Mui see the USPS approach as one of incrementalism, which they suggest doesn’t get the job done, particularly when the problem to be solved isn’t a small one: “To span a chasm, you can’t build a bridge one stick at a time.” The sticks in question are things like the raised price of a stamp and the foregoing of Saturday delivery. Rather, the USPS—like any organization facing a problem—should define a future state, then work back while determining the specific actions needed to get from the present to that future. They write, “USPS needs to first design the whole bridge, then build it.”

There is a tendency to jump to conclusions, then to take baby steps when implementing change. At the front end people act like their pants are on fire and then during the implementation phase as though their shoes are encased in molasses. This slow implementation simply prolongs the outcome. This is like the difference between getting one’s head chopped off by a guillotine or a butter knife—the latter undoubtedly takes longer, but in the end, the result is the same. While we are all for accelerating things, we think that it is necessary to go fast when it is truly productive, and then to go as far as is truly required. To do otherwise is to get nowhere fast.