Just as marketing offers seven steps to marketing strategy develop-ment, OB provides a three-step technique to solve organizational problems.
Problem Definition Analysis
Action Planning
PROBLEM DEFINITION
The first step to solving an organizational problem is to know the source of the difficulty. Real problems are often masked by symp-toms. It is easy to be misled into solving the symptoms instead of their cause. Unless the cause is dealt with, fresh headaches will un-doubtedly arise. MBAs are taught several analytical techniques to aid in flushing out the sources of trouble.
Want Got Gaps. There is a problem when a gap or “deviation” ex-ists between what a manager thinks “ought” to be occurring and what is “actually” occurring. Defining the problem entails viewing situations from the perspectives of all the participants and outlining their Want Got Gaps.
In the wake of a failure to introduce a critical new computer technology, a large service organization hired a new vice president, Hank Helpful, to lead the computer department out of its trouble. In his judgment the problem was caused by interdepartmental rivalries.
He felt that the computer department was isolated and always at odds with the rest of the company. Hank saw the gap as follows:
I Want Gap I Got
Interdepartmental Gap Isolated Departmental
Cooperation Islands
The VP felt that other gaps existed as well. The computer depart-ment believed it lacked the respect of the operational arm of the company. The people in the department felt that they were being treated as second-class citizens. Both perceptions were true. But the
other sales and operating departments had their own gaps. They wanted timely computer services at an affordable cost.
In many instances, organizational problems are less easily diag-nosed. Often managers do not know exactly what the gap is. Is there a gap at all? A manager’s perceptions can cloud what is “actually”
happening. That is often the cause of trouble in the first place.
The Level of Problems. When you know what gaps exist, it is then important to understand the ways in which they affect the organiza-tion. Problems can affect a company in three ways:
• Within or between certain people
• Within or between groups
• Within the whole organization
In the case of the computer department described above, the problem existed at all three of these levels. Each level had to be ad-dressed to successfully “solve” it. The hard feelings between individ-uals occurred at a personal level. The interdepartmental squabbling was an intergroup problem. The company’s failure to adopt compet-itive new technologies occurred at the organizational level.
Source Problems and Causal Chains. The goal of an effective MBA is to find the most important problems and solve those first. Those are called the source problems. Eliminate the source, eliminate the symptoms. Source problems, such as the lack of respect for the com-puter department, caused a multitude of other problems.
A graphical method used to get at source problems is to draw a causal chain. Using a causal chain, the company’s interdepartmental problem would look like this:
Contributing Problems Source Problem Business Problem
Lack of Interaction Lack of Respect Project Failures Personality Differences for Techies
ANALYSIS
After defining the gaps and using causal chains, the MBA is taught to link the problems to their causes. In addition to drawing causal chains, during this analytical step you try to understand the causes.
Why do they exist? What environmental factors play a role? By ask-ing these types of questions you can begin to confront which causes can be corrected through management action. If one problem is in-surmountable, different solutions have to be tried. In the example above, firing uncooperative people was an option for the vice presi-dent. Sensitivity training and interdepartmental discussions were other possibilities. As in a marketing plan, there are many possible avenues for action available to achieve a successful resolution to a problem.
ACTION PLANNING
MBAs are taught to be decisive and proactive — a frequently used MBA adjective. After a thorough analysis, MBAs should be able to formulate a plan. The action plan has six important steps.
1. Set specific goals.
2. Define activities, resources needed, responsibilities.
3. Set a timetable for action.
4. Forecast outcomes, develop contingencies.
5. Formulate a detailed plan of action in time sequence.
6. Implement, supervise execution, and evaluate based on goals in step one.
As you can imagine, solving problems MBA-style is not simple.
It requires time and effort. To add to your MBA vocabulary, you should refer to your menu of possible actions as action levers. This sounds forceful and progressive. An action lever may be a reward, a control, or a planning system.
The idea behind OB is to train MBAs to avoid tactical errors be-cause they failed to take into consideration the people involved.
With a framework to tackle challenges, the MBA curriculum incul-cates in its students the theories and methods of the day so that they can use them.