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H.L. Mencken offered a caution that health care leaders should keep in mind: “For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, elegant and wrong.”
Generalist managers can help functional experts to avoid falling into the trap of simple, elegant and incorrect solutions. They can do this by the questions they ask and the evidence they require in support of recommendations.
In addition, they can borrow an analytical technique often used by consultants to address complex issues using diagrams or tables to provide insight into such problems.
Diagrams or tables help leaders break down problems into smaller pieces, allowing them to more readily understand the issues.
Many people (including executives) use simple, one-dimensional criteria for judging situations: good/bad, profitable/unprofitable and so forth. This is a natural and expedient way to arrive at conclusions. In a health care context, however, it can lead to a very superficial assessment of a given situation. Moreover, it often leads to communication problems when two people are each using a different measure without being explicit about it, or if they disregard the validity of each other’s approach.
Creating a diagram is a tool to help you listen carefully, react thoughtfully and communicate clearly, applying logic and good judgment to a difficult situation.
Whenever you see one-dimensional thinking in a management discussion, you are witnessing a team that is not using all its assets effectively. One-dimensional thinking is almost always superficial. Proposing a simple way to evaluate two criteria simultaneously (a 2-by-2 analysis) is a way that an executive without subject matter expertise can make a concrete and valuable contribution to team deliberations.
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