Fix the Symptom and You Will Find the Problem

The couple came to me for counselling. He had the “I don’t really want to be here but I think I’m supposed to want to” look.  For the second time in three years he had forgotten their anniversary along with some other significant dates. He wanted to assure his wife that the forgotten occasions were in no way a reflection of the value he placed on her, the marriage or the children. His unsuccessful attempts to convince his wife that it was just an oversight due to pressures at work had only served to fuel their trip to my office.

I had the answer. It was during the days of the Palm Pilot, and having one I proudly showed him the alarm feature. All he had to do was enter the must-not-forget dates and on the appointed date an alarm would go off to remind him. My advice was an instant hit with him and he was ready to run out and purchase one. (I internally guessed that the cost and hassle of counselling was huge motivating factor). 

By this time we were less than half way through the allotted time for the session. Having come up with the answer so quickly, there was no need to waste any more time and so I asked him if the counselling fee had been well worth the investment, which he assured me it had.

I turned to his wife who had said very little after earlier venting her frustration with his forgetfulness and posed the same question. “I can’t think of a bigger waste of money than coming here” she exploded.

The couple had at least one problem which I helped them to discover in the remaining time together. What he wanted to dismiss as a small problem to be handled, for her was a symptom of a much bigger problem. She had been unsuccessful to that point in dealing with the problem because she argued with him about the symptom . With that issue in front of us, I had to gingerly put the session (and what little credibility I had left) back on track. 

The bad news is that when a long standing problem looks like it has a simple solution, it is usually because we are dealing with the symptom. The good news is that dealing with the symptom will often float the real problem to the surface.

Before the couple left they both had a better sense that one of the problems in their marriage was his attempt to dismiss her concerns by dealing with the symptom of forgetfulness when the real problem lay in the fact that his marriage and his family had slipped well down the list of personal priorities. 

Organizations can experience a negative situation which is often the symptom of a problem.  At Ted Hull Consulting we help boards look at the symptom and then articulate the problem underneath the symptom and provide direction so they can get from where they are to where they want to be.

Reducing Uncertainty

"They have no idea” was the expression that caught my attention. The conversation had gone something like this:

"Our son and daughter-in-law are expecting".

“Congratulations, when she due"?

 "She has three months to go".

“Do they know what they're having"?

It was the response to that question which intrigued me.

“No, they have no idea”.

Being the self-effacing person that I am, I didn't offer my perspective. However I had an idea. I was confident the expecting family wouldn’t have a kitten or a turnip; it would likely be a girl or a boy.

Douglas Hubbard in his book How to Measure Anything has defined measurement as the reduction of uncertainty. In many cases the measurement of something does not need to be accurate, it simply needs to reduce uncertainty. For example suppose you are the board chair of the church and you are wondering what the donation income will be by the end of the year. Given the information which you should already have, you will know by the end of March what your donation income will be at the end of December. Find out what the average percentage of all donations received during the past three years was received by the end of March. It is unlikely that being 25% through the year, the church will have received 25% of its donations. Typically the highest giving is in November and December. So if over the past three years the church has received on average 19.4% of what it was going to receive by the end of the year, you have yourself a measurement. You can reduce uncertainty with relative confidence knowing that whatever the donation amount is by the end of March will be 19.4% of what you're going to receive by the end of the year.

This can apply to a weight loss target, retirement portfolio, camper registrations or store sales.

Let me encourage you to identify something today with which you have a significant degree of uncertainty and look at how you can reduce that level of uncertainty.