Organizations make decisions in the present. But those decisions rarely remain there. A decision that solves an immediate problem may create a constraint several months from now. An investment that creates pressure today may build capability that matters years later. A temporary workaround may be exactly what the situation requires, while becoming increasingly problematic if it quietly becomes permanent. This is one of the difficulties of organizational decision-making. We ha

Organizations are very good at presenting us with problems. A project is late. A client is unhappy. A team is struggling. Turnover is increasing. A new process is not being adopted. The instinct is often to move quickly to the next question: What should we do about it? That instinct is understandable. Problems create pressure for action, and action creates a sense of progress. But there is another question that comes first: What kind of problem are we actually looking at? Bec